PayPal Pops Ahead Of Key Event

It’s been a rough few years for payment giant PayPal, with shares falling 85% peak-to-trough. Recently, the stock has begun to rebound with other beaten-down tech names but remains about 80% below all-time highs. In other words, it would need to nearly 5x its share price to reach those levels again. 📈

While that may seem a ways off, investors have recently pushed shares to their best three-day run since the end of 2022. That’s because the company promised to roll out new “customer-backed innovation” at an event next Thursday, with its new CEO Alex Chriss saying, “It is very clear what we need to do.”

Fundamental analysts remain skeptical, focused on the industry’s high competition and PayPal’s inability to execute its plans over the last few years. More specifically, concerns about profitability remain as lower-margin businesses like unbranded checkout become a larger portion of its revenue.

Still, some longer-term investors and traders are finding reason to be optimistic, especially from a technical perspective. 💡

Stocktwits user Professorr was all over the recent move and thinks it could just be getting started. He shared his analysis with the community below, highlighting a technical pattern called a “falling wedge” and positive momentum divergence. With prices closing above this pattern’s downtrend line, technical analysts will look for follow-through next week to confirm that bulls have taken control. 🐂

Others in the Stocktwits community appear to agree with at least part of that bullish thesis. Sentiment readings pushed to “extremely bullish” as message activity rose sharply, making $PYPL the eighth most newly-watched on the platform today. 👀

Whether or not the company can deliver on the hype remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: investors are excited about the prospect of change in both the stock market and underlying business.

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All About Artificial Intelligence (AI)

It was another busy day for artificial intelligence (AI) news, with three U.S. tech giants unveiling new information and C3.ai reporting earnings. 📰

Let’s quickly cover the more concise news before jumping into earnings, starting with Google launching its new AI model that it hopes will take down GPT-4. CEO Sundar Pichai said that Google is entering a new era of AI: the Gemini era. 

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A Chip Off The Holiday News Flow

It’s a slow week in the market, but as usual, there’s some news out of the semiconductor space. Let’s take a look. 👀

First up is Israel granting Intel $3.2 billion to support the company’s biggest investment in the country. Intel will not only build a $25 billion factory that creates thousands of jobs but will also buy $16.6 billion in goods and services from Israeli suppliers over the next decade. It is anticipated that the plant will open in 2028 and operate through at least 2035. 🏭

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AI’s Copyright Crisis Begins

We all knew copyright law would be a key issue at the heart of the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, but we didn’t know when. Well, the time has come. ⌛

Today, The New York Times filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI, accusing them of infringing copyright and abusing the newspaper’s intellectual property. In its court filing, the publisher said it looks to hold the two companies accountable for the “unlawful copying and use of The Times’s uniquely valuable works,” claiming billions in statutory and actual damages.

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Epic Wins A “Victory Royale” Against Google

It’s been three years since Fornite-maker Epic Games sued Apple and Google for allegedly running illegal app store monopolies. And despite losing a similar battle against Apple, the game-maker has secured a win against Google. 🏆

The jury in Epic v. Google delivered its unanimous decision after just a few hours of deliberation. They found a few key things:

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