Tag Archives: twtr

Tesla Partner Nvidia Speeds To Record High On ‘Superhuman’ AI

Nvidia ‘s ( NVDA ) AI technology with Facebook ( FB ), Alphabet ( GOOGL ) and Microsoft ( MSFT ) is powering “superhuman” levels of inference, or artificial intelligence, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said Thursday, after the Tesla Motors ( TSLA ) partner blasted Q1 views on record deep-learning sales. “The truth is that nobody really knows how big this deep-learning market is going to be,” Huang said on the company’s earnings conference call. He referred specifically to gains that customer Microsoft was making with AI and deep learning. “The work that recently was done at Microsoft Research, they’ve achieved superhuman levels of inferencing … of image recognition and voice recognition that’s really kind of hard to imagine,” he said, “and these networks are now huge.” In midday trading on the stock market today , Nvidia stock was up more than 14% and hit an all-time high at 40.30. Main graphics chip rival  Advanced Micro Devices ( AMD ) was up nearly 3% midday Friday. IBD’s 41-company Electronic Semiconductor-Fabless industry group was up 1.5%. Nvidia late Thursday said its Q1 data center sales, which includes AI, soared 63% year over year to a record $143 million. Nvidia’s chips power IBM ( IBM ) Watson and Facebook’s Big Sur server, Huang said. Amazon.com ( AMZN ), Alibaba ( BABA ), Baidu ( BIDU ) and Twitter ( TWTR ) also use its AI technology. “Twitter has recently said they use Nvidia GPUs (graphics processing units) to help users discover the right content among the millions of images and videos shared every day,” Huang said, adding he can’t imagine a future Internet without deep learning. For Q1, Nvidia reported $1.3 billion in sales and 33 cents earnings per share, up 13% and 38% year over year, respectively. Both metrics topped Wall Street views for $1.26 billion and 32 cents. Nvidia Gaming Gains Seen Ahead Automotive sales grew 43% to $113 million, offsetting weaker growth in Nvidia’s core gaming and professional gaming segments — up a respective 17% to $687 million, and 4% to $189 million. But MKM analyst Ian Ing sees Nvidia’s gaming unit getting a robust refresh in the second-half of the year when it releases its new Pascal GPU, replacing the outmoded Maxwell units. The GPUs will be sold for $699 vs. the Maxwell 980 Ti at $682. “Nvidia continues to be our top pick, given the imminent Pascal gaming refresh and GPUs having unique exposure to a long list of promising applications that are outperforming PCs and smartphone opportunities,” he wrote in a research report. Despite continued headwinds in the PC and smartphone markets, “gaming continues to appear to have macro immunity,” he wrote. Ing reiterated his buy rating on Nvidia stock and boosted his price target to 43 from 39. For the current quarter, Nvidia expects $1.35 billion in sales, plus or minus 2%, up 17% at the midpoint vs. the year-earlier quarter. Rosenblatt analyst Kinngai Chan called the guidance “conservative” despite likely seasonal headwinds and a maturing product line. “We did not see any meaningful market share shifts and continue to see a benign pricing environment,” he wrote in a report.

NetEase, Sina, Weibo Ready For China Earnings Closeup

Continuing a string of earnings reports from China Internet companies, NetEase ( NTES ), Sina ( SINA ) and Weibo ( WB ) are set to report first-quarter earnings after the close Wednesday. JD.com ( JD ), one of China’s largest Internet companies, posted mixed Q1 earnings early Monday and gave an outlook slightly short of views. Its shares were among many U.S.-traded techs that fell Monday after Chinese markets retreated overnight on renewed concerns about that nation’s economic recovery. JD, China’s largest online direct sales company, reported revenue of $8.4 billion, slightly above the consensus and up 48% in local currency year over year. But its Q2 guidance was slightly below consensus. China e-commerce giant Alibaba ( BABA ) reported fiscal Q4 earnings  last Thursday. Alibaba showed a 30% increase in revenue to $3.75 billion, beating the Wall Street consensus and marking the company’s highest growth rate in the past four quarters. China gaming company NetEase is expected to see earnings rise 55% in local currency to $2.29 a share, according to a poll by Thomson Reuters. Revenue is expected to jump 115% to $1.2 billion, year over year. NetEase stock, which is down 26% this year, was trading near 143.60, up 3%, during afternoon trading in the stock market today . NetEase is hitting resistance at its 50-day line Sina, which operates the largest Chinese-language Web portal, is expected to post a loss of 4 cents a share, swinging from a 4 cent profit year over year. Revenue is expected to rise 5% in local currency to $277.5 million. Sina stock, which hit a low this year of 39.58 on Feb. 11, was trading near 49.50, up 1%. Weibo, which operates a microblog site similar to Twitter ( TWTR ), is projected to show an 18% increase in revenue to $113.6 million. Weibo is projected to see earnings of one penny a share, vs. nearly break-even a year earlier. Weibo was a part of Sina before its IPO in 2014, and Sina remains a majority shareholder. Weibo this year hit a low of 12.09 on Feb. 21. Weibo stock was near 23.25, up 8%.

Analysts Split On Square As Dorsey Remains Split Between Twitter

Loading the player… Payment processor Square ( SQ ) is crashing after its quarterly adjusted loss was wider than expected, reigniting questions about Jack Dorsey’s ability to lead two companies at the same time. Wedbush on Friday downgraded the stock to underperform and cut its price target to 9 from 11. The analyst projects that the company’s growth will decelerate over the next two years amid more competition and market saturation. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs believes Square is still a buy despite the pullback, saying that “continued fundamental momentum should drive the stock to recovery as the company executes.” Shares are gapping down 20% in giant volume, hitting a more than two-month low. Square initially broke out of an IPO base in late March, and drifted in and out of buy range for a month before turning lower and breaching its 50-day line in Thursday’s session. Square is now more than 30% below its all-time high. Between this disappointing report and Twitter’s ( TWTR ) last week, CEO Jack Dorsey has his work cut out for him. Twitter is trading at all-time lows and is more than 60% below its 52-week peak, but edged up 0.7% Friday. Meanwhile, Square peer PayPal ( PYPL ) is retaking its 50-day line in quick trade, up 0.9% intraday. PayPal shares are trading 7% below its all-time high reached on its first day of trade after its split from eBay ( EBAY ). Elsewhere in the payment space, Visa ( V ) is trading around sell territory after an attempted breakout past a cup base failed. Visa was essentially flat by early afternoon. And MasterCard ( MA ) is trading just below buy range from a cup-with-handle base with a 96.21 buy point it initially broke out of less than a month ago. MasterCard was also little changed by the afternoon.