Bloomberg Technology 03/07/2024

08 Mar 2024 (9 months ago)

Market Trends

The market rally is being driven by AI, with the Nasdaq leading the gains.
The dollar is weakening against most major currencies as investors anticipate rate cuts from the Fed and the ECB.
Bitcoin is pushing higher, continuing its recent rally.
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index reached a record high, with chipmakers seeing strong gains.

Apple is facing scrutiny from the EU over its App Store policies, with regulators investigating its decision to block Epic Games from opening a third-party app store.
Spotify has also raised concerns about Apple's practices, feeling that they will still be charged excessive fees despite the new EU regulations.
Apple has reportedly scaled back its ambitions for its electric car project, with concerns about profitability and manufacturing challenges.
Broadcom is set to report earnings after the bell, with investors expecting strong numbers.
Broadcom is expected to report $11.8 billion in revenue for the quarter, a 30% jump year-over-year, with most of the growth coming from AI.
Investors will be looking for an update on Broadcom's progress towards its goal of 5% of total chip sales coming from AI.
Unlike NVIDIA and AMD, Broadcom is less of an AI pure play, which could provide some insulation if AI demand cools down.
NVIDIA's stock has reached a record high, but some key executives have recently sold significant amounts of their shares.

Diversity in workforces is crucial for building AI models and creating responsible AI policies.
Credo AI helps companies determine whether their AI is reliable and responsible by providing alignment, testing, and understandable outcomes for diverse stakeholders.
More intentional regulation and enforcement mechanisms are needed to ensure companies are using AI responsibly.
Artificial intelligence (AI) will play a significant role in the upcoming elections, providing voters with information and media tailored to their preferences.
The key challenge lies in ensuring that voters have access to accurate and reliable information before making critical decisions that impact democracy.
The US government has taken steps to address AI safety and benchmarking through an executive order, but more funding is needed to support these initiatives.
The EU AI Act, which goes into effect this month, prioritizes European citizens' rights and will have a significant impact on organizations globally.

SK Hynix is investing over $1 billion in South Korea to expand and improve its chip manufacturing capabilities, focusing on advanced chip packaging for AI and high-bandwidth memory.
The US government is pressuring its allies to further tighten trade restrictions on China's access to semiconductor technology, aiming to plug loopholes in previous export controls.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee is considering legislation that would require TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the platform within 165 days due to national security concerns.
TikTok argues that such legislation curtails free speech and the right to access the platform, citing First Amendment challenges.

Venture dealmaking declined overall in 2023, but female founders still managed to secure a record share of the total deal value, raising a significant amount of funding.
The funding for companies with no women representation is significantly lower compared to companies with female representation, with a difference of hundreds of billions of dollars.
The number of companies engaging in female-founded companies is decreasing due to the challenging conditions and higher standards set by investors.
Larger companies are holding onto a larger share of the funding, while female-founded companies are showing resilience and attracting additional capital.
Sectors such as healthcare and climate tech are showing resilience in terms of funding, while AI is a prominent vertical that managed to attract more capital in 2023 compared to the previous year.
The majority of female-founded companies have at least one female founder, while companies with only women founders represent a much smaller percentage of the total funding.
The gender breakdown of check writers, who determine whether a company gets funded, is heavily male-dominated, which can have implications for female founders pitching to mostly male investors.

Palantir's shares are rising ahead of their conference, where CEO Alex Karp will speak.
Palantir is focusing on expanding its commercial customer base and has made progress in this area.
The CEO of Palantir, Alex Karp, expressed frustration about how business is done in the US, particularly regarding the perception of software as esoteric and self-serving.
Palantir's Titan project represents a logical extension of their successful MAVEN project, aiming to establish US dominance on the battlefield by combining the best of American software with hardware providers.
Karp highlighted the need for institutions to internalize the idea of using the best software available, even if it comes from commercial sources, rather than relying solely on PowerPoint presentations.
Despite reports of