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Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Stocks and Markets Podcast: Strategist gives tips on what to watch for in August
Stocks and Markets Podcast: Strategist gives tips on what to watch for in August originally appeared on TheStreet. This article is based on TheStreet's Stock & Markets Podcast. Hosted by the veteran Wall Street investor Chris Versace, the weekly podcasts are available early to members of TheStreetPro investing club. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Well, in that case, you'd better hurry up Summer is starting to wind down, and some investors might be feeling a little uncertain right about now. 💵💰Don't miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet's free daily newsletter 💰💵 But this has historically been a less-than-stellar time for the stock market, and Jay Woods, chief global strategist with Freedom Capital Markets, said that August and September are two of the market's worst performing months. "You go back the last 15 years to 2011, August and September have been down more than they've been up," he said. "September, in fact, is a losing month over that time. So, we're seeing this seasonal pattern of weakness." "Weird things happen in August," Woods added. "I don't know why." Strategist notes Microsoft earnings Woods shared his insights with Chris Versace, columnist and lead manager of TheStreet Pro portfolio during the Aug. 6 edition of TheStreet's Stock & Markets Podcast, as he discussed what stocks and sectors investors should buy and avoid in the month that has been called summer's last stand. Stock have had big run since bottoming in April, Versace noted. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index has risen 32.2% from the low. The Nasdaq Composite Index is up 45% in the same time period. "We're about two thirds of the way through the earnings season," Versace added. "Earnings have been, by and large, better than expected. But we're entering that time of the year known to many as August. Seasonally slow. Not the strongest time of the year." More Economic Analysis: Trump sends strong message on Federal Reserve Chair decision A divided Federal Reserve mulls interest rate cut after wild week Federal Reserve reveals latest interest rate cut decision Woods believes the market is in a 'garden variety pullback' that happens in August and September. 'So, as a technician that follows price action, the seasonal factors are lining up, too," Woods said. "I think you want to get ready to buy some of these dips, especially in the strongest names. So you stay, you go to the beach for a little while. You come back, and see where the opportunities are." Technology and financials are doing okay now, Woods said, "and that's going to take this market higher." 💥💥Follow TheStreet's Stocks & Markets Podcast on , , or . Don't miss the move!💥💥 Woods said that he is watching software giant Microsoft () , which he noted had stellar earnings, but then peaked at $555 on July 31 and has since reversed. "Microsoft did exactly what Nvidia () did," he said, referring to the AI chipmaker. "It hasn't had a sideways action in quite some time. So, we're in a digestive phase right now in this market. And it's not just Microsoft. Look at Meta () , look at a lot of these names that had tremendous runs." Watching out for troubled sectors Woods also discussed areas to avoid, including pharmaceuticals and materials. President Donald Trump has escalated his demands that pharma companies lower U.S. drug prices in line with what other countries pay."Pharma is getting hit," he said. "The drug makers don't know what to do here because what he wants to do is get comparable pricing in the U.S. To our European counterparts, you and I, this is fantastic. But to the drug makers, to the shareholders of these stocks, this is going to hurt their margins dramatically." Woods also warned about staples, including companies like Procter & Gamble () , Clorox () , and Kimberly-Clark () . "Overall, we're talking about those household, everyday items that we need," he said. "It's going to be tough because their margins are going to get hit, and it's going to come back to us. And then the consumer is going to get a little more selective." Woods said the only winners in this case are "cheap retail stocks" like Dollar General () and Dollar Tree () . Stocks in the materials sector "are a little wonky," he said, as some mining-related companies have done well, such as gold producer Newmont Corp. () , but companies like Sherwin-Williams () and Dow () have struggled. "They warned, and they warned again after lowering the bar a quarter ago," Woods said. "So these stocks are in the penalty box for now. And you're not going to get a nice bang for your buck at these levels. It's going to take a little while for them to turn around." He said that the market is in a period of uncertainty after a tremendous run. "What do we do after we have a tremendous run?" he asked. "We digest those gains. We consolidate. I do not think we're on the verge of a bear market or recession, but there are some data points that have my antenna up. And if the data changes, if price changes, then I'll change my tune." Woods said that he is okay with a little pullback right now, and "I think we're going to be set up to have a strong fourth quarter and finish 2025 at or near all time highs."Stocks and Markets Podcast: Strategist gives tips on what to watch for in August first appeared on TheStreet on Aug 9, 2025 This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Aug 9, 2025, where it first appeared. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Miami Herald
7 days ago
- Business
- Miami Herald
Stocks and Markets Podcast: Strategist gives tips on what to watch for in August
This article is based on TheStreet's Stock & Markets Podcast. Hosted by the veteran Wall Street investor Chris Versace, the weekly podcasts are available early to members of TheStreetPro investing club. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Well, in that case, you'd better hurry up Summer is starting to wind down, and some investors might be feeling a little uncertain right about now. Don't miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet's free daily newsletter But this has historically been a less-than-stellar time for the stock market, and Jay Woods, chief global strategist with Freedom Capital Markets, said that August and September are two of the market's worst performing months. "You go back the last 15 years to 2011, August and September have been down more than they've been up," he said. "September, in fact, is a losing month over that time. So, we're seeing this seasonal pattern of weakness." "Weird things happen in August," Woods added. "I don't know why." Woods shared his insights with Chris Versace, columnist and lead manager of TheStreet Pro portfolio during the Aug. 6 edition of TheStreet's Stock & Markets Podcast, as he discussed what stocks and sectors investors should buy and avoid in the month that has been called summer's last stand. Stock have had big run since bottoming in April, Versace noted. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index has risen 32.2% from the low. The Nasdaq Composite Index is up 45% in the same time period. "We're about two thirds of the way through the earnings season," Versace added. "Earnings have been, by and large, better than expected. But we're entering that time of the year known to many as August. Seasonally slow. Not the strongest time of the year." More Economic Analysis: Trump sends strong message on Federal Reserve Chair decisionA divided Federal Reserve mulls interest rate cut after wild weekFederal Reserve reveals latest interest rate cut decision Woods believes the market is in a "garden variety pullback" that happens in August and September. "So, as a technician that follows price action, the seasonal factors are lining up, too," Woods said. "I think you want to get ready to buy some of these dips, especially in the strongest names. So you stay, you go to the beach for a little while. You come back, and see where the opportunities are." Technology and financials are doing okay now, Woods said, "and that's going to take this market higher." Follow TheStreet's Stocks & Markets Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Don't miss the move! Woods said that he is watching software giant Microsoft (MSFT) , which he noted had stellar earnings, but then peaked at $555 on July 31 and has since reversed. "Microsoft did exactly what Nvidia (NVDA) did," he said, referring to the AI chipmaker. "It hasn't had a sideways action in quite some time. So, we're in a digestive phase right now in this market. And it's not just Microsoft. Look at Meta (META) , look at a lot of these names that had tremendous runs." Woods also discussed areas to avoid, including pharmaceuticals and materials. President Donald Trump has escalated his demands that pharma companies lower U.S. drug prices in line with what other countries pay. Related: Stocks and Markets Podcast: Prairie Operating CEO on energy business "Pharma is getting hit," he said. "The drug makers don't know what to do here because what he wants to do is get comparable pricing in the U.S. To our European counterparts, you and I, this is fantastic. But to the drug makers, to the shareholders of these stocks, this is going to hurt their margins dramatically." Woods also warned about staples, including companies like Procter & Gamble (PG) , Clorox (CLX) , and Kimberly-Clark (KMB) . "Overall, we're talking about those household, everyday items that we need," he said. "It's going to be tough because their margins are going to get hit, and it's going to come back to us. And then the consumer is going to get a little more selective." Woods said the only winners in this case are "cheap retail stocks" like Dollar General (DG) and Dollar Tree (DLTR) . Stocks in the materials sector "are a little wonky," he said, as some mining-related companies have done well, such as gold producer Newmont Corp. (NEM) , but companies like Sherwin-Williams (SHW) and Dow (DOW) have struggled. "They warned, and they warned again after lowering the bar a quarter ago," Woods said. "So these stocks are in the penalty box for now. And you're not going to get a nice bang for your buck at these levels. It's going to take a little while for them to turn around." He said that the market is in a period of uncertainty after a tremendous run. "What do we do after we have a tremendous run?" he asked. "We digest those gains. We consolidate. I do not think we're on the verge of a bear market or recession, but there are some data points that have my antenna up. And if the data changes, if price changes, then I'll change my tune." Woods said that he is okay with a little pullback right now, and "I think we're going to be set up to have a strong fourth quarter and finish 2025 at or near all time highs." Related: The stock market is being led by a new group of winners The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
Yahoo
02-08-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Veteran trader takes hard look at Microsoft Q4 report and sends a warning
Veteran trader takes hard look at Microsoft Q4 report and sends a warning originally appeared on TheStreet. Hold on to that confetti, people; you might not be invited to this party. The recent market surge, driven by blowout earnings reports from Facebook parent Meta Platforms () and software giant Microsoft () , put many investors in a festive mood. 💵💰Don't miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet's free daily newsletter 💰💵 Let's take a look at Microsoft, which clobbered Wall Street's fiscal-fourth-quarter earnings expectations. Shares of the Redmond, Wash., software and cloud-services colossus surged past $550, thanks in part to strong results from its cloud and AIbusinesses. "The rate of innovation and the speed of diffusion is unlike anything we have seen," CEO Satya Nadella said during the company's earnings call. "To that end, we are building the most comprehensive suite of AI products and tech stack at massive scale." Revenue increased 18%, marking the fastest growth in more than three years. "We are going through a generational tech shift with AI, and I have never been more confident in Microsoft's opportunity to drive long-term growth and define what the future looks like,' he said. Analyst cites Microsoft impressive results TheStreet Pro's lead portfolio manager, Chris Versace, said Microsoft guided Azure growth to 37% year over year in the current quarter and hiked its capital spending for the period to $30 billion, confirming that AI demand remains robust and the data center infrastructure shortage continues. "With $368 billion of contracted backlog for Azure and Microsoft Cloud, we should see elevated capital spending levels continue," he said. More Tech Stocks: Analyst who correctly predicted Rocket Lab stock surge resets forecast Verizon Q2 earnings report surprises with remarks on tax reform Fund manager who forecast Nvidia stock rally reboots outlook Shares of Microsoft, Meta and AI-chip maker Nvidia () alone account for just over 18% of the S&P 500's weighting, Versace said. "While it may be a bit premature to say, it sure looks to us like the AI and data center arms race isn't slowing down," he said. Several investment firms issued research reports after Microsoft reported results. Truist analyst Joel Fishbein raised the investment firm's price target to $650 from $600 and maintained a buy rating on MSFT shares, according to The Fly. Microsoft delivered impressive results, Fishbein said, as momentum continued to build in Azure. The segment accelerated by 6 percentage points from fiscal Q3, he wrote. Management also called out strength in migrations as well as continued expansion of AI workloads driving the segment, he added. Wedbush raised its price target on Microsoft to $625 from $600 and affirmed an outperform rating on the shares, citing "eye-popping" cloud and AI strength. The firms said that this quarter was "music to the ears of MSFT bulls" as it exceeded Wall Street expectations with significantly reaccelerated Azure growth. The AI revolution remains prominent with more companies doubling down on these strategic initiatives, the firm said. Trader warns of bifurcated market On the other hand, TheStreet Pro's James 'Rev Shark' DePorre isn't quite down with the market euphoria. DePorre, a self-taught stock trader and the founder of Shark Investing, said markets were sliding on July 30 after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell delivered a more hawkish message than many investors had anticipated. But that turned around after Microsoft and Meta posted their stellar results."Both companies far exceeded expectations, but, most importantly, they signaled a substantial expansion in capital spending as they race to dominate the AI industry," he said. DePorre said the AI industry and the Magnificent 7 stocks (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla) in particular are dominating economic growth and rendering the fuss about the Fed and interest rates nearly meaningless. A cut in interest rates would be nice, he added, "but when you have this level of growth in mega-cap technology names, it isn't that important." "The primary challenge for investors at this point is dealing with a bifurcated market," DePorre said. "The Magnificent 7 names dominate the indexes, and there is still tremendous demand for these stocks. But they cover up any weakness in thousands of other names and in other areas of the market," he wrote. Microsoft has added about $300 billion in market cap after its earnings, he said, which is more than the value of 475 of the stocks in the S&P 500. Concentration in the AI giants is becoming even more extreme and greatly distorts what the average stock is doing. He said the business media do "a very poor job of distinguishing between the strength of the indexes and the health of the overall market." "The risk of deeper corrective action in many stocks is increasing, and the great likelihood is that it will be covered up by the strength of Meta and Microsoft," DePorre trader takes hard look at Microsoft Q4 report and sends a warning first appeared on TheStreet on Aug 1, 2025 This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Aug 1, 2025, where it first appeared. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Miami Herald
28-07-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
SuRo Capital outlines OpenAI investment strategy, $1 trillion projection
This article is based on TheStreet's Stock & Markets Podcast. Hosted by the veteran Wall Street investor Chris Versace, the weekly podcasts are available early to members of TheStreetPro investing club. No big whoop? That's what you think. Whoop just happens to be a wearable technology company and it is one of many firms in which SuRo Capital (SSSS) , which has an estimated $200 million market cap, has invested. Don't miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet's free daily newsletter Mark Klein is the investment firm's chairman and CEO and he sat down with Chris Versace, lead manager of TheStreet Pro Portfolio, to discuss how to get in early on growth-oriented companies. "We've been around since 2011," Klein said during the July 23 edition of TheStreet Stocks & Markets Podcast. "We've owned names over the years like Facebook and Twitter and Palantir, and Lyft and Spotify and Dropbox." "Slow down," Versace said. "These are the big names driving the market today." "Absolutely," Klein said, "and so our investors have been very fortunate that we're able to provide access very early to those names. And we've continued to do that straight through to 2025." And there's no mystery as to how SuRo finds companies to back. "It's investing and it's not easy," Klein said. "We use both bottom-up and a top-down approach to investing our money. And we are typically in mid- to later-stage companies that are either institutionally backed or venture-capital-backed companies." More Tech Stocks: Analyst who correctly predicted Rocket Lab stock surge resets forecastVerizon Q2 earnings report surprises with remarks on tax reformFund manager who forecast Nvidia stock rally reboots outlook He looked back to 2022, when ChatGPT, the conversational AI chatbot developed by OpenAI, was introduced. "Our first thought was what companies are going to benefit from it and what are going to be disrupted by it," Klein said. "And that was the lens that we looked at companies through very much as we're moving almost into through 2023 and into 2024." By 2024 ChatGPT made clear that it was going to be something massive, he said. "We wanted to understand how directly to invest in AI," Klein explained. "And not necessarily end-product-specific but picks and shovels - sort of the baseline of an infrastructure. And that's how we ended up investing in CoreWeave, Open AI [and] Vast Data." SuRo also invested in Oklo, which is focused on developing advanced fission power plants, particularly to support the energy-intensive needs of artificial intelligence and data centers. "This is how thematically how we got there and then tried to find the best of the best of breed and the leaders in their space and then be able to access it for our investors," Klein said. He described OpenAI as a difficult company to access due to its capital structure. "We wanted to own it because it [has been] the clear leader in what's going on in AI. And they literally have an announcement every day of something like, 'oh, my goodness, how did that happen?' And we were able to buy it. ... And I suspect OpenAI is going to be a trillion dollar company," Klein said. SuRo also invested in Plaid, which he called "one of the best fintech companies out there." "We're extremely excited with Plaid and it's when you look at the fintech landscape, [in] which there's a multitude of companies, this is clearly one of the best in the space," Klein said. Related: Stocks and Markets Podcast: Why Now Is the Time to Buy High-Yielding Small-Cap Stocks The conversation turned to the subject of companies that don't work. "Our view is unless the company's out of business, we don't write it off," Klein said. "We write it down to zero, but we don't write it off. And we learned that lesson several years ago. "We had a company that we had written down to zero and you could have easily just crystallized the loss," he added, "but through negotiations with the company and other shareholders, we got a recovery that was actually a gain from our initial investment." Klein said the IPO market is clearly opening up. "If the markets continue to stay firm, I believe the IPO market will remain open and we have several names in our portfolio that will probably go public in the next 12 to 18 months," he said. SuRo Capital's stock is up 48% this year and have more than doubled (up nearly 118%) from this time in 2024. The company is scheduled to report second-quarter earnings on Aug. 6. "This is clearly one of the most exciting periods to be on the investment side," he said. "It's exciting just to be watching all of this and the rate of change is amazing." "We're very fortunate that we are right in the middle of it, and our ability to have to identify, have access and deploy capital against it is probably the most fun experience I've had in investing in almost 40 years." Related: Veteran fund manager who forecast S&P 500 crash unveils surprising update The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
Yahoo
22-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Nvidia move deals a major blow to AMD, Intel, and ARM
Nvidia move deals a major blow to AMD, Intel, and ARM originally appeared on TheStreet. Nvidia climbed to become the largest company on the U.S. stock market. But how can it keep growing after hitting a $4 trillion market capitalization? Every company reaches its peak at some point. Are we witnessing Nvidia's, or can it hit $5 trillion? 💵💰Don't miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet's free daily newsletter 💰💵 That is a tricky question to answer, but the company thinks it can, and there is a lot more juice to be squeezed out of the artificial intelligence boom. The U.S. government recently reversed its export restrictions on Nvidia cards to China and assured the company that licenses will be granted. This change prompted many analysts to revamp the stock price target."China generated $17 billion in revenue for Nvidia in 2024, roughly 13% of the company's total revenue. In response to this news, we are lifting our NVDA price target to $200 from $185, and reiterating our One rating," writes veteran fund manager Chris Versace for TheStreet Pro. The company wasn't sitting down idly and waiting for this China miracle. It was making moves in Europe. Nvidia powers UK's most powerful AI supercomputer On July 17, Nvidia () revealed on its blog that the University of Bristol launched its Isambard-AI supercomputer. Nvidia Grace Hopper Superchips power it and deliver 21 exaflops of AI performance. While this supercomputer's 5,448 GH200 Superchips are impressive, they can't match the Jupiter supercomputer announced in June. Jupiter is also powered by the Grace Hopper platform, with nearly 24,000 GH200 Superchips. With its expected performance of over 90 exaflops, it is the fastest in Europe. Finding new customers for new supercomputers must reach a slowdown at some point. Nvidia knows this, and it's betting on robotics being the next big Thor is Nvidia's upcoming platform for physical AI and humanoid robotics. According to the company, it will be able to deliver up to 2070 FP4 TFLOPS of AI compute. This platform features a 14-core Arm Neoverse-V3AE 64-bit CPU and a 2560-core NVIDIA Blackwell GPU. What is often neglected in the AI GPU hype is that you need a CPU to actually run the software that will then use GPUs for calculations. Nvidia doesn't have its own CPU architecture and has to rely on ARM for this embedded (Thor) platform. The same goes for its Grace Superchips; for the CPU part, they have 72 high-performance Arm v9 cores. Nvidia tried to acquire ARM but was prevented by regulatory problems. The primary reason for the acquisition may have been licensing costs. Nvidia makes a power move, announces CUDA for RISC-V Nvidia Hardware Engineering VP Frans Sijstermans presented his "Enabling RISC-V Application Processors in NVIDIA Compute Platforms" at RISC-V Summit China, revealing that CUDA is coming to RISC-V. RISC-V is an open source instruction set architecture. This means anyone can make a CPU based on it, and the company does not have to pay for the license, although the company that makes its RISC-V compatible design can license its design. "This port will enable a RISC-V CPU to be the main application processor in a CUDA-based AI system," said RISC-V International. More Nvidia: Fund manager who predicted Nvidia stock rally reboots forecast on China Major analyst revamps Nvidia stock price target after China surprise Nvidia CEO hits Warren Buffett milestone The timing of this Nvidia move is very interesting. In an attempt to lower the country's dependence on Western-owned technology, China plans to issue guidance to boost the use of open-source RISC-V chips nationwide, reported Reuters in March. Also in March, XuanTie, part of Alibaba's DAMO Academy R&D operation, announced a C930 CPU design, reported The Register. This RISC-V-based design is available to license for system-on-chip makers. The company is marketing its CPU as something that can be used in servers, PCs, and autonomous cars. This is not the only RISC-V-based CPU available, but it is probably the one with the strongest backing, making China's push to switch to RISC-V look more credible. Nvidia is ensuring that China continues to rely on its GPUs by supporting RISC-V, which is why they are porting CUDA. However, this will also strengthen the viability of the RISC-V platform as a whole and therefore hurt x86 and ARM. The company also has experience with RISC-V; in 2016, it switched from its proprietary Falcon microprocessor, which was used as a logic controller in its GPUs, to RISC-V. This port also signals Nvidia's possible switch to RISC-V for its CPU cores. If the company can pull it off, it would bring a lot of savings from not having to pay for ARM move deals a major blow to AMD, Intel, and ARM first appeared on TheStreet on Jul 22, 2025 This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Jul 22, 2025, where it first appeared. Sign in to access your portfolio
