Shares of Amazon.com Inc. climbed nearly 4% Friday after investment firm Evercore ISI raised its price target on the e-commerce and cloud computing giant, pointing to new survey data showing artificial intelligence tools are already driving additional purchases on the company’s retail platform.

Amazon stock traded at 266.18 dollars, up 9.92 dollars, or 3.87%, as of 12:19 p.m. Eastern time on the Nasdaq, according to Google Finance data. The move added to a stretch of strong performance for the stock in recent weeks following the company’s second-quarter earnings report earlier this month.

Evercore ISI raised its price target on Amazon to 355 dollars from 315 dollars while maintaining its outperform rating on the stock, according to a research note from the firm. The new target implies substantial additional upside from the stock’s level heading into Friday’s trading session.

The revised target was based in part on findings from Evercore’s 14th annual U.S. online retail survey, which the firm said showed early but meaningful evidence that Amazon’s investment in agentic artificial intelligence tools, including its Alexa+ assistant, is translating into incremental sales. According to the survey, 57% of Alexa AI users reported buying a product they had not previously been aware of, a figure the firm’s analysts described as new evidence that AI-driven discovery is beginning to pay off commercially for the company.

“For the first time, survey evidence shows that agentic AI is actually additive for Amazon Retail, with 57% of Alexa AI users buying a product they were not previously aware of,” Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney wrote in a note to clients Thursday.

The survey also pointed to a recovery in usage of Amazon’s same-day delivery service, with 49% of respondents reporting they had used the option, alongside data showing that Amazon Prime members continue to spend significantly more than non-Prime customers, at a rate the firm pegged at roughly 3.1 times higher.

Evercore’s bullish case extended beyond Amazon’s retail operations to Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud computing division, which the firm said now accounts for roughly 60% of Amazon’s total operating income and has posted year-over-year operating income growth of 64%. The firm also cited Amazon’s continued buildout of AI data center capacity, including a large-scale power infrastructure project in Sweden, as a factor that reduces risk around the company’s ability to meet growing demand for AI computing resources.

Friday’s rally builds on a broader run of strength for Amazon shares since the company reported second-quarter results earlier this month. In that report, Amazon posted total revenue of 200.6 billion dollars, up 20% from a year earlier and above analyst expectations of roughly 196 billion dollars. Adjusted earnings per share came in at 1.97 dollars, well ahead of the 1.82 dollars analysts had expected, while AWS revenue surged 37% year-over-year to 42.2 billion dollars, marking the cloud unit’s fastest growth rate in 18 quarters.

On the earnings call following that report, Amazon Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy told investors the company still lacks sufficient computing capacity to meet current demand. “But even at that amount, we will still not have enough capacity to meet all the demand we have in 2026, and I believe this dynamic will also be true in 2027 too,” Jassy said, referring to the company’s raised capital expenditure projection of 220 billion dollars for the year, up from an earlier estimate of 200 billion dollars. “In fact, the demand we already have for 2028 is striking,” he added.

Amazon’s stock has also been supported this year by developments tied to its investment in artificial intelligence company Anthropic and by regulatory approval for its self-driving vehicle subsidiary, Zoox, which received federal clearance from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to commercially deploy thousands of purpose-built robotaxis without steering wheels.

Despite the recent gains, some analysts and investors have flagged concerns about Amazon’s valuation and spending trajectory. The company’s sharply higher capital expenditure plans, driven in large part by rising costs for the memory chips used in AI infrastructure, have pushed the company’s projected full-year free cash flow into negative territory, a dynamic that some market watchers have said warrants continued scrutiny even as the stock rallies. Filings have also shown continued insider stock sales by Amazon executives, including Jassy and Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky, as well as previously disclosed plans by founder Jeff Bezos to sell shares under a structured trading plan.

Even so, Wall Street’s broader view of Amazon has remained largely positive in recent weeks, with multiple firms reiterating buy ratings and raising price targets following the company’s earnings report. Evercore’s revised outlook adds to that trend, framing Amazon’s combination of AI-driven retail growth and continued AWS momentum as a case for further multiple expansion in the stock.

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CUPERTINO, Calif. — Apple Inc. shares advanced about 2 percent on Friday, trading near $321 as investors looked ahead to a Sept. 9 product event and weighed recent strength in iPhone and Mac demand against a still-premium valuation.

The stock was last around $321.08, up $6.50 from Thursday’s close of $314.58. The move extended a short rebound after Apple pulled back from a late-July peak near $344. The company’s market value remains in the mid-$4 trillion range.

The immediate focus is Apple’s first major hardware launch under incoming chief executive John Ternus, who takes over on Sept. 1. The company has set Sept. 9 for its next iPhone event. Investors expect the iPhone 18 lineup and Apple Watch updates. Industry commentary has also included speculation about a first foldable iPhone, with research firm IDC cited in market reports as projecting more than 10 million foldable iPhone shipments in a first year if the product arrives. Apple has not confirmed a foldable model.

The rally builds on fiscal third-quarter results reported July 30. Apple posted June-quarter revenue of $109.4 billion, up 16 percent from a year earlier, and diluted earnings of $2.02 a share, beating Wall Street’s $1.89 estimate. About 11 cents of EPS came from tariff refunds. iPhone revenue rose 22 percent to $54.3 billion. Mac revenue jumped 29 percent to about $10.4 billion. Services reached $30.7 billion, a June-quarter record.

On the earnings call, then-CEO Tim Cook described “an incredibly strong iPhone and Mac product cycle that has really yielded demand beyond our expectation.” Cook also warned of tight memory and advanced-chip supply, calling the constraints severe and saying there would be a quarter in which Apple would be scrambling on the supply side.

Guidance for the September quarter called for revenue growth of 9 percent to 11 percent, below some analyst forecasts near 12 percent. Management blamed most of the slowdown on foreign-exchange headwinds and worsening shortages of system-on-chip parts across iPhone, Mac and iPad, not on weaker demand. iPhone revenue was still expected to grow at a mid-teens pace.

Separate shipment data have supported the hardware story. Counterpoint Research reported a 13 percent year-over-year increase in global iPhone shipments in the second calendar quarter, with particular strength in China, Europe and South Korea. Analysts said Apple held prices steadier than some Android rivals facing higher component costs, which may have pulled purchases forward ahead of possible autumn price increases.

Apple this week also refreshed Mac mini and Mac Studio models with M6 and M5 Ultra chips aimed at heavier on-device AI workloads. Those systems arrived at higher starting prices than the previous generation. Analysts have framed the machines as a way to sell more high-end Macs to developers and enterprises even if consumer AI features remain a work in progress.

The installed base of more than 2.5 billion active Apple devices continues to underpin Services, which now runs above $30 billion a quarter. Capital returns remain large. The company deployed tens of billions of dollars to shareholders in the latest quarter and has authorized additional buybacks. A dividend was paid in August.

Risks are unchanged. Apple trades at a high-30s trailing price-to-earnings multiple. Questions persist about how quickly on-device AI, including Siri improvements, will change buying behavior. Supply constraints on memory and advanced processors could limit how many devices Apple can ship into the holiday quarter. Vision Pro remains a small, costly product line and has seen staffing reductions.

The stock is up more than 35 percent over the past year and about 16 percent year to date, though it is down from the July high. One-month performance is negative after that post-earnings drop. Friday’s gain put Apple back above $320 and closer to the $330–$340 zone that marked summer resistance.

Ternus inherits a company whose growth is still led by iPhone upgrades and Mac strength rather than a new category. The Sept. 9 event will test whether the next cycle can extend that momentum, whether a foldable device is real, and how Apple prices products amid component inflation. Until then, traders are treating solid recent results, share gains in smartphones, and a clear event date as enough to bid the shares higher for a session.

Broader technology markets were firmer Friday, with large consumer-electronics and software names attracting flows while some semiconductor stocks remained volatile. Apple’s lower direct exposure to massive data-center capital spending has been cited as one reason the shares have been steadier than chipmakers in recent weeks.

For investors, the near-term checklist is simple: confirm demand into the new iPhone cycle, watch supply of key components, and see whether Ternus’s first keynote changes the product mix. The $321 level reflects optimism about that September showcase more than a change in Apple’s long-term financial profile.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Nvidia Corp. shares fell about 3.3 percent on Friday, trading near $220.38, as investors locked in gains a day after the chipmaker’s latest results sent the stock sharply higher.

The decline of roughly $7.60 came after Thursday’s surge, when Nvidia added hundreds of billions of dollars in market value following fiscal second-quarter figures that again beat Wall Street forecasts. The pattern is familiar: the company has topped estimates for several consecutive quarters, yet the stock has often slipped in the sessions around those reports as traders treat even strong numbers as a chance to sell.

For the quarter ended July 26, Nvidia reported revenue of $96.22 billion, more than double the year-earlier total and above consensus estimates near $92 billion. Adjusted earnings were $2.22 a share, versus forecasts around $2.09. GAAP net income was $59.69 billion, or $2.46 a share. Data-center revenue, the core of the business, reached $89 billion, up 117 percent from a year earlier.

Chief Executive Jensen Huang said in a statement: “A.I. has reached its inflection point.” In a longer version of the same message he added that AI is “doing useful work,” that “its tokens are productive and profitable,” and that “now, compute is revenue.”

The company forecast current-quarter revenue of about $108 billion, plus or minus 2 percent, above analyst estimates near $104 billion to $105 billion. That would be Nvidia’s first quarter above $100 billion. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said the firm expects about 70 percent revenue growth in fiscal 2028, which runs from February 2027 through January 2028. She said demand is higher than that figure but the company is constrained by how much product it can supply. Huang said demand “is much greater than 70 percent.”

Gross margin was about 75 percent in the quarter. Nvidia also pointed to a broadening customer mix. AI cloud, industrial and enterprise customers accounted for $40.3 billion in sales, up 138 percent year over year. Hyperscale revenue was $49 billion. Management said Vera Rubin chips are in production and expected to contribute a meaningful share of data-center sales in the current quarter.

The report arrived after a seven-session losing streak into the print, Nvidia’s longest such run since 2022. Shares had fallen about 7 percent over that stretch as investors questioned valuations, circular financing with large AI customers, rising memory costs and possible price increases of as much as 15 percent on AI servers next year. Some analysts also flagged custom chips being developed by hyperscalers and model labs as a longer-term competitive risk.

Thursday’s bounce showed that the numbers still matter. Friday’s pullback showed that the bar remains high. At a market value still measured in the trillions, investors have grown used to extraordinary growth and now parse guidance, supply comments and customer concentration as closely as the headline beat.

Kress said that without supply limits, growth could be even faster. Memory shortages are squeezing the entire AI hardware chain, a theme that has also hit other semiconductor names. Nvidia has raised prices in response to component inflation, a move that can protect margins but also underscores how expensive the buildout has become for customers.

The company returned a large sum to shareholders in the period, including tens of billions of dollars in buybacks. GAAP earnings were boosted in part by gains on equity stakes in other firms, a reminder that Nvidia’s results now include investment marks as well as chip sales.

Wall Street remains broadly constructive. Some analysts have argued the stock’s forward multiple looks modest relative to expected growth still above 20 percent in later years. Others say a $5 trillion-class company simply has less room for multiple expansion and that any hint of slower growth or tighter supply will keep triggering sell-the-news reactions.

Friday’s trade left Nvidia well below its May closing high near $236 but above the pre-earnings slide into the low $210s. Year-to-date gains remain in the low double digits, trailing some other semiconductor names that started from smaller bases.

The debate around Nvidia has shifted from whether AI demand is real to how long customers can fund data-center construction, how much of that spend stays on Nvidia silicon, and whether price and supply constraints will cap the next few quarters. Huang’s “inflection point” language was meant to answer the first question. The $108 billion guide and 70 percent longer-term growth comment were meant to answer the second.

Traders on Friday treated those answers as already priced in after Thursday’s jump. That does not erase the scale of the quarter. It does show how quickly the market resets after each Nvidia report: celebrate the beat, then ask what the next one must deliver.

Shares of Microsoft Corp. climbed further Friday, extending a powerful monthlong rally that has added hundreds of billions of dollars in market value, as investors weighed a continuing surge in technology stocks against Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh’s closely watched speech at the central bank’s annual Jackson Hole symposium.

Microsoft stock traded at 515.30 dollars, up 10.24 dollars, or 2.03%, as of 12:25 p.m. Eastern time on the Nasdaq, according to Google Finance data. The move built on gains from Thursday’s session, when major technology stocks rallied broadly following blowout quarterly results from chipmaker Nvidia that revived optimism around artificial intelligence spending across the sector.

Friday’s trading also unfolded against the backdrop of Warsh’s first major address as Fed chair at the Kansas City Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium in Moran, Wyoming. Investors had been looking to the speech for clarity on the central bank’s approach to inflation and interest rates, with major indexes trading choppily through the morning as traders parsed his remarks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 held modest gains for much of the session, while the Nasdaq Composite fluctuated between small gains and losses.

Microsoft’s advance Friday is part of a much larger rally that began in late July, when the company reported fiscal fourth-quarter results that beat Wall Street expectations across revenue, profit and cloud growth. The stock has climbed roughly 25% to 30% since closing at 390.54 dollars on July 29, the day of the earnings report, according to data compiled by multiple market trackers, with the bulk of the move coming in a single trading session in which shares jumped more than 15%, one of the company’s largest one-day gains in years.

Microsoft reported fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of 90.0 billion dollars, up 18% from a year earlier, with growth driven by strong demand across its Azure cloud platform and the company’s own artificial intelligence applications. Diluted earnings per share came in at 4.81 dollars on a GAAP basis, up 32% year-over-year, while non-GAAP earnings per share of 4.74 dollars beat analyst estimates. For the full fiscal year, Microsoft’s total revenue surpassed 331 billion dollars, up 18%, while its Microsoft Cloud business topped 214 billion dollars in annual revenue, up 27%.

Azure and other cloud services revenue grew 43% year-over-year in the quarter, with the company saying customer demand continued to exceed available capacity. Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood told analysts on the earnings call that Azure growth is expected to accelerate further, guiding to approximately 45% constant-currency growth in the first quarter of fiscal 2027. Commercial remaining performance obligations, a measure of future contracted revenue, rose 84% year-over-year to 678 billion dollars.

“We are advancing the frontier on the cost-to-outcome curve, ensuring every customer can turn tokens into business results,” Microsoft Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said in the company’s earnings release. “This year, Azure revenue surpassed 100 billion dollars for the first time, and Microsoft 365 Copilot reached over 30 million paid seats, reflecting the confidence customers are placing in us to power their AI transformation.”

Hood also pointed to strong monetization trends tied to the company’s artificial intelligence products. “Demand continues to exceed available supply,” she told analysts on the call, adding that efficiency gains in Microsoft’s data centers were being quickly monetized as they came online.

The company’s Microsoft 365 Copilot product, an AI-powered assistant embedded across its productivity software, saw paid seats more than double sequentially to over 30 million, up from more than 20 million as of April. GitHub Copilot, the company’s AI coding assistant, saw revenue accelerate more than 60% quarter-over-quarter following a shift to usage-based pricing in June, and now counts roughly 50 million users among GitHub’s broader base of 225 million developers.

Analysts have continued to raise their price targets on Microsoft shares in the weeks since the earnings report. According to consensus data compiled by market trackers, the average analyst price target on the stock now sits near 560 dollars, implying additional upside even after the stock’s recent run. Of the more than 45 analysts tracking the company, the large majority maintain buy-equivalent ratings, with none currently recommending investors sell the stock.

Microsoft’s rally has not been without volatility. Shares fell more than 3% in a single session earlier this month amid broader market jitters, before resuming their upward trajectory in recent days alongside renewed strength across the technology sector. The stock’s performance this year has also been shaped by the company’s roughly 3.2 billion dollar gain tied to its investment in artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, which contributed to the earnings beat in the fiscal fourth quarter.

Capital spending has remained a key point of focus for investors evaluating Microsoft’s AI strategy. The company’s capital expenditures, including finance leases, reached 41 billion dollars in the fiscal fourth quarter, up sharply from a year earlier, and Hood has said spending is expected to exceed 50 billion dollars in the current quarter. Microsoft has also extended the estimated useful life of its data centers and office buildings to 25 years, a change that affects how the company accounts for depreciation on its rapidly expanding AI infrastructure.

Operator

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to BBVA Argentina’s Second Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. Today with us are Mrs. Belén Fourcade, Investor Relations Manager; Diego Cesarini, IRO and Head of Assets and Liability Management; and Carmen Morillo Arroyo, CFO. This presentation and the second quarter 2026 earnings release are available on BBVA Argentina’s Investor Relations website, ir.bbva.com.ar, and will also be available for download in the chat.

First of all, let me point out that some of the statements made during this conference call may be forward-looking statements with the meaning of the safe harbor provision found in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 under U.S. federal securities law. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning these factors is contained in BBVA Argentina’s annual report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year 2025 filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. I will now turn the call over to Belén Fourcade. Please go ahead.

María Belén Fourcade
Investor Relations Officer

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for BBVA Argentina’s Second Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. During the second quarter of 2026, inflation continued to decline, reinforcing expectations that this trend will further consolidate. This environment should support a recovery in credit and consumption together with an

Shares of GameStop Corp. traded modestly lower Friday, hovering near recent multiyear lows as investors continue to weigh the uncertain fate of Chief Executive Officer Ryan Cohen’s unsolicited 56 billion dollar takeover bid for online marketplace eBay Inc.

GameStop stock traded at 18.04 dollars, down 0.21 dollars, or 1.15%, as of 12:31 p.m. Eastern time on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock has spent much of August trading near its 52-week low, touching as low as 17.79 dollars earlier in the month, as investors have grown increasingly skeptical of the company’s strategic direction under Cohen.

The video game retailer stunned Wall Street in May when it submitted an unsolicited offer to acquire eBay for 56 billion dollars, structured as a cash-and-stock deal valued at 125 dollars per eBay share, split evenly between cash and GameStop common stock. The proposal represented a roughly 20% premium to eBay’s trading price at the time and would have combined a company roughly six times GameStop’s size with the smaller, Grapevine, Texas-based retailer.

eBay’s board rejected the offer within days, calling it “neither credible nor attractive” and raising concerns about the deal’s financing structure, corporate governance in a combined company, and Cohen’s compensation arrangement. GameStop’s financing plan had relied on roughly 9.4 billion dollars in cash reserves along with up to 20 billion dollars in debt backed by a commitment letter from TD Securities.

Despite the rejection, Cohen continued building GameStop’s position in eBay throughout the summer. By mid-July, GameStop had increased its stake in the e-commerce company to roughly 9.75%, making it eBay’s second-largest shareholder behind funds managed by Vanguard Group. In a Bloomberg Television interview that same month, Cohen declined to say whether he planned to raise his offer but said, “we’re coming for eBay one way or another,” adding that he hoped to eventually build the combined company into a 1 trillion dollar business.

The dynamic shifted again earlier this month, when Bloomberg News reported that Cohen was reconsidering the full takeover bid altogether. According to the report, which cited people familiar with the matter, Cohen has been weighing a scaled-back partnership or joint venture that would give eBay access to GameStop’s approximately 1,600 U.S. retail locations, potentially helping both companies expand in higher-margin categories such as trading cards and collectibles. As part of any such arrangement, GameStop would seek seats on eBay’s board rather than pursuing outright ownership of the company. GameStop has not made a final decision, according to the report, and Cohen could still pursue other options.

The market’s reaction to the reported shift has largely mirrored its skepticism toward the original bid. GameStop shares have declined roughly 28% since the takeover offer was first disclosed in May, while eBay’s stock has climbed about 7.6% over the same stretch, a divergence that has left GameStop trading at a market value well below its cash holdings relative to what a full acquisition would have required.

GameStop’s stock has also faced pressure from a separate corporate finance move. In early August, the company announced plans to exchange roughly 1.4 billion dollars of convertible notes for common stock, an effort to reduce its long-term debt load. Shares fell as much as 10% following that announcement amid investor concerns about the resulting dilution to existing shareholders, even as the move strengthened the company’s balance sheet.

The uncertainty surrounding the eBay situation comes even as GameStop’s core business has shown signs of improvement. In its most recent quarterly results, the company reported revenue growth of 14% year-over-year to 835.3 million dollars, while net income surged to 389.6 million dollars from 44.8 million dollars a year earlier. GameStop has said it expects adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization to exceed 600 million dollars for the full fiscal year, up from 345.4 million dollars in the prior year. The company has also authorized a 2 billion dollar share repurchase program running through 2029.

Short interest in GameStop shares has remained notable throughout the saga, standing at roughly 13.55% of the stock’s float according to recent data, while institutional ownership has modestly declined. Prominent investor Michael Burry, known for his early bet against the U.S. housing market before the 2008 financial crisis, said he exited his entire GameStop position after the eBay bid was first announced, citing concerns about the debt the company could take on to finance a deal.

For now, investors appear to be treating the eBay saga as an open question rather than a settled matter, with GameStop’s stock price reflecting continued uncertainty about whether Cohen will ultimately pursue a full acquisition, a scaled-back partnership, or abandon the eBay pursuit altogether in favor of other uses for the company’s cash.