Nvidia stock shot up 16.4% after a Q4 earnings of $22bn, up 265% year on year from 2023, the largest daily gain on record, breaking the one Meta set about three weeks ago. This more or less raised stock indices across the known universe. The S&P500, Dow Jones, Japan’s Nikkei and the Stoxx Europe all hit record closes after a sell-off last week. It even gave the slumping Chinese stock market got a lift. The rally pushed the chip-maker past Amazon and Alphabet (Google) to become the US’s third largest company, behind Apple and Microsoft.
Tall Pour: Remember that that air is thin up there, so there will be profit taking sooner rather than later, as the modern analyst will feel compelled to tell you it is something different. The only remotely negative bit in the Q4 report was Chinese data center revenue was soft owning to US trade restrictions. The take-away for a lot of investors seems to have been that it is possible to function just fine without taking heaps of abuse from Beijing.
Stanford University finance professor Amit Seru has calculated that the US banks are sitting on $2.2 trn in unrealized losses due to higher interest rates on bonds. Some 10% of those (mostly regional) has unrealized losses greater than Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) before it went toe-up. The post-pandemic commercial real estate washout isn’t doing the regional banking sector any favors either – many are selling properties at 50% discounts.
The White House and CIA director have been reaching out to counter-parts in Russia warning against a nuclear-armed anti-satellite weapon by reminding the Kremlin that it would be in violation of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. Which it is, but legality doesn’t seem to be much of a constraint in Moscow.
Tall Pour: The question remains: Why would anyone use a nuclear armed anti-satellite weapon? Those things are like tin-foil egg-shells. Something is unseen here – or made-up. To spitball, probably a nuclear-powered anti-satellite missile, which would make knocking out a satellite much easier than picking off from down here on Earth. The danger is a weapon that will be able to knock out every gizmo on the planet that have been updated since 2008. Which would be tiresome.
Turkey’s Central Bank kept its benchmark interest rate at 45%, to battle inflation that hit 64.7% in January. You have no business or interest in the troubled former Ottoman rump, but the 4717 wants you to have something to be thankful for.
Homemade whiskey need not lead to blindness or other devilment.
Richard Murff is the founder of 4717 Insights. For more on the world, how it got here and a stiff drink, head to the 4717. Murff is the author of Pothole of the Gods: On Holy War, Fake News & other Ill-Advised Ideas, Drunk as Lords, and the upcoming Horrible Political Jokes in Ukraine.