On Tuesday, Inuvo, Inc. (NYSE:INUV) reported preliminary unaudited revenue results for the fourth quarter of 2024.
Inuvo is projecting revenue of approximately $26 million for Q4 2024, a 26% year-over-year increase from the $20.8 million reported in Q4 2023. The Wall Street expectation is $25.7 million.
The company said the growth would set a new record as the highest quarterly revenue in its history.
Richard Howe, CEO of Inuvo, stated, “As discussed during our third-quarter conference call, we anticipated a double-digit increase in fourth-quarter revenue as well as a near breakeven adjusted EBITDA for the quarter. While the audit of our results has not yet been completed, we believe the optimism we expressed in November was well-founded.”
The company offers IntentKey, a large-language generative AI that can identify and target audiences without consumer data, tracking, or cookies while outperforming competitors.
This advanced AI empowers marketers with Inuvo’s audience discovery and targeting technology, which can be implemented as a managed service and/or self-service.
Revenue for the three months ended September 30, 2024, was $22.4 million, a 23% sequential increase in revenue for Q3 2024 compared to Q2 2024.
Price Action: INUV stock closed 6.36% higher to $0.47 at the last check on Tuesday.
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Melius Research analyst Ben Reitzes downgraded Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) from Buy to Hold and lowered the price target from $160 to $129.
Reitzes writes he should have rerated AMD 10 months ago after an epic run for AMD (up over 40% at one point in first-quarter of 2024) and it has nothing to do with DeepSeek.
The analyst cut numbers on GPUs on January 6, and the stock actually went up 3%, so a guide on disappointing MI300 sales for 2025 is already expected.
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He is now more cautious on x86 servers and PCs as well over the long term for AMD.
Reitzes noted that Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) is going to increasingly “come for them” in both markets with its Arm-based CPUs that are optimized for “accelerated PCs.”
Also, the analyst is increasingly concerned that custom and Nvidia CPUs will cannibalize even more of the x86 server market in the long term, even though AMD’s current chip, Turin, is doing well. As a result, he slashed his estimates again and is now well below consensus.
Reitzes’ estimates reflect lower total revenues in PC and server CPUs and slightly lower operating margins due to the mix, specifically in the Data Center segment.
For 2024, the analyst maintained an EPS estimate of $3.33, which reflects revenue growth of 13% Y/Y to $25.6 billion, including Data Center growth of 98% to $12.9 billion (including $5.1 billion in AI GPU sales) and operating margins of 24.2%.
This estimate reflects fourth-quarter 2024 EPS of $1.10, based on revenue growth of 22% to 7.5 billion, including $1.9 billion in AI GPU sales. However, the analyst now estimates 2025 EPS of $4.54 (was recently cut to $4.91), reflecting revenue growth of 19% Y/Y to $30.5 billion (was 22% and $31.4 billion), including Data Center growth of 32% to $17 billion (was 39% and $17.9 billion) and operating margins of 27.6% (was 29.0%).
Reitzes now estimates 2026 EPS of $5.75 (was $6.45), reflecting revenue growth of 17% Y/Y to $35.5 billion (was 19% and $37.3 billion) including Data Center growth of 24% to $21.1 billion (was 25% and $22.4 billion) and operating margins of 29.6% (was 31.6%).
Reitzes now estimates 2027 EPS of $6. 1 (was $7.98) reflecting revenue growth of 12% Y/Y to $39.9 billion (was 15% and $42.9 billion), including Data Center growth of 18% to $24.9 billion (was 20% and $26.8 billion) and operating margins of 30.7% (was 33.4%).
Reitzes noted that the new estimates reflect lower PC CPU revenue growth to 7% in fiscal 2026 (from 10%) and 3% in fiscal 2027 (from 9%), as well as lower traditional data, enter sales growth of 20% in 2026 (from 21%) and 15% in 2027 (from 16%).
Price Action: AMD stock is down 0.74% at $114.15 at the last check Tuesday.
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In 2014, global recorded music revenues hit $13 billion. Spotify Technology’s (NYSE:SPOT) annual contribution at the time was around $1 billion, with about 15 million paying subscribers.
In 2024, Spotify alone paid a record $10 billion to the music industry, totaling about $60 billion since its founding.
Today, there are over 500 million paying listeners across all music streaming services. The company believes that the goal of 1 billion paying listeners is very likely.
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Spotify reported third-quarter EPS of $1.59, which missed the analyst consensus estimate of $1.84. The company reported quarterly sales of $4.38 billion (versus $3.65 billion a year ago), topping the analyst consensus estimate of $4.31 billion. Premium subscribers grew 12% to 252 million.
Goldman Sachs analyst Eric Sheridan flagged Spotify’s moat in global audio, user engagement, and margin boost post-2023 restructuring. Sheridan expects Spotify to progress toward more consistent and sustained capital returns in 2025.
Meanwhile, Spotify collaborated with Universal Music Group on Monday. JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth noted that the company’s differentiated freemium model leads to subscriber conversions.
Price Action: Spotify stock surged over 139% in the last 12 months. Investors can gain exposure to the stock through First Trust International Equity Opportunities ETF (NASDAQ:FPXI) and First Trust Dow Jones International Internet ETF (NASDAQ:FDNI).
Price Action: Spotify stock is up 1.68% at $522.59 at the last check on Tuesday.
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On Tuesday, Silexion Therapeutics Corp. (NASDAQ:SLXN) released new preclinical data for SIL-204, its next-generation siRNA therapeutic candidate.
- SIL-204, administered in an extended-release formulation, reduced tumor growth by ~50% after 30 days, with ~50% of tumors showing complete necrosis in human pancreatic tumors harboring a G12D mutation xenografted into mice.
- SIL-204 administered subcutaneously inhibited tumor growth in mouse metastatic pancreatic orthotopic models.
- A single systemic administration of SIL-204 maintained effective drug levels in rat plasma and tissues for over 56 days.
- SIL-204 inhibits key oncogenic KRAS mutations, including G12D, G12V, G12R, Q61H, and G13D.
- Intratumoral administration of SIL-204 microparticles reduced tumor cell numbers by ~3-fold, tumor area by ~1.5-fold, and increased tumor necrosis by ~5-fold after 15 days in human pancreatic cancer xenograft harboring a KRAS G12V mutation in mice.
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The findings contribute to validating systemic administration as an effective delivery approach, demonstrating significant tumor growth reduction in orthotopic pancreatic cancer models.
While the current data shows robust tumor growth inhibition, further studies aim to evaluate its impact on metastases, which the company is cautiously optimistic about.
The company is exploring how this promising data can inform an expanded next-generation treatment strategy for KRAS-driven cancers. It expects to announce details of its expanded development plan shortly.
Price Action: SLXN stock is up 130.2% at $1.33 at last check Tuesday.
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On Tuesday, SAB BIO (NASDAQ:SABS) released topline data from a Phase 1 trial of SAB-142 in a single-ascending dose among healthy volunteers.
The study met its primary safety and pharmacodynamic activity objectives, enabling SAB-142 to advance to Phase 2b clinical development.
- Favorable Safety Profile: SAB-142 was generally well-tolerated and demonstrated a favorable safety profile that supports its chronic dosing in an ambulatory setting.
- The SAB-142 Phase 1 dose range was between 0.03mg/kg and 2.5mg/kg, which demonstrated a favorable safety profile based on the 0% reported serum sickness and anti-drug antibodies.
- Sustained Immunomodulation: SAB-142 demonstrated a clinically validated multi-target MOA with sustained immunomodulation.
- MoA Analogous to Rabbit ATG: The mechanism of action (MoA) of SAB-142 was shown to be analogous to rabbit ATG.
- The SAB-142 MoA was shown to be analogous to rabbit ATG across multiple parameters correlative to C-peptide preservation.
Based on the data, SAB BIO plans to advance SAB-142 into a Phase 2b trial in 2025 to evaluate the therapeutic candidate in adult and pediatric patients with new-onset type 1 diabetes (T1D).
In November 2023, the company announced that the first HUMAN trial participants had been dosed in Australia.
This Phase 1 randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, single-ascending dose, adaptive design clinical study was designed to assess the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics of intravenous SAB-142 in healthy volunteers and participants with T1D.
Price Action: SABS stock is down 50.2% at $2.17 at last check Tuesday.
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BofA Securities analyst Vivek Arya previewed fourth-quarter earnings for semiconductor capital equipment (semicap), where reporting kicks off with ASML Holding (NASDAQ:ASML), Lam Research Corp (NASDAQ:LRCX) on January 29 and KLA Corp (NASDAQ:KLAC) on January 30.
Subsector sentiment has broadly improved year-to-date, but Arya noted multiple nuances further complicated by the fallout from DeepSeek’s possible breakthrough. On one hand, the analyst noted risks like lower AI-related spending if DeepSeek’s R1 translates to lower compute demand for LLMs, capex cuts across memory (Micron Technology, Inc (NASDAQ: MU), SK Hynix, Samsung) and Samsung Foundry and consensus estimates still appear high relative to industry growth expectations.
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However, and more positively, he noted if DeepSeek means inference is more economical to perform at the edge, it could catalyze a PC/smartphone device upgrade cycle, which would support leading-edge Wafer Fab Equipment (WFE), December’s China export restrictions less onerous than expected, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (NYSE:TSM) calendar 2025 capex beat & long-term AI sales CAGR of +40% (positive for complexity drivers), and Intel Corp (NASDAQ:INTC) capex plans intact.
Amidst these moving parts, Arya noted that his $105 billion WFE view for calendar 2025 still holds and that he expects more alignment on these issues with upcoming reports. Given constructive recent data points for leading-edge foundry/logic and HBM spend, Arya raised his price targets for KLA Corp to $840 from $800, Nova Ltd (NASDAQ:NVMI) to $270 from $245, and Camtek Ltd (NASDAQ:CAMT) to $100 from $95, and reiterated his positive thesis for the cohort given tech inflection-led growth and strong free cash flow generation.
Arya also raised China WFE this year to $31.5 billion (now down -15% Y/Y) as local Chinese semicaps gain share. The analyst noted that leading-edge foundry/logic and HBM spending are the most robust and favor exposure there.
Consensus estimates for the top 5 semicaps model 10% Y/Y combined growth for calendar 2025 versus 12% Y/Y in early December. While expectations appear more reasonable, this is still above Arya’s +5% WFE forecast. Ex-ASML, top semicap growth is 8% (versus 11% prior). The analyst’s combined forecast for Applied Materials, Inc (NASDAQ:AMAT), Lam Research and KLA Corp are +7.2% Y/Y.
Even after the DeepSeek sell-off, semicap stocks have outperformed the sector year-to-date with Nova Ltd (+13%), KLA Corp (+12%), Applied Materials (+10%), Camtek Ltd (+6%), and Lam Research (+5%) all ahead of the SOX (down 3% year-to-date).
Valuation ranging from 19-30 times NTM P/E has been re-rated to catch up with emerging anticipations for WFE growth, but it is still attractive given that $150 billion WFE by calendar 2030-32 implies +7.5% long-term CAGR, tech inflection-led growth accelerates calendar 2025, and superior 20%- 36% FCF margins versus a median of 14% for S&P 500 industrial companies.
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Wall Street analysts rerated NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) after U.S. tech stocks plunged Monday as Chinese open-source artificial intelligence platform DeepSeek made the market jittery over the AI technology investment prospects in the U.S. tech firms.
Tigress Financial analyst Ivan Feinseth upgraded Nvidia from Buy to Strong Buy and raised the price target from $170 to $220.
DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria maintained a Hold rating on Nvidia with a price target of $135.
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Tigress Financial: Nvidia continues as a core holding in the powerful AI investing theme and the industry-leading beneficiary of significant capital investment in AI development. This drives the ongoing acceleration of AI adoption across all industries and enterprises, which will continue to drive substantial revenue and cash flow growth, as well as better shareholder value creation, viewing yesterday’s sell-off as a significant buying opportunity.
DeepSeek’s models were trained on less advanced Nvidia chips, leading to a significant drop in the stock value. However, the capabilities of DeepSeek’s R1 AI model are unknown, and there are tremendous concerns about security.
Most importantly, AI and the data centers it runs on will require a multiyear ongoing investment in buildout and development.
Nvidia will be a key beneficiary as it continues to be the number one supplier of AI-driving GPUs and introduces more advanced and powerful GPUs, including its current Blackwell line of processors and the upcoming Vera Rubin processors.
Expectations for aggregate AI-driven and data center development capital investment should exceed $330 billion this year, from just under $250 billion in 2024 to over $400 billion next year.
Nvidia highlighted multiple new product launches at CES 2025 in Las Vegas earlier this month.
In November, Nvidia reported another quarter of strong results. Demand for its industry-leading AI-enabling GPUs remains incredibly strong, and it continues to support the powerful AI-driven investment theme.
DA Davidson: DeepSeek R1 has just lowered the market price for best-in-class intelligence, and as a result, OpenAI is reacting costlyly. Sam Altman announced on X that OpenAI would give non-paying users “hundreds” of free queries a week to their upcoming o3-mini model.
Analyst Luria noted the cost of providing such a service for free would be in the hundreds of millions a week, with his base case assuming $677 million in inference cost per week. Luria noted the most underappreciated takeaway of R1 is the visibility of its reasoning tokens.
Another reason Luria noted sentiment shifting drastically in favor of DeepSeek over OpenAI is the inability to see o1’s reasoning tokens despite paying for them at the $60 per million token cost.
DeepSeek already released a leading text-to-image model, Janus-Pro-7B, that outperforms Stable Diffusion and DALL-E 3.
Thus, Luria noted OpenAI’s only move is to out-innovate open-source labs faster and find a way to lower inference costs if they are to prevail.
While Luria is aware of skepticism about DeepSeek’s training cluster size, he noted this as pure speculation with little evidence to back it.
In China, DeepSeek is not alone; Luria flagged developments from Qwen (Alibaba), Doubao (ByteDance), Kimi,and MiniMax as just some of the labs that have released leading models over the past few weeks. Luria expects a flurry of responses from American labs as a response to R1 shortly.
NVDA Price Action: Nvidia stock is up 7.44% at $127.23 at publication Tuesday.
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On Tuesday, Leap Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:LPTX) released initial data from Part B of the DeFianCe Phase 2 study of sirexatamab (DKN-01) in combination with bevacizumab and chemotherapy as a second-line treatment for advanced colorectal cancer (CRC).
The 188-patient Part B of the study showed that patients treated with sirexatamab plus bevacizumab and chemotherapy (experimental arm) had an objective response rate (ORR) of 35% and a disease control rate (DCR) of 86%, compared to an ORR of 23% and DCR of 84% in patients treated with bevacizumab and chemotherapy alone.
- Across the population with left-sided primary tumors (n=144):Patients treated in the Experimental Arm (n=71) had an ORR of 38%, compared to an ORR of 25% in the Control Arm (n=73)
Leap expects to report additional data as it matures in 2025.
Sirexatamab plus bevacizumab and chemotherapy was well-tolerated, without additive toxicity to the standard of care.
The company also released initial data from Part C of the DisTinGuish Phase 2 study of sirexatamab in combination with BeiGene Ltd’s (NASDAQ:ONC) tislelizumab and chemotherapy in first-line patients with advanced gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) and gastric cancer.
While demonstrating activity in biomarker populations, the study did not generate a clear positive signal. It will be negative on the primary progression-free survival (PFS) endpoints when the study is completed, resulting in the decision not to proceed with Phase 3 studies in gastric cancer.
- Across the ITT population (n=170), patients treated with sirexatamab plus tislelizumab and chemotherapy (Experimental Arm, n=85) had a confirmed ORR of 52% by both investigator assessment (IA) and Blinded Independent Central Review (BICR), while patients treated with tislelizumab and chemotherapy alone had a confirmed ORR of 56% by IA and 42% by BICR.
- In the ITT population, the preliminary median PFS in the Experimental Arm was 9.72 months by BICR and 7.66 months by IA, compared to 11.99 months by BICR and 10.41 months by IA in the Control Arm. The median PFS for tislelizumab plus chemotherapy in the Phase 3 Rationale-305 study was 6.9 months.
Price Action: LPTX stock is down 78.80% at $0.66 at last check Tuesday.
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IT hardware stocks have dropped following the DeepSeek news.
Despite the plunge, BofA Securities analyst Wamsi Mohan likes stocks such as Corning Inc (NYSE:GLW), Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co (NYSE:HPE), Western Digital Corp (NASDAQ:WDC), Seagate Technology Holdings PLC (NASDAQ:STX), IBM (NYSE:IBM) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) for various idiosyncratic reasons.
The analyst focused largely on non-AI-themed stocks that have specific catalysts.
Corning: The analyst noted that Corning’s key drivers include a cyclical recovery in its optical business, growth in Lumen/BEAD programs, solar opportunities, stable display profitability and its upcoming Investor Day on March 18.
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Hewlett Packard: The company’s key drivers are the Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) acquisition and synergies, IT spending recovery and cost-cutting initiatives, with AI server exposure not factored into the valuation.
The analyst anticipates Hewlett Packard will experience a pro-forma EPS increase of 8% for 2026, excluding synergies, and 18% with $350 million in cost synergies.
Western Digital: The company’s key driver is the upcoming spin-off, which is expected to unlock value between $5-$10 billion.
Seagate Technology: The firm’s key drivers include the ramp-up of HAMR, higher gross margins from high-capacity drives, and sustained data center spending.
Apple: The tech behemoth’s key drivers include the iPhone SE launch, insourcing the modem for higher margins, WWDC with AI use cases, and iPhone 17 in Sept 2025.
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BofA Securities analyst Andrew Obin has provided his view about the implication of DeepSeek on multi-industrial stocks and reiterated a Buy rating on the shares of Vertiv Holdings Co (NYSE:VRT), GE Vernova Inc (NYSE:GEV) and Eaton Corporation PLC (NYSE:ETN) with a price forecast of $165, $485 and $410 respectively.
In December, Chinese startup DeepSeek introduced its latest AI model, DeepSeek-V3, which has shown comparable performance to OpenAI’s GPT-4 across various benchmark tests, noted the analyst.
According to the analyst, Investors are wary that this technological breakthrough could result in reduced spending on AI infrastructure and power generation.
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DeepSeek’s inference costs ($/million tokens) are approximately 70-90% lower than those of other AI models. The critical factor to monitor will be the capital expenditure plans of cloud service providers for 2025-2026, noted the analyst.
The technical report states that V3 utilized just 2.8 million GPU hours. At a rental rate of $2 per hour, this would total $5.6 million, per the analyst.
However, the analyst opined that DeepSeek-V3 was “distilled” using the previously launched DeepSeek-R1 model. Some media reports suggest that DeepSeek may have also used other open-source models, such as Meta Platforms Llama, implying that the actual training cost could be significantly higher than reported.
Venture capital investor Marc Andreessen referred to DeepSeek-R1 as a “Sputnik moment” for AI progress. However, the analyst interprets the Sputnik comparison as favorable for AI infrastructure companies.
Following the launch of Sputnik (October 4, 1957), the U.S. Federal space R&D budget grew significantly, from $0.5 billion annually to over $10.5 billion in 1958.
When a new technology boosts efficiency, it typically reduces demand. However, it often leads to increased consumption, a phenomenon known as Jevons Paradox.
A similar situation occurred in U.S. steel production after the Bessemer process was introduced: between 1875 and 1900, steel prices dropped by around 90%, while production surged from 0.4 million tons per year to 60 million tons per year.
The analyst notes this will apply to the AI sector as well. Reduced training costs accelerate model improvements, and enhanced models create more use cases, resulting in greater inference demand.
For instance, the cost of GPT-4 output tokens has dropped by approximately 80% in under a year since its launch.
Cloud service providers are still experiencing growth in non-AI revenue, with Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) Azure non-AI revenue rising by 22% year-over-year in the quarter ended September.
Colocation companies, which make up about 50% of global data centers, continue to benefit from favorable market conditions, concluded the analyst.
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Piper Sandler analyst David Amsellem reiterated the Overweight rating on Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited (NYSE:TEVA) with a price forecast of $30.
Amsellem writes that he hosted a call with a top gastroenterologist who treats many ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease patients. The doctor specializes in managing treatment-experienced and refractory cases at a major referral center.
From the call, the analyst notes that feedback on Teva’s/Sanofi’s (NASDAQ:SNY) anti-TL1A antagonist duvakitug, along with the broader anti-TL1A class, suggests these agents could play a significant role in treating both ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, which is supported by competitive data.
Amsellem highlights that according to the featured expert, biomarkers are crucial, and they are particularly interested in studies/data stratified by biomarkers.
The analyst will closely follow what Teva shares on this at the upcoming ECCO meeting.
Both Merck & Company, Inc. and Roche Holding Ltd are also stratifying their anti-TL1A studies by biomarkers.
The expert considers that biomarkers could greatly benefit the broader inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) field if they are easy to assess and help predict clinical response.
While Teva/Sanofi’s all-comers Phase III program for duvakitug is commercially reasonable, the goal is to address a wide ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease patient audience.
Price Action: TEVA shares are trading lower by 1.47% to $21.46 at last check Tuesday.
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Truist Securities analyst Peter Osterland initiated coverage on several chemicals stocks ahead of earnings release.
Chemours Company (NYSE:CC): The analyst initiated coverage with a Buy rating and a price forecast of $27. The analyst writes that the company is positioned to achieve strong earnings growth in 2025-2026.
Osterland sees margin expansion in its Opteon refrigerant franchise and a potential rebound in the underperforming TiO2 segment, where consensus estimates appear overly conservative.
Valuation upside exists as the new management team executes cost optimization strategies and focuses on higher-value product applications, adds the analyst.
Osterland estimates EBITDA of $775 million (in line), $1.004 billion (+8% vs. Street), and $1.188 billion (+11% vs. Street) for 2024, 2025, and 2026, respectively.
The analyst assumes ~6% average revenue growth in 2025-2026 (above the company’s >5% target) and consolidated EBITDA margins reaching 18.3% by 2026 (vs. Street’s 17.1%).
Tronox Holdings plc (NYSE:TROX): Osterland initiated coverage with a Buy rating and price forecast of $17. The analyst sees the company as one of the strongest players in the TiO2 industry, benefiting from its scale and strong vertical integration, which have helped sustain margins better than peers during the downturn.
With improving TiO2 market fundamentals and potential support from anti-dumping duties on Chinese exports, the analyst expects above-market volume growth and significant earnings upside as operating rates recover.
The analyst estimates EBITDA of $563 million (in line with Street), $694 million (+6% vs Street), and $802 million (+6% vs Street) in 2024, 2025, and 2026, respectively.
Minerals Technologies Inc. (NYSE:MTX): The analyst initiated coverage with a Buy rating and a price forecast of $103. Osterland writes that the company’s unique mineral reserves, engineering expertise, and strong market positions create a competitive edge which is undervalued relative to peers.
The analyst expects sustainable mid-single-digit revenue growth driven by diverse opportunities, modest upside to consensus estimates for 2025-2026, and potential upward revision to the company’s medium-term operating margin target.
The analyst estimates EBITDA of $404 million (in line with Street), $440 million (+3% vs Street), and $471 million (+4% vs Street) for 2024, 2025, and 2026 respectively.
Westlake Corporation (NYSE:WLK): Osterland initiated coverage with a Buy rating and price forecast of $168. The analyst says that the company has built a vertically integrated market leader through its synergistic chemicals and building products strategy.
With a strong ~$3 billion cash balance, the company has flexibility for further HIP expansion via M&A or increased shareholder returns, adds the analyst.
Osterland estimates EBITDA of $2.377 billion (in line with Street), $2.677 billion (+5% vs Street), and $2.996 billion (+5% vs Street) in 2024, 2025, and 2026, respectively.
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BofA Securities analyst Dimple Gosai revised the rating or price forecast on several clean energy stocks ahead of the earnings results.
First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ:FSLR): The analyst cut the price forecast from $246 to $236, while maintaining a Buy rating.
The analyst writes that updates on the A/D ruling will be pivotal for pricing power, though near-term customer commitments may stay limited.
The analyst says that monitoring warranty remediation costs and the shift of India-manufactured supply to the U.S. will be crucial for evaluating capacity utilization and gross margin gains.
For FY24/FY25, Gosai estimates revenue of $1.502 billion with an adj. EBITDA margin of 44.6% and $5.516 billion with a 55% margin (slightly above consensus).
Fluence Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:FLNC): The analyst cut the price forecast from $25 to $20, while reiterating a Buy rating.
Taking about the key focus areas, the analyst expects FY25 revenue cover to rise to the mid-80% range, 25% of U.S. projects to use domestic cells in FY25 and maintain stability in market share.
Gosai estimates revenue of $361 million and gross margin of 12.7% ahead of consensus at $257 million and 11.1% for first quarter 2025.
For FY25, the analyst sees revenue of $3.84 billion near the middle of the guidance range ($3.6 billion-$4.4 billion).
HA Sustainable Infrastructure Capital, Inc. (NYSE:HASI): Gosai retained the price forecast of $37 and a Buy rating on the stock.
The analyst writes that the company’s key factors to watch include progress on the >$5.5 billion pipeline, developments in the KKR partnership, and the stability of asset yields.
The analyst expects to closely monitor guidance updates, particularly regarding the projected 8%-10% annual adjusted EPS growth through 2026 and the outlook for 2027 amidst policy uncertainties.
The analyst’s adjusted EPS estimate for fourth-quarter is 61 cents (slightly higher than the consensus of 59 cents) and for 2024 stands at $2.43 (vs. $2.41 consensus).
Clearway Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CWEN): The analyst maintained the price forecast of $32 and a Buy rating on the stock.
Gosai anticipates that wind production data from key western states could provide upside during the seasonally weaker fourth-quarter.
The analyst highlights updates on the path to achieving the 2027 CAFD guidance as a key factor, noting recent M&A activity, including Tuolumne Wind, and the offer of Honeycomb, which add visibility toward reaching the $2.50 midpoint.
The analyst estimates 2024 EBITDA/CAFD of $1.17 billion/$406 million (roughly in-line) and 2025 EBITA/CAFD of 1.24 billion/$432 million (above consensus).
Bloom Energy Corporation (NYSE:BE): The analyst cut the price forecast from $20 to $18, while reiterating an Underperform rating.
Gosai says that key focus areas for the company include ensuring stability in order flow, securing greenfield projects, and tracking developments related to ITC impacts, which are pivotal for project economics.
While utility partnerships are expected to increase, maintaining cost competitiveness and improving margins will be critical for achieving the company’s goals, adds the analyst.
The analyst’s 2024 revenue estimate falls at the lower end of the guidance range of $1.4 billion-$1.6 billion, and expects gross margins to be below consensus at 24.3%, vs. the 26.6% consensus and 28% guidance.
Also, the analyst sees 2025 revenue and EBITDA below consensus.
The AES Corporation (NYSE:AES): The analyst maintained the price forecast of $11 and an Underperform rating on the stock.
The analyst expects the outlook for the near term to be impacted by one-off headwinds, including the expiration of the Warrior Run PPA, divestitures in Brazil and Ohio, and droughts in Columbia. FLNC monetization is not expected in the near term.
The analyst says they are looking for updates on the $3.5 billion asset sale program while anticipating near-term EPS dilution and execution risks in the renewables segment.
Gosai estimates 2024 EBITDA of $2.65 billion, at the lower end of the $2.6 billion-$2.9 billion guidance and in line with consensus at $2.66 billion.
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On Monday, Chinese e-commerce juggernaut Alibaba Group Holding’s (NYSE:BABA) cloud unit released a new family of AI models, Qwen2.5-VL, that can parse files, comprehend videos, count objects in images, and control a PC.
This model is similar to the one powering OpenAI’s recently launched Operator. Qwen2.5-VL model claimed to beat OpenAI’s GPT-4o, Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and Google’s Gemini 2.0 Flash in various video understanding, math, document analysis, and question-answering evaluations, TechCrunch reports.
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Qwen2.5-VL claimed it can analyze charts and graphics, extract data from invoice and form scans, and comprehend multiple-hour-long videos.
It can also recognize IPs from films and TV series.
Qwen2.5-VL can interact with software both on PCs and mobile devices. It can launch the Booking.com app for Android and can book a flight from Chongqing to Beijing, TechCrunch cites from Hugging Face tech lead Philipp Schmid’s video tweet on X.
In January, Alibaba Cloud launched new AI tools and LLMs at its developer summit. Alibaba’s cloud revenue grew 7% to $4.22 billion in second-quarter.
Meanwhile, U.S. tech stocks plunged in premarket trading Monday as Chinese open-source artificial intelligence platform DeepSeek R1 triggered market jitters over sustainability of the AI technology investment in the U.S. tech firms. Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) lost $600 billion in market cap on Monday.
DeepSeek’s open-source AI model, developed for under $6 million, reportedly outperformed leading U.S. models like those from OpenAI.
Reportedly, Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) committed $80 billion in AI infrastructure spending for 2025, and Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META) earmarked $60-65 billion.
For context, the Biden administration had slapped multiple semiconductor technology embargoes on China, restricting the country from accessing sophisticated AI technologies from Nvidia, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (NYSE:TSM) citing national security threats.
Investors can gain exposure to stocks of companies domiciled in China through the iShares China Large-Cap ETF (NYSE:FXI) and the KraneShares Trust KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF (NYSE:KWEB).
Price Action: BABA stock closed higher by 1.06% at $90.94 premarket at the last check on Tuesday.
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HSBC Holdings (NYSE:HSBC) is reportedly making significant changes to its investment banking operations as part of a restructuring plan led by CEO Georges Elhedery.
The bank will shut down key parts of its investment banking business in the U.K., Europe, and the Americas, including its mergers and acquisitions advisory and equity capital markets units outside Asia and the Middle East, Financial Times reports, citing an internal memo.
However, HSBC will retain its debt capital markets, leveraged finance, real asset finance, and infrastructure finance businesses in these regions, per the report.
This move aligns with Elhedery’s broader strategy of dividing the bank into “eastern” and “western” units to streamline operations, the report adds.
Also Read: Microsoft Eyes TikTok US Deal, Trump Says Acquisition Talks Are Underway
Investment banking currently accounts for only 6% of HSBC’s total revenue, a segment that has seen a decline of 3% year-over-year in the first half of 2024.
The number of job cuts resulting from Tuesday’s unexpected announcement remains unclear, as do the potential savings and how many bankers might be reassigned to other financing sectors, Reuters reports.
HSBC recently launched the “HSBC CommunityWorks Opening Doors” initiative, offering home loan grants in underserved U.S. counties to assist homebuyers.
According to Benzinga Pro, HSBC stock has gained over 30% in the past year. Investors can gain exposure to the stock via The 2023 ETF Series Trust II GMO International Value ETF (NYSE:GMOI).
Price Action: HSBC shares are trading lower by 0.80% to $51.69 at last check Tuesday.
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Image: Shutterstock/ sylv1rob1.