Market-leading chipmaker Nvidia, Inc ( $NVIDIA(NVDA)$ ) walked up to its first quarter (Q1) earnings for its Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 on the 28th of May with a warning that its total revenues will be taking a hit after the U.S. administration continued with a largely-bipartisan effort enacted over the course of the past five years to restrict sales of advanced technology to China by including its "China-specific" H20 chips with immediate effect. In the fortnight leading up to the Q1 2026 earnings release, the company's stock essentially held steady around the $124 level attained on the 14th of May. Traded volumes shrunk back from the highs seen in early April after President Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs were announced and followed by tightening c

When Tesla, Inc ( $Tesla Motors(TSLA)$ ) reported its first quarter (Q1) 2025 results on the 22nd of April, the company’s top and bottom lines both missed aggregate LSEG expectations, with reported revenue of $19.34 billion versus expectations of $21.11 billion and earnings per share of $0.27 cents (adjusted) versus expectations of $0.39. However, market reactions were decidedly different. If the S&P 500 ($S&P 500(.SPX)$) was to be considered as a proxy for broad market sentiment, then the conviction in Tesla’s stock can be summarized thus: in the week leading up to the earnings, broad market volumes mostly trumped that in Tesla. On the day before the earnings release and subsequently till the end

On the 17th of April, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (NYSE: $Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing(TSM)$) – the principal foundry for both Nvidia and AMD chips – announced its Q1 results. By all accounts, the company did well with 839.25 billion New Taiwan dollars (NT$) in revenue versus expectations of NT$ 835.13 billion and a net income of NT$361.56 billion versus an expectation of NT$354.14 billion. However, the general investing public hasn't been very enthusiastic about the stock over and above general market sentiment despite these solid earnings.  In fact, it displayed a near-constant underperformance relative to the broad market S&P 500 ($S&P 500(.SPX)$ ) both in the lead

As President Donald J. Trump emerged victorious in the 2024 election and prepared to begin his second term, his team informed European officials that he expects their respective countries to spend at least 5% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on building military capabilities.  As of 2024, it was estimated that virtually every country – even the U.S. – fell short of this target.  However, it bears noting that the U.S.' spending is significantly higher than that of almost every one of its European allies combined. Additionally, given the significant deployment of U.S. military assets over in Europe to buttress its defense from threats, it is intuitively logical that Europe could ideally stand to be more invested in its own defense (and an idea supported by many a U.S. think ta

The 2nd of April 2025 was proclaimed by President Trump as “Liberation Day” wherein the U.S. government announced a host of sweeping tariff hikes across the board with all of America's trading partners. These tariffs announced were by far the most sweeping set of hikes announced since the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. Perhaps, that which boggled the minds of most economists were the claims made about the "casus belli": tariffs being levied by other countries on U.S. goods, examples of which were shown to the media on a board wherein the first column were the names of select countries, the second column was titled "Tariffs Charged to the U.S.A. Including Currency Manipulation and Trade Barriers" and the third column was titled "U.S.A. Discounted Reciprocal Tariffs".Source: White H

While American chipmaker Nvidia's ($NVIDIA(NVDA)$) earnings release for Fiscal Year 2025 (FY 2025), that ended on the last day of January 2025, was positive as expected, the market's reaction was rather cool. On the day of the earnings release – the 25th of February – the stock had dipped 2.8% from the previous day's close. On the 26th, however, it rose 3.7% - essentially marking a mere 1% premium. On the 27th, it fell a staggering 8.5%.  Line item trends, while extremely encouraging at first blush, are heavy with nuance that seemingly explains why the majority of major market participants are "politely positive" as opposed to "uproariously bullish" on the stock's forward outlook. Trend Drilldown In overall terms, revenue trends are positive

China's Amazon equivalent (and a lot more), Alibaba Group Holding Limited ($Alibaba(BABA)$) is dual listed as an "American Depositary Share" in U.S. bourses and as a stock ($BABA-W(09988)$) in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX). The company's earnings release on the 20th of February marked the first three quarters ("9M") for its Fiscal Year 2025 (FY 2025). The resulting effect on the two tickers is fascinating: on the 20th, the U.S. ticker rose by 8% while the HKEX ticker fell by 3% over the previous day's close. On the 21st, both tickers rose by 6% and 15% respectively. On the 22nd, they fell by 10% and 2% respectively.  This form of performance imputed on a high-conviction mega-stock clearly

Since the release of its earnings for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 on the 13th of February through the 20th, the stock price of global cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Inc ($Coinbase Global, Inc.(COIN)$) has dropped by almost 14%. Going by line item trends, this flies in the face of overall trends.  Trend Drilldown Net revenues in FY 2024 saw a solid 115% increase in year-on-year (YoY) terms, along with some interesting line item trends being confirmed. Stablecoins see a retreat in revenue contributions, leading to a 11% reduction in the contribution of "Subscription and Services" to net revenue. "Transactions", meanwhile, saw a staggering 162% increase in revenues being contributed in early signs of 2022's highs hovering into sight for this segment

Server and storage solution manufacturer Super Micro Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ: $SUPER MICRO COMPUTER INC(SMCI)$) – better known as "Supermicro" – has been having a rough time of late. In October last year, their long-time auditor Ernst & Young ended their association, stating that it no longer had confidence in management’s statements and no longer wanted to be associated with the financial reports prepared. The company reported a month later that it has now retained BDO USA as its auditor to stay compliant with listing requirements at Nasdaq. Ernst & Young's decision was preceded by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) opening an investigation into the company following an exposé alleging "accounting manipulation" by now-defunct s

Over the past one year till date, the price performance of Bitcoin ($Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust(BTC)$) has been staggering, with a nearly 127% increase since the 14th of December last year till early trends on the 16th of December. This increase in interest (and valuation) is reflected in the rise of Coinbase Inc ( $Coinbase Global, Inc.(COIN)$) - the premier exchange of choice for a rising number of large institutional investors for all products crypto-related - wherein its stock has risen 109% in the same period.  Bitcoin vis-à-vis Fiat Currencies (Mostly the Dollar) Bitcoin has long been touted as a viable alternative - mostly the U.S. dollar in the face of U.S. government debt continuing to pile

American chipmaker Nvidia Inc's ($NVIDIA Corp(NVDA)$) earnings release for Q3 2024 (or "FY 2025" in their reporting convention) wasn't expected to be a disappointment and it certainly wasn't: adjusted earnings per share (EPS) came in at $0.81 cents against an expectation of $0.75 while revenue ran at $35.08 billion versus an expectation of $33.16 billion.  However, the share price instantly plunged 2% in after-hours trading and an overall "deceleration" in share price growth is being implied. The reasons for this are somewhat complex.  Trend Drilldown In terms of revenue, the company's line item trends have plenty to cheer. As one drills down through different layers, however, there is some signs of dampening.  Note: The a

Chinese “pure play” electric vehicle carmaker NIO Inc. ($NIO Inc.(NIO)$ or $NIO Inc.(NIO.SI)$ ) — a long-touted “Tesla Killer” — announced its second quarter (Q2) earnings for its Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 on the 5th of September. By no means was the stock a massive earner in the Year Till Date (YTD) until then. However, the stock had risen by a massive 47.35% from a month before the earnings release. Since the release and as of the 11th, the stock has held steady. Early trends for the 12th indicate a significant downturn in the single-digit percentage range. Interestingly, the bulk of the price accrual seen in the American Depositary Share (ADS) noticeably occurred during the first week of Se

Leading AI-relevant chipmaker Nvidia Inc's (ticker: $NVIDIA Corp(NVDA)$) earnings for its second quarter (Q2) beat analysts' consensus estimates by delivering $30.04 billion versus an expectation of $28.7 billion and adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.68 versus an expectation of $0.64. Despite projecting $32.5 billion in revenue over the current quarter versus expectations of $31.7 billion and Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress expressing confidence in the company being able to several billion dollars in value of its next-generation Blackwell products (currently being tested as samples) in its fourth quarter, the company's stock dropped by 8% in extended trading. When markets opened, the stock fell another 6.38%.

Over the course of the second quarter (Q2) of the calendar year, a number of institutional investors – with Scion Asset Management run by Michael Burry of "The Big Short" fame finding particular mention in the media – loaded up on shares of China search giant Baidu, Inc ( $Baidu(BIDU)$ in the U.S.; $BIDU-SW(09888)$ in HK) as it floundered. The stock has notably not been doing well over the course of the Year Till Date (YTD) and its Q2 earnings were decidedly mixed: while revenue did drop on a quarter-on-quarter basis by 0.4%, it delivered ¥33.93 billion ($4.67 billion) as opposed to analysts' average estimate of ¥33.55 billion.  There are likely several factors behind the uptick in share "buy-i

In 2019, Jack Ma, the "chief founder" of Alibaba Group Holding Limited (ticker: $Alibaba(BABA)$), Jack Ma, stepped down as chairman and gave way to co-founder Daniel Zhang Yong who rapidly went on to be enter the roster of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in 2020. Alibaba's sprawling business empire was long considered to be driven by those in the chairman's seat. This, however, changed in April 2023 when the company announced that it will split into 6 units - each of which will managed by its own CEO and board of directors. These units will be free to pursue independent fundraising and a public listing. Taiwanese-Canadian lawyer and long-time Hong Kong resident Joseph Chung-Hsin Tsai – who left a $700,000-a-year job with Sweden's Walle

San Jose-headquartered Super Micro Computer, Inc ($SUPER MICRO COMPUTER INC(SMCI)$ ) - better known as "Supermicro" - had been in operation for a long time and was relatively unmarkable in that it was just one of a number of companies building servers and storage systems for computing hardware (among other server-related areas). The company doesn't manufacture chips, per se, but rather assembles the server around a chipmaker's products in the most efficient manner. The founder, Charles Liang, holds several patents in server technology and the company went on to become one of the largest producers of high-performance and high-efficiency servers. His wife was the treasurer until 2019 (she remains on the board of directors) and his brothers run

Denver-based Palantir, Inc ($Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$) released its Q2 earnings after markets closed on the 5th of August. While analysts had estimated earnings per share (EPS) at $0.08 on revenue of $653 million, the company's actual EPS of $0.09 were earned on the back of revenues of $678 million. Immediately following the earnings, the stock surged during both extended trading on the 5th as well as early trading on the 6th. On the 6th alone, it closed 10% higher. As it stands, trends as of the first half (H1) of the year have several milestones seemingly on the verge of being made.  Trend Drilldown 2023 was a transformative year for the company's fortunes, with H1 2024 performance showing early trends

On the 18th of July, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company ( $Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing(TSM)$), the principal foundry for both Nvidia ($NVIDIA Corp(NVDA)$) and AMD ($Advanced Micro Devices(AMD)$) chips, announced its Q2 results. At 673.51 billion New Taiwan dollars (NT$) in revenue versus expectations of NT$657.58 billion and a net income of NT$247.85 billion versus an expectation of NT$238.8 billion, it could be argued there is cause for cheer. However, an increasing number of investors have concerns for the sector as a whole.  Trend Drilldown At first blush, the line item trends for the first six months of 2024 are generally positive

Banks are recession favorites for a number of good reasons: when rates stay high, lending activities generate greater revenue. When crunch times hit businesses, advisory services regarding restructuring, debt underwriting, et al. generate greater revenue. Banks tend to be "value" investments; there's often very little by way of costly technology accruing obsolescence or over-planned facilities (beyond a handful of very nice HQs). The head honchos' cleaver tends to run swift and true if "deadweight" needs to be shed deadweight, whatever said weight tends to be. The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. ($Goldman Sachs(GS)$) stands very tall among all its peers numbering in the tens of thousands around the world: as per the Financial Stability Board established b