Author: starbpo

Deutsche Bank says that Reddit Inc.’s new deal with OpenAI is likely a sign of how much demand there is for the social media platform’s data. The partnership was announced by Reddit (RDDT, +10.04%) and OpenAI late Thursday night. OpenAI is getting access to Reddit’s Data API and the social media site is adding its content to OpenAI’s ChatGPT service. As part of the deal, Reddit will also give its users and moderators access to new features that are powered by AI. OpenAI will also become a partner for advertising on Reddit. Benjamin Black, an equity research analyst at Deutsche…

Investors will once more think about the long term when Nvidia Corp. reports its earnings next week. Oppenheimer Rick Schafer said that it’s pretty clear that the company is seeing “insatiable” demand for AI accelerators. He also said that he and most others expect Nvidia NVDA, -1.99% to report another beat-and-raise quarter when it reports quarterly earnings on Wednesday afternoon. But Wall Street doesn’t seem to care as much about the present now that Nvidia is getting ready to ship its new Blackwell chip line later this year. Jefferies analyst Blayne Curtis wrote, “The bar is quite high for NVDA,…

BlackRock said in a Friday client note that changes to how the Federal Reserve handles one of the most important treasure troves of assets in the world pose “underappreciated” risks to the financial markets. Early in May, the Federal Reserve said it would change how quickly it tries to reduce its $7.3-trillion balance sheet starting June 1. This change was “barely a side note” in the financial markets, according to Tom Becker, portfolio manager at BlackRock’s Global Tactical Asset Allocation team. BlackRock BLK, +0.56%, on the other hand, saw it as a big deal. In the first quarter, it had…

Does the economy seem to be going in the right direction? Investors on Wall Street think so for sure. This week, they pushed U.S. stocks to a new high. Why all the hope? One good thing about April is that inflation didn’t get worse. Wall Street and the Federal Reserve were shocked when inflation shot up in the first three months of the year. Last month, Americans also spent less at stores, which some saw as a sign that the economy is slowing down. Of course, most people don’t think it’s a good thing when the economy slows down. But…

Paul McCartney of The Beatles is a billionaire. The ex-member of the Fab Four is the first British musician to be worth 1 billion pounds ($1.27 billion), according to numbers released on Friday. According to the Sunday Times Rich List, the musician’s and his wife Nancy Shevell’s wealth has grown by 50 million pounds since last year. This is because of McCartney’s 2023 Got Back tour, the rising value of his back catalog, and Beyonce’s cover of The Beatles’ “Blackbird” on her “Cowboy Carter” album. “Now and Then,” the “last” Beatles song, came out in November and topped the charts…

Donald Trump’s plans for taxes and spending during his proposed second term in office make it sound like he doesn’t mind if the federal budget deficit gets to levels that have never been seen before. He wants to spend more than $5 trillion to cut taxes on businesses even more and make permanent the tax cuts Republicans made for individuals in 2017. But not as much attention has been paid to how much his plans to deport a lot of illegal immigrants could cost the government. Trump has said he will start “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”…

TUSCALOOSA, Alabama — A lot of workers at two Mercedes-Benz factories near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, voted on Friday not to join the United Auto Workers. This was a setback for the union’s efforts to organize plants in the South, which has a history of not having unions. Unofficial results released by the UAW show that 56% of workers voted against the union. The UAW had people watching the vote as it was counted by the National Labor Relations Board. About 5,200 people who worked at an auto-assembly plant and a battery factory in and around Vance, Alabama, not far from Tuscaloosa,…

IN ATLANTA — President Joe Biden will have the most direct interaction with college students since the start of the Israel-Hamas war when he gives the commencement address at Morehouse College. The college is a hub for Black politics and culture. Atlanta is the largest city in Georgia, a swing state that Biden took from President Trump four years ago. This is where Morehouse is located. Biden’s speech on Sunday comes as the Democrat tries to connect with young Black men, who are a key and symbolic group of voters, and fix the coalition of different groups that helped him…

Even though the U.S. stock market has gone up this year, Cathie Wood’s Ark Innovation ETF is having a hard time. According to DataTrek Research, the fund probably won’t get a bid until the Federal Reserve starts cutting interest rates. “Heavily weighted toward struggling disruptive tech themes that have yet to return to their winning pandemic ways,” said Jessica Rabe, co-founder of DataTrek, in an email Friday. “Even though the S&P and Nasdaq just made all-time highs.” At the last check, FactSet data showed that shares of the Ark Innovation ETF ARKK have dropped more than 13% so far this…

Bank of America strategists say that since April 2020, the total return on 30-year bonds has dropped by 45%. This is the biggest drop in four years in more than 100 years. Over the past 30 years, the BX:TMUBMUSD30Y has not done very well. This is because of high inflation (which has slowed down some) and a lot of government spending. In the 1990s and 2010s, the economy was a “2+2=4” economy, which means that 2% growth plus 2% inflation equals 4% nominal GDP growth. Now, according to Bank of America strategists led by Michael Hartnett, the economy is a…