Latest news with #JohnBelton
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Nvidia: The 3 types of companies in 'rapidly evolving' AI industry
After rallying by more than $1 trillion over the past two months, Nvidia's (NVDA) market cap has soared to $3.45 trillion to reclaim its title as the world's most valuable company from Microsoft (MSFT). Gabelli Funds portfolio manager John Belton comes on The Morning Brief to discuss the types of companies engaging the most in the "rapidly evolving" AI landscape and the new use cases that continue to emerge for artificial intelligence. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief here. It video reclaimed its title as the world's most valuable company on Tuesday from fellow Magnificent Seven Microsoft and shares of the chip maker Rose roughly 3% during the trading day, boosting the company's market cap to $3.45 trillion. Joining us now to discuss this milestone and re-achieving this milestone, what it means for the tech trade, we've got John Belton, who is the Gabelli funds portfolio manager here. John, good to have you here with us this morning. Thanks for taking the time. Just the significance of video once again being the most valuable publicly traded company here. Yeah, I'm not sure I'd read too far into that. That's not, it's not really, uh, you know, my part of my framework, but I do think very clearly, um, the AI adoption cycle, AI usage, and on a related note, the AI investment cycle, um, clearly remains in a very strong phase. I think we are seeing serious inflection in adoption of, of major AI services and along with that comes the need for more AI infrastructure. So I think a company like Nvidia, a company like Microsoft, those are stocks that had lagged for most of the last, call it six months. They were probably due for a rebound given the fundamentals behind the AI industry remain so strong. So if the AI industry remains strong, how do we think about who the potential tech winners and losers of that might be? Because before when tech has been disruptive, it's been to an industry like retail with e-commerce, for example. But now the AI tech could be disruptive to the tech companies who may not all be winners here. How are you thinking about that? Right. I mean, I think there's very broadly three types of companies that are participating in this industry today. And this is a very rapidly evolving industry, but you have chip companies, semiconductor companies, server companies, the companies that are providing the computing infrastructure on one layer. Then you have companies that are coming together to provide the physical infrastructure, so the data centers that are housing the computing infrastructure. And then at the top, you have companies that are building applications and end user facing services that are making use of all the technology. So I think right now what's become very clear is the appetite for AI compute and AI infrastructure is extremely strong. And I think there's, that will continue for at least the next couple years. What's a little bit less clear is at the application layer, who are the winners and losers going to be? What are the new use cases going to be? And I think beyond the early use cases of chatbots and, and, you know, digital media and, you know, cloud infrastructure services, there's a few exciting potential newer use cases like agent software, autonomous driving, um, some use cases in healthcare, but that's going to take longer to play out. Yeah. Since you bring up the application layer, it makes me think about Amazon and their approach with Bedrock to offering a significant amount of options to customers as opposed to really hyper betting on one specific model the way Microsoft has with OpenAI. How do you rate Amazon's strategy in the AI race? Well, I think first and foremost, Amazon's doing a lot with AI to bolster their core e-commerce business. They're doing more with offering generative AI to their advertisers to create ads that can be shown on their platform. They're doing more with, um, using AI to place the right products in front of the right people. And then they're starting to use more AI in their fulfillment centers, um, introduce more robotics and, and do more with automation, which is helping their margins. They're also using it clearly, as you referenced, on the AWS side of their business as sort of an infrastructure provider to third parties. So I think they have a business that lends itself very well to AI naturally. In terms of building their own software applications, I think one of the beauties of being of the cloud infrastructure model is you can let specialists, third party specialists build those on your platform and participate in those economics as well. So that's more where I see things progressing for Amazon, specifically when it comes to building AI software applications. Fehler beim Abrufen der Daten Melden Sie sich an, um Ihr Portfolio aufzurufen. Fehler beim Abrufen der Daten Fehler beim Abrufen der Daten Fehler beim Abrufen der Daten Fehler beim Abrufen der Daten
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Nvidia: The 3 types of companies in 'rapidly evolving' AI industry
After rallying by more than $1 trillion over the past two months, Nvidia's (NVDA) market cap has soared to $3.45 trillion to reclaim its title as the world's most valuable company from Microsoft (MSFT). Gabelli Funds portfolio manager John Belton comes on The Morning Brief to discuss the types of companies engaging the most in the "rapidly evolving" AI landscape and the new use cases that continue to emerge for artificial intelligence. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief here. 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
Business Recorder
15-05-2025
- Business
- Business Recorder
S&P 500 struggles for direction as trade truce rally fades
NEW YORK: The S&P 500 teetered between gains and losses in a choppy session on Thursday as elation from the US-China tariff truce tapered off, with UnitedHealth among the biggest losers after a report said the DoJ was investigating the insurer for fraud. UnitedHealth Group plunged 15% to a five-year low, dragging on other health insurers such as Humana and Molina Healthcare. The Wall Street Journal reported that the US Department of Justice was conducting a criminal investigation into the company for possible Medicare fraud. However, UnitedHealth said it had not been informed of a criminal probe by federal prosecutors. 'This is basically the third almost-catastrophic event for the stock in the last three weeks. Now you've got this just adding fuel to the fire,' said John Belton, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds. Executives at retail giant Walmart said the company would have to start raising prices later this month due to the high cost of tariffs, even as its first-quarter US comparable sales beat expectations. Its shares fell 1.1% after it also did not provide a second-quarter profit forecast. Walmart joins a spate of companies across sectors that have either tweaked or pulled their forecasts, signaling that corporate America is hunkering down for tariff-related uncertainties. On the brighter side, Cisco Systems jumped 6.3% after the networking-equipment maker raised its annual forecasts and named Mark Patterson its new CFO. At 11:28 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 86.57 points, or 0.20%, to 42,136.78, the S&P 500 gained 5.75 points, or 0.10%, to 5,898.33, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 48.77 points, or 0.25%, to 19,098.04. Megacap and growth stocks were marginally lower after falling earlier in the day, although lagged with a 3% decline. The energy sector was among the laggards as oil prices slid around 3% on expectations of a US-Iran nuclear deal that could result in sanctions easing. Stocks have see-sawed this week as equities jumped on Monday and Tuesday after the US and China announced a temporary ceasefire on tariffs. The gains were enough to drag the S&P out of the red for the year, although it is still about 4% shy of record highs. Earlier in the day, fresh data showed US retail sales growth slowed in April, while a separate report showed producer prices unexpectedly fell last month. The data dump follows a relatively tame consumer price reading earlier in the week. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.36-to-1 ratio on the NYSE, while declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.09-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq. The S&P 500 posted nine new 52-week highs and five new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 34 new highs and 101 new lows.
CNBC
25-04-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Investors should 'take it slow' and focus the fundamentals, says Gabelli Funds' John Belton
John Belton, Gabelli Funds growth equities portfolio manager, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss the state of the tech sector, takeaways from earnings season so far, Alphabet's Q1 earnings, latest market trends, and more.
Reuters
16-04-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Tariffs, recession fears cast pall over US media earnings
Los Angeles, April 16 (Reuters) - Wall Street analysts offered a gloomy view of the first quarter for much of Hollywood, warning that economic uncertainty caused by President Donald Trump's erratic tariff plans has undermined consumer confidence and heightened fears of a recession. The threat of an economic downturn would take a toll on an industry dependent on discretionary spending, squeezing TV advertising sales and theme park attendance, and spurring streaming service cancellations. MoffettNathanson analysts estimate a recession could result in $45 billion in lost advertising spending this year, and risk advertising budgets permanently shifting away from traditional television to alternatives like streaming services or digital platforms. 'If we go through an economic downturn, the advertising business will be tough. More specifically, brand advertising platforms are likely to be hit harder than direct response platforms,' said John Belton, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, which owns shares in Paramount Global (PARA.O), opens new tab, Warner Bros Discovery (WBD.O), opens new tab, Fox (FOXA.O), opens new tab and NBCUniversal parent company Comcast (CMCSA.O), opens new tab. Gabelli Funds also owns shares in Netflix (NFLX.O), opens new tab, which is expected to report first-quarter results on Thursday, kicking off the earnings season for media firms. Netflix, which dominates the streaming video market with a global subscriber base of more than 300 million, is expected to report that profit per share jumped more than 8% from a year ago, according to LSEG estimates. Revenue likely increased by more than 12% to $10.5 billion, reflecting growth across all regions. An economic slowdown may prompt streaming subscribers to downgrade to more affordable plans, or cancel their subscriptions altogether. But Netflix is unlikely to see "a wave of churn" given its strong market position and popular content, wrote Bank of America media analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich, though some cost-conscious subscribers may trade down to a cheaper price tier. Consumers have flocked to Netflix's ad-supported tier since its launch in late 2022. Other streaming services, like Apple TV+ (AAPL.O), opens new tab or NBC's Peacock, may not be as lucky. A downturn could prompt marketers to cut spending on television advertising, in anticipation of reduced demand, taking a toll on media companies including Warner Bros Discovery, which derived more than a fifth of its revenue from advertising in 2024. Advertising also represents a significant portion of revenue for Facebook parent Meta (META.O), opens new tab, Snap (SNAP.N), opens new tab and Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab. Some companies are likely to fare better than others in a downturn. Search advertising tends to do well during periods of uncertainty, said eMarketer analyst Ross Benes, because it captures consumers who are in the market to make a purchase. Escalating tariffs on Chinese imports could affect social media platforms like TikTok and Facebook, which rely heavily on ad dollars from Chinese e-commerce companies such as Temu and Shein, Benes said. Temu's average daily spending on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snap, X and YouTube declined by a collective average of 31% in the past two weeks, compared with the previous 30 days, according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Shein's daily spending across U.S. social media platforms is down by an average of 19% over that period. Walt Disney Co (DIS.N), opens new tab could face a double-barreled impact from a slowdown, which would hit advertising and theme parks. The company's Experiences unit, which includes theme parks, cruise ships and consumer products, delivered more than 60% of Disney's operating income in the most recent quarter. A recession could lower revenue at Disney's domestic and international theme parks by $3 billion in 2025, according to MoffettNathanson's forecasts. The novelty of visiting Epic Universe, a $7 billion expansion of Universal Orlando Resort that opens on May 22, may blunt the impact of a downturn, helping Comcast's (CMCSA.O), opens new tab NBCUniversal division attract vacationers to central Florida, Bank of America predicted. North American movie ticket sales are down, too - nearly 12% from the same time a year earlier, according to Comscore. "We're an industry which thrives on people having discretionary income. They will take their discretionary income and go to the movies," Michael O'Leary, president and CEO of trade organization Cinema United, said in an interview. "When there is uncertainty in the economic markets ... people tend to not use that discretionary income as much as they otherwise would." Uncertainty about whether a film can be distributed in major markets like China makes it harder for studios to justify spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a major motion picture, said veteran media executive Jon Miller. China said last week it would restrict imports of Hollywood films in retaliation to tariffs.
