Inflation moderated as Intel and Nvidia fueled the AI trade in last week’s market
Tech
No surprises on inflation and new financing developments in the artificial intelligence trade drove the record-breaking action on Wall Street last week. The S & P 500 and Nasdaq both dropped modestly Friday but managed to post their third straight winning weeks. The S & P 500 rose above 7,800 during Thursday’s session for the first time ever. It closed at a record. The Dow bucked the trend, falling nearly 0.6% for the week. Here’s a closer look at what drove the market. Cooler inflation gives the Fed room to wait Two closely watched inflation reports helped fuel the week’s market gains by easing concerns that the Federal Reserve will need to raise interest rates at its September meeting. Building on the prior week’s weaker-than-expected jobs report , the consumer price index on Wednesday showed an increase of 0.1% in July, while the annual inflation rate eased to 3.4%. Both were in line with estimates. Jim called the report ” very benign .” The following day, the producer price index came in unchanged for the month, cooler than the 0.2% increase economists expected. On an annual basis, the headline PPI increased 4.7%. Together, the reports offered further evidence that inflation is moderating, even as it remains above the Fed’s 2% target. Treasury yields moved lower as traders dialed back expectations for a September rate hike. By the end of the week, markets were pricing in a 67% chance that the Fed would keep its benchmark rate unchanged, up from 55% a week earlier, according to the CME Fed Watch tool . Intel’s $20 billion bet on its AI future Intel’s massive stock sale initially rattled investors, but we ultimately viewed the capital raise as another sign of management’s confidence in the company’s AI opportunity. The chipmaker announced Monday that it planned to sell $15 billion of common stock, sending shares down 4%. Intel then increased the offering to $20 billion Tuesday after strong demand for the initial deal. We used Monday’s weakness to buy more shares of Intel as it remains Jim’s favorite way to play the AI buildout. Building semiconductor manufacturing capacity is expensive, and we don’t think CEO Lip-Bu Tan would raise this much capital unless he had confidence that customers will be there to support the investment. That conviction received another boost Wednesday when a regulatory filing revealed that Tan and one of his family members agreed to purchase a combined $12 million of stock in the offering. We like to see executives putting their own money behind the businesses they run, particularly alongside a capital raise. Jim also viewed the offering as another sign that momentum was returning to the AI trade, helping give us the confidence to initiate a position in memory maker Micron after recently adding the stock to our Bullpen watch list. We started small, only purchasing 25 shares, given Micron’s volatility. Intel and Micron ended the week up roughly 1% and 11%, respectively. Nvidia brings Wall Street into the AI buildout Nvidia announced that it has partnered with six large asset managers on a $500 billion financing push designed to turn AI compute into an investable asset class . The chipmaker signed agreements with Apollo Global Management , Blackstone , BlackRock , Brookfield Asset Management , KKR , and Club holding Goldman Sachs to establish financing platforms for Nvidia customers. Jim called the initiative a ” monumentally positive change .” (Goldman had a great week as it was a facilitator of both the Nvidia initiative and the Intel stock sale.) Skeptics have questioned whether graphics processing units (GPUs) can support this type of financing because the chips have historically been viewed as rapidly depreciating technology. Nvidia is making the case that its GPUs should instead be treated as long-lived, revenue-generating infrastructure that can be financed against the cash flows it produces. CoreWeave’s results this week strengthened that argument, with CEO Mike Intrator explaining that older Nvidia GPUs are remaining useful longer than some investors expected. That could make the chips more attractive to lenders and unlock another major source of capital for the AI buildout. We see this as recognition that compute has become critical infrastructure for the AI economy. As Jim put it this week, “The revolution is here.” Shares of Nvidia rose 0.5% for the week, while Goldman was flat. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. 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Inflation moderated as Intel and Nvidia fueled the AI trade in last week’s market
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