News and analysis

Microsoft rushed up above $410 per share climbing skyward again after double testing of its $390 technical support area on April 25 (on Meta Platforms fall), and then on April 30 - May 1. One more step upstairs were surpassed thanks to a media leak saying that Bill Gates' created giant is now training a new generation in-house artificial intelligence (AI) language model which is going to become large enough to compete with similar monsters from its partner startup OpenAI (which was a pioneer designer of ChatGPT) and Google.

A supposed internal name of this new model is MAI-1. The work on it is being performed under control of recently hired Mustafa Suleyman, who previously was a co-founder of Google's DeepMind and former CEO of AI startup Inflection. MAI-1 is allegedly not taken from Inflection, even though the model could be partially built based on a bulk of training data from the startup, as Microsoft tapped Suleyman and several of his Inflection colleagues in March. The report also mentioned that Microsoft might preview MAI-1 at the build developer conference later in May. There are not many details so far, yet sources said MAI-1 will be "far larger" (having roughly 500 billion parameters) than a smaller, open source model called Phi-3-mini (having 3.8 billion parameters) with its cost-effective options for a broader circle of potential users which the company had previously trained. This would be the next and stronger move ahead by Microsoft, which has already invested billions and billions of U.S. Dollars into OpenAI.

Besides, sources noted that Microsoft is setting aside a "large cluster of servers" equipped with NVidia's GPUs (graphic processing units). Additional amounts of data processing is needed to improve the new model. This prompted the Wall Street crowd to buy more NVidia stocks so that the company share price climbed more than 3.5% during the next trading session on May 6. NVidia is now at arm's length from hitting its all-time highs, with four-digit numbers beckoning investors again. Storming of a $430 wall would be the prelude for the major $500 fortress capture within several months.

As the AI race providers at large, reputable investment houses are also optimistic about prospects of Google, which is called as a “clear winner” in the ongoing AI revolution "to change a lot of naysayers, skeptics, and shorts opinions", according to Mizuho, yet most experts are not so much sure about Apple’s approach to deploying AI. Investors have been “struggling to understand” it, in contrast to rivals who have been "more overtly assertive in their endeavours and investments related to this burgeoning technology", Evercore investment banking firm said, though AI is "viewed as an improvement to its existing ecosystem, serving to augment and weave together the experience for its over 2 billion iOS users". Apple has taken "a more measured approach" compared to other big tech giants who have invested tens of billions Dollars.

The Worldwide Developers Conference held annually by Apple would start on June 10 and may bring more light to expected iOS environment visual search features or advanced options for photo editing or using Siri voice assistant. Meanwhile, there were signs that Apple may collaborate with Google or other partner companies in cloud solutions for AI. This may strengthen partners to a higher extent than Apple itself. Meanwhile, Apple stock wasted more than $5 per share out of its recent $186.82 nearly three-month peak of May 3, following Q1 earnings release and Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway decreasing its stake in the company.

Ravencoin (RVN) saw a 3.2% increase to $0.0317 this week as it attempted to rebound from the support level at $0.0300, setting its sights on $0.0400.

The token lacked internal catalysts to drive its momentum, thus largely relying on the overall performance of Bitcoin (BTC). Bitcoin managed to regain ground above $60,000, with potential targets set at $70,000. Should Bitcoin sustain its upward trajectory, RVN may approach the resistance level at $0.0400.

Bitcoin (BTC) experienced a 7.0% decline this week, dropping to $58,880. On Wednesday, it briefly fell to $56,537 before attempting to reclaim the $60,000 resistance level. However, failure to surpass this hurdle could lead to further downside, with a potential retreat to $50,000. Spot Bitcoin-ETFs have witnessed net outflows for the second consecutive week, signaling ongoing investor caution. Standard Chartered has highlighted additional downside risks, suggesting a possible correction to $50,000-52,000 per coin. Despite this, it maintains its target prices for BTC at $150,000 by the end of 2024.

Apple Co reported only a $0.03 improvement in its EPS (equity per share) vs average analyst estimate of $1.50 in Q1 2024. The iPhone maker shows nearly permanent profit numbers in the first quarters over the past three years, even though sales of its gadgets are reduced, so that Apple's total revenues degraded from $97.28 billion in Q1 2022 to $94.8 billion in Q1 2023, ending to $90.8 billion during the first three months of 2024. Therefore, Apple sales dropped, but less than feared, with profit lines dynamics indicating higher efficiency squeezed from collected money.

App Store contribution grew despite the shop of applications being put under pressure from new European regulatory rules to prevent monopolizing of the market and driving up prices. Sales in the services segments, like Apple Music and Apple TV, reached $23.87 billion vs analyst expectations of $23.27 billion. Consensus expected MacBook sales to go down once again, but they instead grew to $7.5 billion, thanks to the strength of the new MacBook Air, powered by the M3 chip. Yet, the iPad segment declined to $5.56 billion, below average expectations of $5.91 billion. In the wearables, like Apple Watches and AirPods, sales decreased to $7.91 billion, below expectations of $8.08 billion. Apple also authorized an additional $110 billion for its buyback program, a big sum to encourage the crowd.

Meanwhile, its CEO Tim Cook said the giant company sees a return to further sales growth already in the current quarter, so that growth by "low-single digits" in revenue could be expected before the end of June. He added Apple is focused on investing more into artificial intelligence (AI) features at the moment. Competitive environment became less friendly to Apple after Samsung Electronics, Huawei and other rivals introduced new devices especially aimed at hosting AI chatbots. "We continue to feel very bullish about our opportunity in generative AI and we're making significant investments. We're looking forward to sharing some very exciting things with our customers" at events later this year, Tim Cook announced. He added that iPhone sales experienced "growth in some markets, including China". Apple's decline in China was narrower than feared, with sales of $16.37 billion lying above consensus expectations of $15.6 billion, down 8.1% in the quarter. Amazingly, a cumulative effect from verbal statements and these figures was enough for Apple stock to bounce by nearly 7%, from its closing price of $173.18 during the regular session on May 2 to a $185 area in the first hour of extended trading. The stock came down by almost the same quantity of percentage points in the last three months when IPhone sales lowered by 10.5%. Thus, Apple share price just seemingly won back that loss following last night's quarterly release. Much better than nothing, yet it is too early to tell about breaking contradictory trends. The report contained some positive aspects and may initiate a new wave of re-testing the next $190 to $195 range due to inertia. Yet, further price increases and a more stable bullish trend for Apple are still not entirely supported by fundamentals.