Latest news with #JohnBelton
CNBC
28-06-2025
- Business
- CNBC
Gabelli Funds highlights the AI stocks to buy as craze continues
The trillion-dollar investment cycle into generative artificial intelligence is only just beginning, and is already starting to pay off, according to John Belton, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds. Tech companies are set to invest roughly $1 trillion in capital expenditures into AI infrastructure over the coming years, causing some investors to worry the businesses may be spending too much for not enough payoff. In 2025 alone, Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms and Microsoft are planning to spend as much as $320 billion combined on AI technologies and data center buildouts. However, early signs suggest investors have yet to grasp the full potential of generative AI, given that some initial investments are already starting to bear fruit, according to Belton. "This is a trillion-dollar investment cycle," Belton told attendees during a panel on AI at the Morningstar Investment Conference in Chicago. "Adoption and usage is really only now starting to hit this very steep part of the so-called S-curve, another two and a half years after the launch of ChatGPT." "The largest investors in AI infrastructure are generating the most attractive returns today," he said. The portfolio manager of the Gabelli Growth Fund has significant exposure to the "Magnificent Seven" companies, with Microsoft, Nvidia and Amazon being its top three holdings. This year, the fund has outperformed, sitting in the top 12% of funds in its category, according to Morningstar data . Yet, there are two reasons to remain confident in the potential for AI, Belton said. Specifically, the cost of the technology is coming down, while its capabilities are improving, meaning the number of use cases for companies is growing. Belton said AI capabilities are already superior to human capabilities across a wide range of disciplines, including reading comprehension, science and math. "As AI is becoming cheaper and more capable, the vision is that it's just going to be used in more and more corporate productivity initiatives," Belton said. "And it's going to be used as in many cases, a labor replacement across enterprises, in all different sectors, in all different parts of the enterprise." Some examples include using AI to cut supply chain costs, or to generate revenue across marketing and operations departments. Meta Platforms , for example, is already using AI for targeted advertisements, a change that has helped the tech company boost sales. Meanwhile, tech companies such as Alphabet and Microsoft have recently divulged that AI is already generating roughly 30% of their internal database, suggesting the role of a software engineer and developer will change. Other use cases are still emerging, including AI used in autonomous vehicles such as at Tesla , as well as drug discovery in health care. Given this, here are some of the companies that can tap into AI potential, Belton said. NOW YTD mountain ServiceNow shares year to date ServiceNow is one holding with a roughly 2% weighting in the Gabelli Growth Fund. The enterprise software firm sells agentic technology to help companies to automate their businesses. Agentic revenue is already tracking close to 10% next year, Belton said, adding it's a small but promising sign of a "big, exciting" new area for growth. Broadcom shares are another holding that has exposure to the AI theme. The stock is up more than 16% this year, and is a consensus buy on the Street, according to LSEG. GE Vernova and Applied Materials are two other holdings that can benefit from the AI theme, according to the investor. AVGO YTD mountain Broadcom shares year to date.
Irish Examiner
13-06-2025
- Lifestyle
- Irish Examiner
Saturday with The Marker chef Gareth Mullins: "sitting down with friends and sharing a glass of wine is important to us"
07.00 I get up at around 7.30am and have a Nespresso. I try to catch up on a bit of administration work before I go into work at Anantara The Marker Dublin Hotel. I go in a little later on a Saturday than I do midweek when I leave the house at 5.30am. Midweek I'm in by 6am, I go to the gym and am down in the kitchen by 7.30am. 08.30 I'll drive down to the SuperValu in Swords to grab their sourdough bloomer and some fresh fruit and bacon so I can make breakfast for my wife and teenage children. 10.00 I'll head into work at around 9.30am or 10am to catch the end of the breakfast service. After that, we're getting ready for lunch. I like to stay at work on Saturday evening for the restaurant service, I'll make sure that all the deliveries have come in as they were supposed to and that the team is organised and getting ready for service. The breakfast team will be cleaning up and making sure everything is in order for Sunday morning which is very busy in the hotel. I'll also make sure that the team is all set for afternoon tea. 14.30 I have a bit of spare time in the afternoon and will go to the gym. I might run 5km, do some light weights, and have a sauna. Then I'll shower and shave and be down in the kitchen by 6pm. That hour I have to myself really sets me up in a positive mindset to run a busy service. It also shows the rest of my team, many of whom are younger than me, that being fit and active helps you think a bit clearer and make better decisions. I can't think of any negative sides to being fit and healthy. I've always had an interest in sport to some degree but, at a certain point in my career, I gained a bit of weight and was working excessively. I went to see a business coach who asked me to assess how I was spending my time. I had to identify something that I felt I was missing out on. That was physical fitness so I went to see personal trainer John Belton. 15.30 Saturday is the day I try to write my recipes and get more admin done. It tends to be the day when I have a bit more time for myself as there are fewer corporate guests staying in the hotel and fewer meetings. Food plays a huge part in my professional and personal life. I love to cook for family and friends. The recipes I'm creating for SuperValu are very different to those I create at the hotel. I'm very conscious of creating recipes that will suit busy lifestyles. I am working with the food leadership team and the product selection team at SuperValu to make sure that I think they're choosing the right products for the stores. Generally, Mondays are my day off from the The Marker and on Mondays I hone in on the other projects I'm working on including Euro-toque's Young Chef and Rising Star Pastry competitions. 16.45 I'll have a bite to eat in the staff restaurant. 17.00 We are across from the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre so obviously pre-theatre dining is a big thing for us. I'll be up in the restaurant kitchen from 5pm making sure the teams are ready for service. We serve until 10pm. When I leave work very much depends on how busy things are or on whether we have an event on in the hotel. We run four kitchens in the hotel so I'll also be keeping an eye on the bar service, room service and the rooftop bar and if there is banqueting taking place I will also be keeping my eye on that. I will often go out of the kitchen to speak to our guests. 21.00 I'll generally be home by around 8pm or 9pm. I'll sit down with my wife with a nice glass of wine to discuss the week. Catching up with friends is something we love to do on a Saturday. Fitness and eating well is a huge part of how we like to live but equally sitting down with friends on a Saturday night and sharing a glass of wine is important to us. One of our friends is a great musician so it wouldn't be unusual for a bit of a singsong to take place. 24.00 When I go to bed I'll go straight to sleep but I'll probably wake up at around around 5.30am. On a Sunday I'll try to lie there for a while but my body clock is set to get up early. Sundays for me are all about standing on the side of football pitches and having family over for a roast or a barbecue. Gareth Mullins is executive head chef of Anantara The Marker Dublin Hotel and the Forbes Street by Gareth Mullins restaurant at the hotel. As a SuperValu food ambassador, Mullins recently helped to launch the retailer's The Difference is Real programme. Read More Bernard O'Shea: 5 things I learned after watching the Adare Manor wedding go viral on TikTok
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- 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
04-06-2025
- 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.
