All articles tagged with #market news
U.S. stocks are higher on Friday with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 set to finish the week up as traders weigh a hotter March CPI (headline +0.9%, core +0.2%) against a record-low April consumer sentiment reading, while inflation expectations tick higher. Investors are also eyeing direct U.S.-Iran peace talks and related geopolitical developments as notable catalysts.
GLJ Research’s Gordon Johnson reiterates a Sell on Tesla (TSLA) with a $25.28 target, arguing 2026 ends the stock’s long-running options tailwind and TSLA faces a fundamental reset with sharp downside; he notes fading gamma hedging as evidence past gains were driven by option activity. TipRanks shows a Hold consensus with a $393.97 target (~14.8% upside), while TSLA is down about 23.7% year-to-date.
TSMC reported Q1 revenue up about 35% year-over-year to T$1.134 trillion (~$35.7B) and is set to report earnings on April 16; analysts anticipate about $3.27 per share, with gross margins seen at 63–65% and capital spending of $52–$56B planned for 2026 to advance AI data-center chips and other technologies, underpinning a bullish outlook with upside around the mid-teens ahead of earnings.
Palantir (PLTR) slid roughly 12% after Michael Burry questioned its AI strategy and Anthropic’s rise, but a leading investor argues Palantir’s growing defense/government footprint and rising U.S. commercial revenue justify a 30–40% upside over the next 12 months, with a bullish Wall Street consensus.
Alphabet (GOOGL) unveiled a new cookie-protection feature called Device Bound Session Credentials for Chrome, using Windows’ TPM and macOS’ Secure Enclave to generate a non-exportable key pair and issue short-lived session cookies only after proving the private key to the server, aiming to stop malware from hijacking sessions as AI and other online threats grow. The move aligns with Alphabet’s cybersecurity priorities while the stock remains favored by analysts, with a consensus Strong Buy and a target around $377.90 (~19% upside).
AMD shares climbed about 1.7% after the company announced an $899 MSRP for the Ryzen 9950X3D2 Dual Edition, the highest Ryzen price to date. The flagship CPU launches April 22, 2026, but tight supply could push demand above MSRP. AMD has logged a roughly 9.97% year-to-date rally and about 161% over the last 12 months, aided by AI-focused growth; analysts still rate the stock as a Moderate Buy with a mean target of around $284.68, implying roughly 20% upside.
Freddie Mac reports the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 6.38% for the week, down 9 basis points—the first drop in five weeks as rates ease from a six-month high. The pullback coincides with a drop in the 10-year Treasury yield below 4.3% amid easing inflation fears, and homebuilders like D.R. Horton, Lennar, and PulteGroup edged higher. Despite the relief, affordability remains stretched with rates still above 6%. Redfin notes a record 34.2% of home sellers reduced prices in February, averaging a 7.3% cut ($40,915), underscoring ongoing housing-market pressure. Uncertainty remains ahead of U.S.-Iran peace talks and its potential impact on the Fed’s rate outlook.
UBS analyst Timothy Arcuri raised Micron's price target from $510 to $535, citing a rare memory super-cycle fueled by AI data-center demand for high-bandwidth memory. MU jumped in pre-market trading, with the stock up around 7–11% at publication; Arcuri’s checks suggest DRAM/NAND prices are firming and could keep MU’s elevated valuation multiples longer than usual. The market remains bullish with a Strong Buy consensus and an average target near $543, and MU is up roughly 32% year-to-date as investors bet on memory-cycle tailwinds despite earlier margin pressures.
CoreWeave announced a $21 billion expansion to its AI infrastructure agreement with Meta Platforms, extending cloud capacity through 2032 across multiple locations and including Nvidia Vera Rubin deployments to support Meta’s growing AI workloads; CRWV rose in pre-market trading, and analysts assign a Moderate Buy rating with a target near $115, signaling upside.
Microsoft (MSFT) shares edged higher after TipRanks reported a new EvilTokens phishing campaign targeting Microsoft businesses, with recommended protections like limiting device-code flows and strengthening anti-ph phishing policies; the piece also notes Xbox sales in February (34.4M units) versus Sony’s PlayStation 5 (about 91M) and cites a Strong Buy consensus with a $581.61 price target, implying roughly 54% upside.
Crypto bettors on Polymarket are pricing a 37% chance that Elon Musk will win his lawsuit against OpenAI’s Sam Altman, down from about 87% earlier; the California trial set for April 28 centers on Musk’s claim that OpenAI abandoned its founding nonprofit principles and seeks damages reportedly between $79 billion and $134 billion, with Musk saying any proceeds would go to charity. OpenAI contends Musk knew of and agreed to the for‑profit shift as early as 2017, and most bettors (roughly 63%) expect Altman to win, highlighting ongoing tensions stemming from OpenAI’s origins and its Microsoft partnership.
Palantir (PLTR) stock fell about 5% after Michael Burry questioned Palantir's AI moat and suggested Anthropic is closing in; despite solid growth and strong demand for AI platforms, the stock's lofty forward multiple (~115x) and signs of weak international traction keep near-term upside in check, with Benchmark's Yi Fu Lee rating Palantir a Hold and the Street consensus targeting ~$195 (about 36% upside), underscoring valuation discipline and execution risk.
The S&P 500 has fallen about 7.3% in March (on track for its worst month since 2022), but Morgan Stanley says the selloff is nearing its ending stages as the forward P/E has dropped roughly 15% from its peak; Brent crude has jumped about 51% since the start of the U.S.–Iran conflict and is largely priced in, yet higher interest rates remain a near-term risk with rate-cut odds fading by year-end.
Micron (MU) fell about 5% as investors weigh durable AI-memory demand against rising capital spending and potential peak-cycle risk; JR Research downgraded to Sell citing margin concerns, while the broader market remains constructive with a Strong Buy consensus and sizable upside driven by hefty capex and strong free cash flow.
Jefferies analyst Brent Thill argues Amazon's long-term AI and AWS advantages justify a Buy rating and a $300 price target, despite near-term headwinds from AI capex and AWS growth slower than peers; he sees an asymmetric setup as AI spending normalizes and AWS re-accelerates, with AMZN trading at a discount to Walmart and an expected ~43% upside over the next year.