Latest news with #TheDailyUpside
Yahoo
06-08-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Tesla is Paying Up to Keep Elon Musk's Eyes On the Road
First came the stick, now comes the carrot. A 24 karat gold carrot. After prominent Tesla shareholders earlier this year threatened to oust CEO Elon Musk if he couldn't give the electric vehicle firm more of his very divided attention, the company's board on Monday approved an interim stock award to Musk worth roughly $30 billion in a bid to keep his attention. It comes just as Tesla faces an endless obstacle course of roadblocks and speed bumps. READ ALSO: AMD Joins Chipmakers Struggling to Impress Traders With Upbeat Earnings and Trump's Moonshot Ignites Nuclear Stocks Rally Flat Tires During the company's second-quarter earnings report last month, Musk admitted the company may be headed for 'a few rough quarters.' In a chat Saturday with customers and retail investors, longtime Tesla engineering executive Lars Moravy was a smidge more optimistic, saying, 'We take big swings… We're in a big swing moment right now with autonomy, Robotaxis, with Optimus, and with Semi.' The company's EV business, on the other hand, looks like it's in a major downswing — not just ahead, but right now. On Monday, new preliminary data released by China's Passenger Car Association showed that Tesla delivered just 67,886 units from its massive Shanghai manufacturing gigafactory in July. That marks the sixth shipments decline in the past seven months, and an over 8% decrease year-over-year as the company continues to face steep competition from Chinese firms like Xiaomi and BYD. It's more evidence of an overall sales slump — total deliveries were down 14% year-over-year in the second quarter, while automotive revenue fell 16% year-over-year — a problem that looks likely to persist moving forward: Monday also delivered the news that the newest model of BMW's iX3, an electric SUV, will offer a driving range of about 497 miles with a maximum charging rate of 400 kilowatts — blowing away the Tesla Model Y's roughly 386-mile range and 250 kW charging rate. That makes BMW just the latest competitor to out-innovate Tesla in the battery department, and adds to the evidence that Tesla's Model Y refresh earlier this year didn't pack a big enough punch. The Model Y typically accounts for about two-thirds of Tesla's car sales; Cox Automotives estimates that Model Y sales in the US were down 15% year-over-year in the second quarter. Stay Awhile: In other words, Tesla shareholders have a lot of reason to hope Musk sticks around (Monday's compensation package only vests if he stays in an executive role for two more years, and compensates somewhat for the $56 billion pay package still stuck in Delaware court legal limbo). It seems that Tesla's board thinks of the company a lot like how a Florida jury last week thought of the company's Autopilot cars: Not quite ready to drive itself. This post first appeared on The Daily Upside. To receive delivering razor sharp analysis and perspective on all things finance, economics, and markets, subscribe to our free The Daily Upside newsletter. 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
Yahoo
04-08-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
May AI Take Your Order, Please?
Your AI BFF is never more than a telephone away, no dialing required, always ready to offer fashion tips, moral support ('No, you were SO not being extra!') or dinner recipes. Your AI boyfriend is only too happy to join you for a (virtual) candlelight dinner, and your teenager's AI classmate can trim several hours off the time required to finish a term paper. On the downside, the AI switchboard operator at your bank or internet provider probably isn't going to provide more than minimal help or even pass your name and phone number to a live person, presuming it eventually connects you with one. Which means you already have a taste of the skills and shortcomings on the tech's resume as it spreads from white-collar jobs into industries like manufacturing, retail and fast food that have typically required hands-on labor from humans. While C-suite executives in those businesses view AI as a cost-efficient way to pick up slack, reduce the safety risks of physically dangerous tasks and address labor shortages, experts told The Daily Upside, relying on the tech for such work comes with the same risk as any other deployment. Plus, the consumer-facing nature of some roles may make it a tougher sell. 'As with any technology, there are growing pains,' said Dmitry Zakharchenko, chief software officer of edge computing firm Blaize. 'But the more a system performs in the field, the better it gets.' READ ALSO: Dismal Jobs Data Gives Fed a Wake-Up Call on Interest Rates and Can Summer Box Office Rebound Take Warner Bros. 'Up, Up and Away'? Order Up While you're not likely to see robots taking the places of chefs and line cooks in five-star restaurants (yet), AI is quickly finding its way into food services, particularly at major fast food chains. Coffee giant Starbucks launched 'Green Dot Assist,' a generative AI-based 'coffeehouse companion' intended to help baristas in real time, at 35 locations in June. The tech allows workers to ask questions, such as how to make certain drinks or fix in-store equipment, and receive natural language responses. The Seattle-based chain, which is grappling with declining sales at US coffeehouses and says AI assistants will allow baristas more time to connect with customers, is only the latest to leverage the tech: In February, Wendy's announced that it would implement a voice-enabled AI order-taking assistant called FreshAI. CEO Kirk Tanner said the model would improve customer experience and 'enable some labor efficiencies in our restaurants.' Yum! Brands, the parent company of Pizza Hut, KFC and Taco Bell, announced a partnership with Nvidia in March to build and deploy AI tools including order-taking agents and computer vision-powered drive-thrus. McDonald's started testing AI automated drive-thrus in March in partnership with IBM. Though it axed the program and IBM partnership in June, Chief Restaurant Officer Mason Smoot said, 'there is an opportunity to explore voice-ordering solutions more broadly.' The food service industry is often struggling to fill jobs, noted Fengmin Gong, co-founder and CEO of MetafoodX, a company that deploys AI in hospitality settings where many tasks can be not only tedious but also require both meticulousness and rapidity. Automating 'critical, mundane' tasks from food-temperature checks to rationing of ingredients and checkout can alleviate stress as well as prevent food waste, he said, especially when customers are mobbing cash registers and the car line for the drive-through encircles the building. 'The big challenge for food service is labor and food costs,' said Gong. 'We can leverage AI and technology to automate things that are challenging for a human to keep up with, yet they are critical to efficient food-service operations. That's really the crossover.' In blue-collar industries like manufacturing and maintenance, the benefits may be even bigger, said Alex Hawkinson, founder and CEO of BrightAI, which helps critical infrastructure firms adopt the tech. Manufacturing alone is grappling with a widening labor shortage as fewer entry-level workers apply to replace retiring veterans, leaving as many as 2.1 million jobs unfilled by 2030, according to nonprofit research firm The Conference Board. Manufacturing, like maintenance and pest control, often struggles with sky-high churn rates, he said. 'You can't keep a crew together.' 'Brutal, Dirty, Dangerous' AI has particular potential to shine in tasks that human workers simply don't want to do, said Hawkinson, especially 'brutal, dirty, dangerous and repetitive jobs' such as working with chemicals and waste, and roles with a 'super-hard learning curve' in technical and repair fields. For example, Hawkinson and his team created an AI-powered 'fly light,' which automatically detects when certain dangerous species of bugs are somewhere where they shouldn't be, like a food or pharmaceutical plant. Typically, the job would be handled by an inspector once a month, Hawkinson said, with someone in charge of identifying the different types of bugs that become stuck on glue boards around the facility. 'So far, what we see is it massively decreases risk,' said Hawkinson. 'You're not handling the poison, you're not trying to crawl literally in the sewer pipe yourself. You're having the tool do it for you, guided with your expertise.' But as with any deployment of AI, there are hazards. AI tends to hallucinate, or make things up, when it hasn't been properly trained to handle user queries. That can be especially dangerous when the tech is deployed to perform critical tasks. 'You don't want it to hallucinate when you're trying to fix an explosive valve on a compressor,' said Hawkinson. In consumer contexts, AI's data-collection and security flaws could also pose a risk, said Zakharchenko. If models are constantly collecting data — and can be manipulated to reveal that data when prompted just right — consumers may feel uncomfortable interacting with it, prompting them to ghost local establishments that use it. Plus, Zakharchenko said, if AI creates additional friction for users, it likely won't be received well. 'If the interface is not polished, humans tend to reject it,' he explained. Complementary Technology So how can these businesses reduce their AI risks? The simple answer: Humans. Despite the hype about AI-enabled job automation (and the reality), most hands-on fields will always need a human in the loop. The critical and often dangerous nature of much blue-collar work will always require live oversight, Hawkinson said. Meanwhile, the personal touch valued by food service and retail customers requires human presence, said Gong, whether it's to assuage customer concerns, smooth out AI interactions or course-correct machines when they make mistakes. 'Fundamentally, we cannot rule out human interaction; we cannot leave humans out of this loop,' said Gong. 'Because, after all, it's all experienced by us — by humans.' In time, the more that AI systems work in any field, the better they will perform, said Zakharchenko. 'That's when the human-to-machine loop will become more trustful,' he said. 'In a way, the technician is training the machine. They're treating it as a trainee. They have to distrust it. That's normal.' This post first appeared on The Daily Upside. To receive delivering razor sharp analysis and perspective on all things finance, economics, and markets, subscribe to our free The Daily Upside newsletter.
Yahoo
24-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Fine Print: ETFs Born in Banner Year May Lack Staying Power
From leveraged funds that invest only in Robinhood to products built to combat anti-semitism, exchange-traded funds are having a banner year. ETFs — investment vehicles known for their low costs, tax efficiencies and transparency — had collected $540 billion in new money, and issuers had launched 464 new funds, through the first six months of 2025, according to market researcher Morningstar. The industry is on track to launch a record 726 funds by the end of the year. Issuers are pumping out funds to meet investor demand, but there's a growing risk that many of the new ETFs will have short shelf lives because they serve very specific purposes or incorporate traditionally niche investing strategies. 'If that purpose falls out of favor and assets dwindle, it may be difficult for the ETF sponsor to keep the lights on,' said Zachary Evens, Morningstar research analyst. 'As the space gets saturated, only a relative few will likely see sustained success.' READ ALSO: Tariffs 'The World Can Live With': US-Japan Trade Pact Pushes Markets to Record Highs and Amazon, Meta Wear AI-mbitions on Their Wrists Fund on the Bun Low-cost funds with broad market exposure typically have the most assets under management and are the most popular with new investors. However, so few of them have launched this year that they're almost being seen as novel in the current ETF landscape. 'Perhaps Vanguard and [Charles] Schwab's continued push into very-low-cost bond strategies is unique amongst the sea of leveraged, covered call and buffer ETF launches,' Evens told The Daily Upside. The Morningstar data showed: First Trust, BlackRock's iShares and Graniteshares were among the top issuers in the first half of 2025, launching 23, 20 and 19 funds, respectively. Plenty of the new ETFs have also been fairly costly. The average expense ratio of 2025 ETF launches is 0.74%, much higher than all ETFs' average expense ratio of 0.6%. Active-ish: Many ETFs launched this year are being labeled as 'active,' meaning a fund manager is at the helm, regularly making investment decisions in the hopes of outperforming a benchmark instead of just mirroring it. That title is a bit of a misnomer, however, as some of those funds are more reliant on algorithms than traditional discretionary strategies, Evens said. They're only being called active because they don't track an index. 'Managers essentially have a formula for how to execute a strategy, removing much of the judgement or discretion associated with traditional stock-picking funds,' he said. This post first appeared on The Daily Upside. To receive delivering razor sharp analysis and perspective on all things finance, economics, and markets, subscribe to our free The Daily Upside newsletter. 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
Yahoo
23-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
MicroStrategy Bolsters Its Bitcoin War Chest
Fitting, given its recent name change, Strategy — the Michael Saylor company formerly known as MicroStrategy — is thinking really, really big when it comes to bitcoin. On Monday, the company, a self-styled business intelligence and cloud-based services firm, announced that it had purchased 6,220 bitcoin worth $739.8 million last week. That adds to an already massive stockpile. Massive enough, in fact, that the company now owns roughly 3% of all bitcoin in circulation. READ ALSO: Fine Print: ETFs Born in Banner Year May Lack Staying Power and Gates-Backed 'Green Steel' Startup Clears Key Milestone Bit by Bit In total, Strategy owns 607,770 coins, worth roughly $72 billion as of late Monday. That's enough to make Strategy the world's largest corporate owner of the preeminent cryptocurrency, and is the result of a buying strategy (pun intended) that began back in 2020 as the firm sought a hedge against inflation. Along the way, Strategy has funded its bitcoin buying spree by issuing a combination of common and preferred shares, as well as via debt (case in point: the company said last week's bitcoin purchases were fueled by the proceeds of a roughly $740 million share sale, the vast majority of which were common shares). The gambit by the so-called bitcoin treasury appears to be paying off so far: Shares of Strategy have soared roughly 3,500% since the company began its bitcoin-buying campaign, while the price of bitcoin has soared some 1,100% over the same time. That compares with a measly 120% rise in the overall S&P 500 during the same time, according to a recent Bloomberg analysis. Coming Attractions: The timing of Strategy's latest bitcoin gains was hardly a surprise. Last week also marked 'Crypto Week' on Capitol Hill, with a flurry of pro-crypto industry bills passing in the lower chamber of Congress. Meanwhile, federal officials have been pushing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to consider crypto holdings in their mortgage risk assessments, further legitimizing the digital currencies. It's no surprise, then, that Saylor has already hinted at what the company plans to do next: buy more bitcoin. This post first appeared on The Daily Upside. To receive delivering razor sharp analysis and perspective on all things finance, economics, and markets, subscribe to our free The Daily Upside newsletter. 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
Yahoo
28-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Dwindling IPOs Reward Investors With Return Bonanza
Entering 2025, it was the year of IPOs … until it wasn't. Firms grew timid about dipping their toes into public waters as markets sputtered amid tariff threats. But less has turned out to be more. In fact, 2025 could end up being the year of IPOs doing well, even if some firms were hesitant to come out of their private shells. New data compiled by Bloomberg found that shares in companies to debut on US exchanges this year have climbed by a weighted average of 53% — the S&P 500 is up 4.4%, so, in the words of Larry David, pretty, pretty good. Now, to see if it inspires the wave of listings investors were hoping for. READ ALSO: After Reclaiming 'World's Most Valuable Company' Crown, Nvidia Gilds the Tiara and Kraken Launches Crypto's Attempt at a Venmo-Killer Before the champagne-popping, the hard truth: IPOs are still down. Bloomberg counted 33 of them so far, down from 41 in the first half of 2024 (excluding SPACs and small listings that raked in under $50 million). But the performances of stablecoin fintech Circle, up more than 585% since listing earlier this month, and cloud computing company CoreWeave, up more than 300% since listing in March, have offered assurances that, despite this year's Olympic hurdle run of risks, investor appetite for new opportunities is resilient. There are signs in some sectors that a trickle-down effect could be on the way, although that may take time: On the fintech front, investment management company Wealthfront filed for an IPO earlier this week, following rival Chime's $864 million debut in its initial public offering earlier this month. This activity suggests a warming trend in the fintech public offering market. Potential billion-dollar fintechs Klarna and Plaid have both signaled they are readying IPOs, having previously been spooked by market uncertainty. On the digital health front, two notable care providers have gone in opposite directions: Hinge Health is up 13.8% since its debut in May, while Omada Health has tumbled 22% since its listing earlier this month. The IPO calendar for the rest of 2025 remains relatively light, and analysts don't expect digital health listings to pick up, but fintech and crypto firms could be inclined to file — in fact, crypto exchange Gemini filed earlier this month, with many expecting Circle's success to embolden others in the sector to follow. We're Number One: The 53% average returns on newly listed US companies bested the 45% in Asia, 38% in Europe and 7% in the Middle East, according to Bloomberg's calculations. This post first appeared on The Daily Upside. To receive delivering razor sharp analysis and perspective on all things finance, economics, and markets, subscribe to our free The Daily Upside newsletter. 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
