AI ‘trading bots’ are software programs that use artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse market data, generate trading signals, and execute trades automatically.
‘I meant Artificial Intelligence Investing not ‘Alien’ Investing (AI)’
AI trading bots are becoming more popular among investors who want to take advantage of the speed, accuracy, and efficiency of AI technology. But is this a good thing for the future of investing?
Pros
AI ‘trading bots’ could transform the world of investing
Enabling more accessible and affordable trading for everyone, regardless of their experience, knowledge, or capital.
Enhancing the performance and profitability of trading strategies, by optimising entry and exit points, managing risk, and adapting to changing market conditions.
Providing more diverse and innovative trading opportunities, by exploring new markets, assets, and strategies that human traders may overlook or ignore.
Reducing the emotional and psychological biases that often affect human traders, such as fear, greed, overconfidence, and regret.
Cons
AI ‘trading bots’ also pose some challenges and risks
Increasing the complexity and volatility of the markets, by creating feedback loops, amplifying trends, and triggering flash crashes.
Exposing traders to technical glitches, security breaches, and malicious attacks, by relying on software and internet connectivity that may malfunction or be compromised.
Raising ethical and regulatory issues, by creating potential conflicts of interest, information asymmetry, and market manipulation.
Conclusion
AI ‘trading bots’ are not a mystical ‘get rich quick solution’ that can guarantee success in the world of investing. They are tools that require careful selection, evaluation, and supervision by human input and for the human trader to maintain ultimate control.
We should always be aware of the benefits and limitations of AI technology.
Are AI investing trading bots taking over? ‘I meant Artificial Intelligence Investing not ‘Alien’ Investing (AI)’
It was a good day of earnings for Big Tech companies.
Three of the Magnificent 7 results dominated the headlines: Meta, Amazon and Apple. Nasdaq and S&P 500 gained in ‘after the bell’ trading. This after a punishing day for Alphabet and Microsoft, despite good results.
Nasdaq 100 closed at: 17344 but climbed above 17500 in after-hours trading.
Wall Street seemed impressed with Meta’s results.
Meta
Shares of Meta surged 15% after the social-media giant defied analysts’ estimates. It posted earnings of $5.33 per share on revenue of $40.11 billion. The company also declared its first-ever dividend payment. Share buy-back was also announced.
Meta platforms Inc. One year chart
Meta platforms Inc. One year chart
The results show Meta’s online ad business continues to recover well from a terrible 2022.
Sales in the Q4 jumped 25% year on year.
Expenses decreased 8% year over year to $23.73 billion.
Amazon
Investors also enjoyed Amazon’s earnings, which easily topped Wall Street’s predictions. The ecommerce giant also provided a strong positive outlook. The stock jumped 7% in extended trading.
Amazon.com Inc. One year chart
Amazon.com Inc. One year chart
Q4 was a record-breaking Holiday shopping season in the U.S. and closed out a robust 2023 for Amazon. Amazon has much planned for 2024.
Apple
But Apple didn’t benefit from the same treatment despite posting strong results.
Apple Inc. One year chart
Apple Inc. One year chart
Apple also exceeded estimates, reporting revenue growth for the first time in a year. But shares slid more than 2% in extending trading after it posted a 13% decline in sales in China.
Apple’s outlook suggesting weak iPhones sales may have also disappointed investors.
U.S. microchip giant Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is investing in AI PCs to take on the likes of Nvidia and Intel and Arm as the AI race gains momentum.
As the AI market expands so too will AI powered personal computer (PC). These are personal computers embedded with processors specifically designed to perform AI functions such as real-time language translation. Intel has already announced its AI powered chip for the PC.
Tech research firm Canalys in a December report said the boom in generative AI is expected to boost PC sales as consumers are seeking devices with AI features, predicting that 60% of the PCs shipped in 2027 will be AI-capable.
AI tech interest explodes
An explosion of interest in AI was sparked by the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 as the chatbot went viral for its ability to generate human-like responses to users’ prompts.
Microsoft was quick to adopt the Technolgy and incorporate AI into its Bing search engine. Other companies such as Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Arm, Meta, Tesla and Apple are all heavily involved in AI development too.
Gold demand hit record highs in 2023 on the back of persistent geopolitical tensions and continued weakness in some world economies, particularly China according to the World Gold Council.
Total gold demand stood at 4,899 tons in 2023 compared to 4,741 tons in 2022. Gold purchases from central banks led to last year’s surge, with purchases exceeding 1,000 tons for two consecutive years.
Prices reached an all-time high of around $2,135 an ounce in December 2023 as central banks and retail buyers increased their gold investments.
Carats at Costco
Buyers have many outlets from which to make their gold purchases. Costco recently reported selling over $100 million worth of gold bars in the final quarter of December 2023. Weird to think that we can now buy carats with carrots.
Gold bars for sale at Costco
Gold demand in 2024?
According to some analysts’ gold purchases this year are unlikely to meet 2023 levels, but a fall in inflation could prevent a drastic drop in demand.
When inflation drops significantly, consumers will start to feel ‘better-off’, and this could mitigate some of the drop in demand.
Gold carat
A Gold carat is a unit used to measure the purity of gold, with a carat representing 1/24th part of the whole.
Pure gold is 24 carats, meaning that it is 100% gold with no other metals added. However, gold used for jewellery and other applications is rarely pure, and its purity is measured in carats to determine its value.
Nasdaq 100 futures declined around 0.75%. S&P 500 futures were also down around 0.4%
In after-hours trading, shares of Alphabet dropped more than 5%, while Microsoft slipped 2% after the tech giants, part of the Magnificent Seven posted quarterly earnings. However, both companies achieved on both top and bottom lines. However, advertising revenue for Alphabet came short of analysts’ expectations.
Tech powerhouse
The tech sector powered the market rally from 2023 into 2024 and is now trading at a relatively high valuation of nearly 29 times its 2024 earnings, according to recent figures. Investors will need to see earnings expansion in order for the tech companies to be able to maintain their elevated levels.
Results were good but not good enough according to Wall Street as stocks were priced for perfection and that wasn’t delivered.
Even though the results were better-than-expected, investors are likely selling because they just want to take some money off the table.
Absolute perfection comes at a price on Wall Street.
Norway’s giant sovereign wealth fund reported record profit of 2.22 trillion kroner ($213 billion) in 2023, supported by returns on its investments in technology stocks.
Despite high inflation and geopolitical unrest, the equity market in 2023 was strong, compared to a very weak year in 2022. It follows a record loss of 1.64 trillion Norwegian kroner for the whole of 2022, which the fund attributed to ‘very unusual’ market conditions at the time.
The ‘Government Pension Fund Global’, one of the world’s largest investors, reportedly said the fund marked its highest return in kroner ever, with the fund’s return on investment last year coming in at 16% for the year.
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, was established in the 1990s to invest the surplus revenues of the country’s oil and gas sector. To date, the fund has put money in more than 8,500 companies in 70 countries around the world.
Quiet luxury is a fashion trend that emphasizes understated elegance, timeless style, and high-quality materials.
It is the opposite of flashy logos, loud colors, and fast fashion. Quiet luxury is about investing in pieces that are durable, versatile, and refined.
Some examples of quiet luxury brands are Hermes, Prada-owned Miu Miu, Brunello Cucinelli, Compagnie Financière Richemont and Swatch Group, The Row, Totême, Tove and LVMH. Quiet luxury is also influenced by social changes, popular culture, and economic factors. It reflects a desire for simplicity, sophistication, and sustainability in a seemingly never-ending chaotic world.
Quiet luxury was one of last year’s biggest viral fashion trends, but unlike other short-lived fads on TikTok or Instagram, this one has made its way into investor portfolios and shown lucrative returns.
Luxury stocks have long been regarded by some as an effective hedge against inflation.
LVMH success – one way to invest in luxury
LVMH shares jumped more than 8% on Friday 26th January 2024, after the world’s largest luxury group posted higher-than-expected sales for 2023 and raised its annual dividend.
The owner of Louis Vuitton, Moët & Chandon and Hennessy, as well as brands including Givenchy, Bulgari and Sephora, on Thursday night 25th January 2024 reported sales amounting to 86.15 billion euros ($93.34 billion) for 2023, forecasts. This equated to a 13% growth from the previous year.
The result was boosted in particular by 14% annual growth in the critical fashion and leather goods sector, along with 11% growth in perfumes and cosmetics. Wines and spirits meanwhile posted a 4% decline.
Bernard Arnault is one of the top 10 wealthiest people in the world.
Is there room in your portfolio for a luxury brand?
Chinese tech giant Baidu will partner Samsung to integrate its Ernie chatbot capabilities into Galaxy S24 smartphones.
The collaboration with Baidu will facilitate Samsung’s latest Galaxy S24 smartphone series with advanced features such as advanced typesetting, real-time call translation and intelligent summarization.
Samsung recently revealed its latest Galaxy S24 lineup with AI-powered features as it attempts to overtake the Apple iPhone.
In 2023 Apple became the biggest smartphone vendor by shipments in China for the first time.
Last year, Honor, a spin-off from Chinese company Huawei, held the second spot with almost a 17% market share, followed by Vivo, Huawei and then Oppo.
One of the biggest changes in 2023 was Huawei’s return to the top five in China in the Q4. The iphone has been one of the world’s best-selling selling products of all time.
Since the introduction of the Appleiphone in 2007 by Steve Jobs, its inventor and company joint founder, it has gone on to sell 2.3 billion and has over 1.5 billion ‘active’ users. Not bad for a product that investors initially called ‘dead on arrival’ due to lack of interest and sales.
Nokia 3310
In 2007 the Nokia 3310 was the clear market leader and easily king of the mobile phone market. Nokia sold 7.4 million units in 2007 – Apple sold just 1.4 million. Nokia was the ‘go to product’. But not for long.
Oh my, how things have changed. Apple is the now the world’s best-selling product (not just the world’s best-selling phone) – with Nokia and many others left trailing in the dust.
Apple app store
It was the apps that done it; having a product that could be any number of different ‘products’ in one and held in your hand was a game changer – and that changed the world.
The rest is history.
Apple share price chart from 1984 (the year the Apple Macintosh was introduced)
Apple share price chart from 1984 (the year the Apple mac was introduced)
Microsoft’s market cap surpassed $3 trillion in intraday trading Wednesday after the stock climbed more than 1% and hit around $404 per share. The stock lost some ground throughout the day to close at: $402 per share.
The achievement comes nearly two weeks after Microsoft eclipsed Apple as the world’s most valuable public company on 12th January 2024. However, Apple has reclaimed top spot – its market cap closed at around $3.01 trillion on Wednesday 24th January 2024.
Microsoft share price 24th January 2024 – $402.00, 1year chart
Microsoft share price 24th January 2024 – $402.00, 1 year chart
Microsoft shares are up more than 7% year to date as investors remain bullish about the company’s investments in artificial intelligence.
It is strongly expected that Microsoft will deliver good results in the Q2 earnings report, because of its leadership position gained in generative AI.
Microsoft due to announce Q2 figures on 30th January 2024
Microsoft due to announce Q2 figures on 30th January 2024
Bitcoin climbed to touch $49,000 after the SEC recently gave the go ahead for the Bitcoin ETF. The last time I checked it was at $39,000 (23rd January 2024). Oh, dear me – the dramatic pain of volatility.
Bitcoin volatility has increased after the launch of the first spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States. The price of Bitcoin (BTC) rocked wildly, reaching a high of $49,000 and a low of $46,000 in just hours of trading.
Liquidation
This caused liquidations of millions in the Bitcoin market. Some analysts predict that the ETFs will bring more institutional investors and liquidity to the Bitcoin market, while others warn of the risks and challenges of the new investment vehicle.
Bitcoin ETFs are funds that track the price of Bitcoin and trade on stock exchanges, allowing investors to gain exposure to Bitcoin without buying or storing it directly.
Bitcoin chart – 3 months 24th January 2024 at 15:26
Bitcoin chart – 3 months 24th January 2024 at 15:26
Leaders at some of the world’s leading artificial intelligence (AI) companies are expecting a form of AI on a par with, or even exceeding human intelligence to arrive sometime in the near future. But what it will eventually look like and how it will be applied are unknown.
Artificial General Intelligence or AGI is coming soon
Leaders from OpenAI, Microsoft and Google’s DeepMind, and many other major tech companies debated the risks and opportunities presented by AI at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2024.
AI has become the talk of ‘town’ around the world through 2023, mainly due to the success of ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular generative AI chatbot, brought to us by Microsoft. Generative AI tools, like ChatGPT, are powered large language models, algorithms trained on vast quantities of data, but are not AGI.
Executives at some of the world’s leading artificial intelligence companies see ‘artificial general intelligence,’ or AGI, a hypothesized form of AI with intelligence on a par or better than humans. This prospect is both exciting and worrying.
Concern
AI and AGI have created concern among governments, corporations and public consultation groups worldwide, owing to the risks around the lack of transparency of AI systems; social manipulation through computer algorithms; job losses due to increased automation; surveillance; and data privacy and worse… the lack of human control!
Extinction event possible
Many industry leaders in technology have warned that AI could lead to an ‘extinction-level’ event where machines become so powerful they get out of control and wipe out humanity.
A new powerful AI is coming but the techies have no clue as to what it will look like
Several prominent technology leaders, including Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak for example, have called for a pause in AI development, stating that a moratorium would be beneficial in allowing society to catch up.
Turing test
AI chatbots like ChatGPT have passed the Turing test, a test called the ‘imitation game,’ which was developed by British computer scientist Alan Turing to determine whether someone is communicating with a machine and a human. The one big area where AI is lacking is common sense.
It has been reported on many occasions, that the tech world is taking steps to ensure that the AI race doesn’t lead to a ‘Hiroshima moment.‘
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) reached a new high on 22nd January 2024, closing at 38,001.81 points
One year chart for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA)
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) reached a new high on 22nd January 2024, closing at 38,001.81 points
The index reached 38109.20 points in intraday trading. Recently the S&P500 and the Nasdaq set new highs.
The Dow
The Dow Jones is a market index that tracks the performance of 30 large US companies. It is also known as the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) or simply ‘the Dow’.
The DJIA is one of the oldest and most widely followed stock market indicators in the world. It reflects the health and sentiment of the U.S. economy and business sector.
The index was created in 1896 by Charles Dow and Edward Jones, who were journalists at The Wall Street Journal. The first calculation was done on 30th June 1896, with a base value of 40.
Some 128 years later, the index has a value of 38001 – a record high!
The S&P 500 index reached a new all-time high of 4,839.81 on Friday, January 19, 2024.
This was the first time the index closed above its previous high set January 3rd 2022. The rally was driven by strong earnings from the magnificent 7 tech giants such as Nvidia and Microsoft.
The expectation of a Fed interest rate cut later this year also helped the S&P500 break new ground.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index set a new record in nearly 34 years last week, breaking the 35000 barrier for the first time since February 1990. Its all-time high of 38915 was hit in December 1989? That’s a 35 year old record!
Some analysts think that the long-term prospects for the Japanese markets look good.
The Nikkei 225 index is a benchmark of the Japanese stock market. It is composed of 225 large companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The index has been fluctuating between 20000 and 30000 points for most of the past decade. It recovered from the lows of the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009.
According to some market strategists, the Nikkei 225 index could reach 40000 points in the next 12 months. Fundamentals are ‘pointing in the right direction’ and investor interest in Japan is increasing.
This would breach the Nikkei’s all-time high of 38915 reached in December 1989. However, others suggest the rally will struggle somewhere between 36000 and the all-time high. This suggest that much of the good news is already priced in.
I think I could probably have guessed that too. The Nikkei hasn’t reached the original high of 1989 for 35 years!
New rules and risk assessments for UK Crypto traders
Coinbase and Gemini, for example, are among cryptocurrency exchanges that now require U.K. users to fill out risk assessments. These questionnaires are designed to test their financial knowledge.
The measures are a response to new rules in the UK. The rules require crypto companies to clearly inform users of the risks involved in trading cryptocurrencies. If a customer fails to successfully complete the requests, they will be prevented from trading with their crypto account.
Risk warning
Crypto.com, Coinbase, Gemini and other cryptocurrency exchanges are warning UK users that they’ll need to complete investment questionnaires. Thes are aimed at testing their financial knowledge before being allowed to trade.
The companies have told UK users they are required to complete a declaration about what type of investor they are. Traders are required to respond to a set of questions on financial services to permit use of their platforms.
Clients’ declaration
In the client’s declaration section, users are asked to select their investor profile. A trader is directed to inform the company of their financial status.
Questions such as: are you a high-net-worth customer earning above £100,000 per annum or with a net worth of more than £250,000? Or, are you a ‘restricted investor’ who won’t invest more than 10% of their assets. If clients do not complete the requests, they are prevented from trading crypto related products.
The financial questionnaires, require users to respond to numerous questions about the range of products available. They want the client to fully understand the potential volatility of crypto assets.
Strict rules to protect the retail trader
Since the UK passed the Financial Services and Markets Act, companies that offer crypto assets and certain types of digital currency, known as stablecoins, are now covered by UK law.
These are the same rules as those that govern traditional financial services and are aimed at protecting the retail trader.
Bitcoin rose in volatile trading on Thursday 11th January 2024 after the Securities and Exchange Commission gave the green light for the first-ever spot Bitcoin ETFs to trade in the U.S.
Approval
The Bitcoin ETF approval is a massive achievement for the crypto industry as a whole, which first attempted to launch a Bitcoin ETF some 10 years ago.
Grayscale’s big legal win against the SEC in August 2023 over the regulator’s refusal to let it convert its popular Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into an ETF breathed fresh optimism into the idea.
Volatile
Following the SEC’s decision, Bitcoin’s value fell then gained some traction, as expected by traders. However, the volume of inflows into the new funds remains to be seen, Bitcoin ETFs are still widely expected to increase demand for the cryptocurrency and drive Bitcoin higher.
It would be unwise to make too much of these Bitcoin price moves in the short-term, but the approval is likely going to lead to some longer-term price increases. Now that the bitcoin ETF speculation has come to fruition it looks like traders may rotate to alternative cryptocurrencies such as Ether to prepare for future market developments.
Altcoin ETFs
The SEC is due to give decisions on spot ETH ETF applications beginning in May 2024. BlackRock, Invesco and Ark Invest are among the firms in line for approval, as well as Grayscale.
The opportunity to be in at the beginning will not want to be missed by these companies.
Bitcoin 7-day chart 6th January – 12th January 2024
Bitcoin 7-day chart from 6th January – 12th January 2024
After years of regulatory rejection, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday 10th January 2024 finally approved the Bitcoin EFT.
It has approved what are known as ‘spot’ Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), which can be purchased by anyone from pension funds to retail investors. This now means that some of the biggest asset managers in the world, including BlackRock and Fidelity can trade a crypto related ETF.
Now, instead of using a crypto asset exchange such as Binance, Coinbase or Kraken to purchase and hold a token like Bitcoin, traders can now trade a ‘spot’ Bitcoin ETF for direct exposure to the digital asset market.
It may also mean that investors could pay lower fees than they would if they bought the digital currency from a crypto exchange directly.
Basically, it is now cheaper than ever to buy Bitcoin – but is this positive for the long-term?
Crypto fans can now invest in Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) – but what exactly are they?
A Bitcoin ETF allows investors to buy a product that tracks the price of Bitcoin through the same method they already use to buy stocks and other existing products. This also reduces additional worry of managing their crypto related holdings, which typically involves maintaining a cryptocurrency wallet and a safe storage system to safeguard that investment.
But what exactly is an ETF?
ETFs are holdings or portfolios that allow investors to ‘bet’ on multiple assets, without having to buy any themselves. Traded on stock exchanges like shares, their value depends on how the overall portfolio performs in real time.
An ETF could comprise a combination of gold and silver bullion, for example, or a mixture of shares in both big technology and energy companies. Some ETFs already contain Bitcoin indirectly – but a spot Bitcoin ETF will buy the cryptocurrency directly, ‘on the spot’, at its current live price, throughout the trading day.
Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency
Based on an idea by someone called, Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency and remains the most valuable and famous to-date. Its price is often seen as a barometer for the whole industry of thousands of other coins (altcoins), tokens and products built on the same blockchain technology.
Art illustration of Bitcoin blockchain
And with an influx of new money, many expect a surge in interest in cryptocurrency technology in general.
How will the decision affect cryptocurrency adoption and is this decentralisation as originally intended?
Some say this decision shows the existing ‘old financial school’ establishment is finally taking Bitcoin seriously, at least as a speculative asset. For those who consider Bitcoin legitimate ‘digital gold’, what better proof could there be than the biggest wealth-management institutions flocking to buy, and now overseen by regulators?
Others say cryptocurrency is about rejecting traditional financial systems in favour of a decentralised, people-powered alternative. And investment bankers buying Bitcoin just to get rich on U.S. dollars is not what Satoshi Nakamoto had in mind.
But judging from the chatter on social media, the prevailing sentiment is expecting the new cash injection will make existing Bitcoin investors and owners rich.
What are the risks to future investors?
It is possible to lose all of your investment
The price of Bitcoin can change rapidly and often without warning or explanation – it is a volatile asset. So investors will need to be aware when investing in ETFs linked to a digital coin.
Art illustration of Bitcoin trading
But ETFs are often sold as high-risk, high-reward products anyway. It is EXTREMELY high risk – don’t do it if you don’t understand it and even if you do, or think you do – BE CAREFUL! These products can rip the shirt off your back!
Cyber-crime risk
Another potential risk is cyber-crime. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been the subject of huge and costly attacks that have seen crypto companies drained of sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars overnight. And if the likes of Blackrock become major holders of Bitcoin, their cyber-security will be tested in ways never before. Let’s hope their security systems are extremely robust.
Cost of mining coins
Another downside is the heavy cost to the environment is that Bitcoin use a massive number of powerful computers around the world, to process transactions on the blockchain ledger and to create coins – this is known as mining.
Renewable energy use is growing – but it remains to be seen how investment companies will tackle the environmental cost of Bitcoin.
Be careful
ETFs are here now – but BE CAREFUL when entering a Bitcoin related ETF trade or investment, or any type of ETF for that matter. If it goes wrong, you will lose your money, and quickly.
Bitcoin jumped briefly on Tuesday 9th January 2024 after a post on the U.S. markets SEC regulator’s ‘X’ account post said it had approved the Exchange-Traded Funds (ETF’s) in the cryptocurrency.
This was a big news event for the cryptocurrency community and for the wider investment world. Large and small investors have been eagerly awaiting this news for months. When it finally arrived, it turned out to be fake.
U.S. regulators are expected to make an announcement on the new ETF’s this week.
The social media platform ‘X’ refuted the accusation that its systems had been the reason for the ‘compromise’.
Fake post
The fake news post appeared on the SEC’s official X account shortly after 16:00 Washington time (21:00 GMT). It said the regulator ‘grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges.’ The post was immediately on the general social media radar and business news outlets.
SEC’s chair Gary Gensler quickly posted a message correcting the erroneous announcement on his personal ‘X’ account: “The @SECGov twitter account was compromised, and an unauthorized tweet was posted. The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded products.”
‘The SEC has determined that there was unauthorized access to and activity on the @SECGov x.com account by an unknown party for a brief period of time shortly after 4 pm ET. and that the unauthorized access has been terminated,’ it was reported.
Bitcoin jumped
Bitcoin jumped to touch $48,000 (£37,800) immediately after the erroneous post before falling back to around $45,500
Bitcoin jumped to ouch $48,000 (£37,800) immediately after the erroneous post before falling back to around $45,000
Investors are eagerly anticipating an SEC announcement on the potential approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs, which is expected this week.
It would mark a key milestone for the cryptocurrency market in gaining acceptance to mainstream financial markets.
The bumper festive period led to the High Street giant to raise its profit forecast by 5% to £960m for 2024. NEXT has about 460 outlets in the UK and Ireland.
The company also expects sales to grow by 3% in 2024/25 but warned that attacks on shipping in the Red Sea could cause delays and disruptions to its stock supply.
NEXT’s full price sales were up 5.7% in the nine weeks to 30th December, £38 million ahead of its previous guidance of 2%.
The company’s share price closed at: 8146.00 on 29th December 2023, as of 4th January 2024 the share price was: 8550.
Three months share price data for NEXT.
Is this an indication of better news for the UK high street in general?
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO and cofounder of Meta Platforms Inc., sold some $190 million worth of Meta shares in November 2023, and another $238 million in December 2023.
These were his first stock sales since 2021, when he sold $2.9 billion worth of shares.
Meta Platforms is one of the leading social media and technology companies in the world with its flagship platform Facebook.
Its stock price has surged by 166% in 2023, making it one of the best-performing stocks among the so-called ‘Magnificent Seven’ group of tech giants. Meta has also rebranded itself as a metaverse company, aiming to create a virtual reality platform that connects people across its various apps and devices.
Philanthropic – The Giving Pledge
Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have pledged to donate 99% of their Meta shares to charitable causes during their lifetimes, as part of the Giving Pledge initiative started by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.
They have also established the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic organization that focuses on education, health, science, and justice.
Bitcoin surged Monday and Tuesday 1st and 2nd January 2024, climbing above $45,000 to hit its highest level in nearly 21 months, as the rally in cryptocurrencies continues. Other cryptocurrencies have joined in the rally, with Ether and Solana both rising.
Traders are anticipating the potential approval of a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the U.S., as well as the upcoming Bitcoin ‘halving’ due to happen in May 2024.
For true cryptocurrency bulls, the most lucrative investments in 2023 were in the stock market.
While Bitcoin rallied over 150% for the year, shares of Coinbase, Marathon Digital, MicroStrategy and the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, which are all tied closely to the digital currency, did substantially better, rising more than 300% in value. Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital soared some 688%.
Outperform
Not only have these stocks outperformed primary cryptocurrency, but they’ve been among the biggest gainers across the whole U.S. stock market. In the universe of publicly traded U.S. businesses with a market value of at least $5 billion, the four Bitcoin-tied stocks were among the eight best performers, according to analysts.
Boom or bust?
The crypto boom represents a major recovery from 2022, when coin prices plummeted, taking related equities down with them. A year highlighted by hedge fund collapses, crypto lender failures and crippling losses at miners was punctuated in November 2022, when crypto exchange FTX spiralled into bankruptcy, leading to the arrest of founder Sam Bankman-Fried on fraud charges.
A jury in New York convicted Bankman-Fried on seven criminal counts
Bankman-Fried conviction
In 2023, a New York jury convicted Bankman-Fried on seven criminal counts, setting the 31-year-old former billionaire up for a possible long-stretch behind bars. Weeks later, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), founder of crypto exchange Binance, pleaded guilty and stepped down as the company’s CEO as part of a $4.3 billion settlement with the Department of Justice. He faces a possible prison sentence of 18 months or longer.
By the time of Bankman-Fried’s conviction and Zhao’s plea deal, the damage to the broader crypto market had mostly been realised, and investors were looking to the future. One of the biggest drivers for bitcoin this year was an easing of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes, which created a more attractive case for riskier assets, but only marginally.
Bitcoin halving due May 2024 & ETF’s
Prices were also bolstered by the upcoming Bitcoin halving, which takes place every four years and is scheduled for May 2024. In the halving process, the reward for mining is cut in half, capping the supply of bitcoin.
Additional buying was sparked by the potential for a flurry of bitcoin exchange-traded funds popping up in the new year.
Marathon
Among companies closely tied to Bitcoin, the best-performing stock this year was Marathon, a mining firm that just eclipsed that market cap level last week thanks to a 125% surge in December as of Tuesday’s close. On Wednesday, the shares surged another 15%.
Last year at this time, Marathon was hanging on by a thread. The company was in the midst of a quarter that ended with a loss of almost $400 million on sales of just $28.4 million because of tumbling bitcoin prices
Mining
Bitcoin mining is an expensive operation because of the high energy costs required to operate the supercomputers. A drop in bitcoin prices means a sharp reduction in the money producers make selling the coins they mine, even as their energy bills get little relief.
Outside of the mining universe, the best-performing crypto stock in the U.S. this year is Coinbase, which has soared some 386% into 2023 year end.
Coinbase
As the only major publicly traded crypto exchange in the U.S., Coinbase has long been a popular way to buy and trade cryptocurrencies in its home market. But with the struggles at Binance, the largest exchange in the world, Coinbase picked up useful market share during non-U.S. trading hours, according to a report from research firm Kaiko in late November 2023.
Binance is still open for business(Art illustration of a fictitious crypto trading room)
Shortly after Zhao’s plea deal, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong reportedly said that the news amounted to ‘a vindication of the long-term strategy that we’ve taken to focus on compliance, make sure we were building a trusted company.’
Coinbase’s revenue and stock price are still way below where they were during the heyday of crypto trading in 2021, when retail investors were jumping into the market to buy all sorts of digital currencies, including gimmicks like Dogecoin.
But the business has stabilized following drastic cost-cutting measures starting last year and extending into early 2023.
Tesla recalled more than two million cars in December 2023 after the U.S. regulator found its driver assistance system, Autopilot, was partly defective, it was reported.
It follows a two-year investigation into crashes which occurred when the tech was in use. The recall applies to almost every Tesla sold in the U.S. since the Autopilot feature was launched in 2015.
The update happens automatically and does not require a visit to a dealership or garage but is still referred to by the U.S. regulator as a recall.
The UK Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency reportedly said it was not aware of any safety issues involving Teslas in the UK, noting that cars sold in the UK are not equipped with all of the same features as cars in the U.S.
Chinese company, Build Your Dreams (BYD), has moved another step closer to over-taking Tesla as the world’s biggest-selling manufacturer of electric vehicles.
The firm said on Monday it had sold a record 526,000 battery-only vehicles in the last three months of 2023, aided by more than a 70% surge in sales in December 2023.
Tesla is scheduled to release its latest quarterly vehicle production and delivery figures before Wall Street opens on Tuesday.
For the year, BYD said it had sold more than 3 million new energy vehicles (NEVs), which includes battery-only vehicles and hybrids. Almost 1.6 million of its total sales were battery-only vehicles, the firm said.
Industry analysts have forecast that Tesla sold around 483,000 electric vehicles in the last three months of 2023 and 1.82 million for the year as a whole.
The Nasdaq and Dow hit new all-time highs in recent days and the S&P 500 is hot on their heels.
After nine straight days of gains, Wall Street suddenly reversed an hour and a half before the closing bell on Wednesday 20th December 2023.
The sell-off expanded into Asia overnight, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 leading losses, before stocks across Europe also slid into the red on the Thursday morning, 21st December 2023.
Some indicated Wednesday’s sell-off was as simple as investors taking profits after a nine-day mini bull run, in the absence of any obvious catalyst and with U.S. stocks widely seen as overbought.
Other market analysts pointed to a high volume of zero-day options trading as the death knell for the winning streak.
Time left for a Santa rally?
Markets have been on a tear in recent eeks and months, maybe it’s time for a breather. But some suggest U.S. equities are overbought in general – so, is this something more discerning?
Intel’s new chip will go head-to-head with Nvidia and AMD
Intel unveiled new computer microchips on Thursday 14th December 2023, including Gaudi3, a chip for generative AI software.
Intel also announced Core Ultra chips, designed for Windows laptops and PCs, and new fifth-generation Xeon server chips. Intel’s server and PC processors include specialized AI parts called NPUs that can be used to run AI programs faster.
AI race
AI models, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, run on Nvidia GPUs in the cloud. It’s one reason Nvidia stock has been up nearly 230% year to date while Intel shares have risen 68%. And it’s why companies like AMD and, now Intel, have announced chips that they hope will attract AI companies away from Nvidia’s dominant position in the market.
Gaudi3 will compete with Nvidia’s H100, the main choice among companies that build huge factories of the chips to power AI applications, and AMD’s forthcoming MI300X, when it starts shipping to customers in 2024.
CEO Gelsinger
‘We’ve been seeing the excitement with generative AI, the star of the show for 2023,’ Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger reportedly said at a launch event in New York where he announced Gaudi3 along other chips focused on AI applications.
Intel upping the anti with its Gaudi AI chip. The AI PC to become the new AI start of 2024 and beyond!
‘We think the AI PC will be the star of the show for the upcoming year,’ Gelsinger added. And that’s where Intel’s new Core Ultra processors, also announced on Thursday, will come into play.
