logo
Stock Movers: Intel, Applied Materials, TeraWulf

Stock Movers: Intel, Applied Materials, TeraWulf

Bloomberg18 hours ago
On this edition of Stock Movers: - Intel (INTC) shares jumped today after Bloomberg News reported that the Trump administration is in talks with Intel Corp. to have the US government potentially take a stake in the beleaguered chipmaker, according to people familiar with the plan, in the latest sign of the White House's willingness to blur the lines between state and industry. The deal would help shore up Intel's planned factory hub in Ohio, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private. The company had once promised to turn that site into the world's largest chipmaking facility, though it's been repeatedly delayed. The size of the potential stake isn't clear. The plans stem from a meeting this week between President Donald Trump and Intel Chief Executive Officer Lip-Bu Tan, the people said. While the details are still being sorted, the idea is for the US government to pay for the stake, one of the people said. Another cautioned that the plans remain fluid. - Applied Materials (AMAT) shares tumbled today as the largest American producer of chipmaking gear, plunged in late trading after giving a disappointing sales and profit forecast, renewing concerns that the US trade dispute with China is weighing on demand. Revenue will be approximately $6.7 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter, the company said in a statement Thursday. Analysts had estimated $7.32 billion on average. Profit will be about $2.11 a share, excluding some items, compared with a projection of $2.38. The company is seeing less demand from customers in China, Chief Executive Officer Gary Dickerson said in an interview. It also faces delays in approval for exporting technology to that country, he said. Moreover, large customers are putting off some purchases in the face of prolonged negotiations around tariffs and other economic issues. - TeraWulf (WULF) shares rose as much as 53%, the most since March 2022, after Google took the equivalent of an around 8% stake in the company as the Bitcoin miner and data center operator signed two 10-year high-performance computing co-location deals with AI cloud platform operator Fluidstack.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Trump Takes a Wrong Turn on Nvidia's Chips
Trump Takes a Wrong Turn on Nvidia's Chips

Wall Street Journal

timea few seconds ago

  • Wall Street Journal

Trump Takes a Wrong Turn on Nvidia's Chips

President Trump entered office with a clear mandate to supercharge American innovation and reorient global trade to benefit the U.S. and our allies. Recent trade deals showcase the potential of this approach. Yet as you note in 'Now Trump Wants an Export Tax' (Review & Outlook, Aug. 12), applying the same logic to our export-control system is troubling. The administration's proposal to allow U.S. companies to sell export-controlled technologies to China, while paying the government a percentage of the sales, is a radical departure from precedent. These technologies are controlled because of their potential to harm national security should they fall into nefarious hands. Tying licenses to revenue generation also creates conflicting incentives for the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security between safeguarding our technological edge and filling government coffers.

American consumers are getting nervous about inflation again. For now, they're still spending
American consumers are getting nervous about inflation again. For now, they're still spending

CNN

time20 minutes ago

  • CNN

American consumers are getting nervous about inflation again. For now, they're still spending

Americans are still opening their wallets, with unemployment remaining low and businesses blunting the effects of President Donald Trump's widespread tariffs. But consumers remain skittish over Trump's erratic trade war, according to recent surveys. Still, they haven't cut back and consumer prices have remained somewhat tame. Businesses have played a key role in keeping the economy afloat, despite persistent economic jitters. For instance, companies mostly have not ramped up layoffs to deal with the cost pressures arising from Trump's tariffs. Unemployment remains low at 4.2%, and if Americans have a job, then they're able to spend and save. Companies have also managed Trump's confusing onslaught of tariffs through a serious of maneuvers that have, so far, kept inflation from surging; a recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond detailed all those strategies. After briefly improving from the near-record lows in the spring, consumer sentiment went into reverse again this month, the University of Michigan said Friday. But that might not mean anything for spending, since sentiment has been a lousy predictor of purchasing behavior in recent years. Put together, this has allowed consumers to continue to power the US economy with their spending, which contributes about 70% of economic output (though there are signs of caution on how long this resilience can last.) 'As long as consumer spending holds up and companies are able to retain workers because of that robust spending, the flywheel can continue to spin, pushing corporate profits and stock prices higher,' Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Northlight Asset Management, said in commentary issued Friday. Since the beginning of the year, Trump has rewritten US trade policy, with a new wave of tariffs that went into earlier this month. Businesses have scrambled to deal with the fallout. Economists have long said that tariffs will likely stoke consumer inflation, but so far, that hasn't happened. That might be because of how businesses have handled the situation, according to a recent analysis from the Richmond Fed that looked at survey responses from businesses. The report said that businesses have delayed ordering inventories, delayed the timing of when a tariff is charged and negotiated partnerships with suppliers and customers to share costs. Many businesses also stocked up on inventories in the beginning of the year to avoid tariff-induced sticker shock. And fortunately for the American worker, one of those strategies hasn't been to trim headcount. New applications for unemployment benefits remain low, according to Labor Department data. That's done the trick in keeping a lid on consumer inflation, but it might not last for much longer. The latest Producer Price Index, which measures the prices businesses pay their suppliers, surged 0.9% in July from the prior month, lifting the annual rate to 3.3%. The monthly and annual figures both rose much more than economists had expected. 'Sensing from businesses suggests that the impact of tariffs on their price-setting has been lagged, but it is starting to play out,' Richmond Fed economists said in their paper. 'Nonetheless, it remains highly uncertain how tariffs will impact consumer inflation.' Consumer sentiment remains well below where it was late last year, after the presidential election. But it hasn't — and probably still won't — predict how Americans spend in the months ahead. Consumer sentiment fell 5% this month to a preliminary reading of 58.6, the University of Michigan said Friday, falling for the first time in four months. Sentiment had improved, with consumers feeling a sense of relief that the worst of Trump's trade war might finally be in the rearview mirror. But the effects of Trump's tariffs are still very much up in the air. 'Consumers are no longer bracing for the worst-case scenario for the economy feared in April when reciprocal tariffs were announced and then paused,' Joanne Hsu, the survey's director, said in a release. 'However, consumers continue to expect both inflation and unemployment to deteriorate in the future.' Their expectations for inflation rates in the year ahead rose to 4.9% this month, up from 4.5% in July. Still, Americans will likely continue to spend, just as they did in 2022 when sentiment fell to a record low because inflation was running at 40-year highs. Or in 2023, when a standoff in Congress over the debt ceiling prompted sentiment to fall, yet spending remain robust all throughout that year. Spending at US retailers rose 0.5% in July, the Commerce Department said Friday. That's down from June's upwardly revised 0.9% gain, and in line with economists' expectations. Retail sales picked up across categories last month, especially at car dealerships and furniture stores, which saw sales climb 1.6% and 1.4%, respectively. Online sales jumped 0.8% in July, coinciding with Amazon's Prime Day sale. Spending also picked up at gas stations and department stores. Retail sales are adjusted for seasonal swings, but not inflation. Meanwhile, spending was down among only a handful of categories, including home improvement stores (-1%) and electronics retailers (-0.6%). Restaurants and bars also saw sales decline in July, falling 0.4% and extending an unusually weak period of sales growth. A subset of retail sales that excludes volatile categories — known as the 'control group' — rose 0.5% in July, slightly better than the 0.4% gain economists projected in a FactSet poll. That measure is seen as a better gauge of underlying consumer demand. Even after factoring in July's 0.2% monthly increase in consumer prices, according to the Consumer Price Index, retail sales were still up a healthy 0.3% last month. 'What consumers do is more important to the economy than what they say,' Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank, said in an analyst note Friday.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store