Stocks Rebound On Muted Monday

If you opened Google News this morning and switched to the business tab, you saw a lot of AI news. 🙄

Whether it’s a good day in the market. A bad day in the market. Or a “meh” day in the market. Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to reign supreme. Let’s review some of the top headlines from today so you’re all caught up. 👇

First up is Amazon, investing up to $4 billion in artificial intelligence firm Anthropic, a rival to OpenAI. The company was founded about two years ago by former OpenAI research executives and recently debuted its AI chatbot called Claude 2.

Amazon is looking to position itself as the one-stop shop for AI, designing its own chips for training huge AI models. Amazon Bedrock customers can also create their own generative AI applications on Amazon Cloud, and the company also sells its own AI applications. 🌥️

Its minority ownership stake creates a strategic collaboration to advance generative AI, with the startup using Amazon Web Services as its primary cloud provider. It will also use custom AWS-designed semiconductors to train its foundational models that create its AI applications. Meanwhile, AWS customers will receive early access to unique features for model customization and fine-tuning.

Next up is Wall Street going all in on Microsoft, as Guggenheim becomes the last analyst to move its sell rating on the stock up to neutral. As for the catalyst, it cited that generative AI is “too positive a force to contend with…” though it remains unclear how much monetization it will drive and when.

Roughly 90% of the analysts tracked by Bloomberg have a buy rating on Microsoft, while the rest have a hold rating. Those are some big shoes to fill for a stock that’s had a strong 2023 so far. 🔺

Meanwhile, Snapchat found a new advertising partner in Microsoft for the ads it’s using in its AI products. The “Microsoft Advertising’s Ads for Chat API” will allow Snap’s “Sponsored Links” to connect users with relevant partners related to their conversation, allowing advertisers to reach customers right as they’re showing interest in their product or service.

And lastly, Getty Images has created an AI image generator that uses only its licensed images. Through its development partnership with Nvidia, it’s hoping this product can help tackle the copyright and ownership concerns that have plagued the AI content space so far. The company was previously at the center of this controversy, suing Stability AI for using its images without permission in its image generator called “Stable Diffusion.” 🖼️

Rain or shine, AI is on the mind. We will continue to keep you updated as more news rolls in. 👍

The world’s eighth-largest aluminum maker, Alcoa, threw investors for a loop on Monday, unexpectedly announcing a new chief executive officer (CEO). 😮

Roy Harvey has led the company since November 2016, when it went public, and will remain a strategic adviser until the end of 2023. He’ll be replaced by William Oplinger, who has served as executive vice president and chief operations officer (COO) since February of this year.

Although the company says this reflects its “succession planning process,” the market seemingly did not expect a change. However, it’ll likely have to wait until the company reports third-quarter results in mid-October for more color on the change and potential impacts. 📝

$AA shares fell 6% on the day to fresh 2.5-year lows. It has now given back 70% of its October 2020 to March 2022 gains. 😬

Other companies in its space have not fared particularly well this year either. Although the commodity sector has performed well in aggregate, most of the strength has come from energy and agriculture. The chart below shows the base metals ETF lagging its peers year-to-date, falling nearly 5%. 📉

We’ll have to wait and see if things improve. However, the global economy slowing down will remain a headwind for the group, including copper, aluminum, and zinc. 🤷