I don't know, but it has certainly been a spectacle of an event. It looks like a complete cluster. I figure it has something to do with large egos and a lot of money. Can you imagine the stock ride if OpenAI was publicly traded....it would have been fun to watch.
You know, reading that little article, I often wonder how or why some people even attempt to invest. I think people sometimes just get too deep into the weeds and wander around looking for answers and trouble about every little detail. They are too focused on always trying to find something to do or excessively worry about. Of course the financial media doesn't help them. Many times investors just outsmart themselves with dumb decisions.
Amen, brother W. Historically, conservatives have preached the mantra of free markets and equilibrium. There is a long history of conservatives privatizing public interests. There is an equally long history of everybody, including many conservatives, not liking the resulting equilibrium and trying to influence that "free" market. Governments sometimes keep their thumb off the scale but only if they get the result they want. Are we really that much better off than a socialized country like China where the government owns a portion of all the major companies? Hey... wait a minute... our government has owned a big chuck of lots of large companies. lol! "Free market" means that economies will crash, big companies will fail, and citizens will have to absorb the volatility. This is the trough. The peak is where we have affluence, success, and citizens have a bounty. As soon as government decided people have a right to a stable economy and they should stick their fingers in to sway the outcome, we stopped having a free economy. Personally, I'm OK with a little socialism. I'm also OK with a totally free economy and think people's fear is partially unfounded. What we have is a hybrid socialized/capitalized economy that we call a "Free market" while China has a hybrid socialized/capitalized economy they call "Communism". Please understand, I am not stating the two economies are identical and, yes, ratios matter. I'm just saying we are not as different as we declare ourselves to be. People with power over-manage and frequently cause more problems than they solve, yet continue to over-manage. It has been so since the beginning of time. When there is a button in the arm rest of someone's chair, there is a 100% chance they are going to press it.
You know along those same lines sort of....I watched a program awhile back. It was largely focused on lobbyist, healthcare, some big pharma, and of course congress. Who could imagine this group getting together?? lol. Anyway, they were interviewing one of these top tier lobbyist (the guy had retired from the business I think) and he told about all of the political favors and pressure applied with backroom deals galore. The reporter mentioned to the lobbyist about how this ultimately ends up with the elected official being in a position of owing some returned favors. The lobbyist replied, "Owed???" "No, I own them at that point and forward." I also was amazed how many of these policy makers ended up joining these large lobbyist firms after "retiring." The lobbyist basically told the reporter....we groom them early and often throughout their career and then they continue their work for us after leaving "public service." At that point, they are trained to deliver and have made many contacts to do their bidding. "I don't even have to give them ideas on who or how to get things done the way we want....they simply do it without asking at that point." These positions gained were very, very lucrative. It was somewhat disheartening, yet confirmed what most of us know. As a citizen, we simply just do not have deep enough pockets to matter.
Back to investing....it seems most everyone in the thread has had a really good year to date. I have seen some really good returns mentioned. Way to go guys/gals. I love seeing successful long termers. I have done pretty good myself. Now, I am not having the bug eyed returns of +40%...lol, but my last check I was around 23-24% I think. I did all of that, by not doing a damn thing. No chasing, speculation, no research, no sweating any noise, FED drama, rate worries.....not a thing. I just stayed on course with contributions and enjoyed life. That's pretty darned easy.
I am the exception. I am treading water this year, after being down last year. Our RE has done well and we are in a sell-down phase but that money has not gone into the market, as it normally would. We have a huge ratio of near cash and government secured money markets, like a normal retired couple. Our money markets have averaged 5.07% return, this year. I feel that is pretty good for money markets. If you remove this return, our total portfolio return would be near 0% for 2023.
I've long pondered the nature of a capitalistic economy and how it weathers corruption. We've always had corruption and we have done well, despite this. At least, we have done better than other countries who have used a different economic formula. The exception is China. China has caught up with us, over the last 40 years, using our money. That means, they've grown faster and made larger gains, during that time. China has pulled a half billion people out of poverty in the last few decades. No other country has seen this level of prosperity. Singapore, on the other hand, has a somewhat western flavor philosophy and they are essentially the gold standard economy. This appears to be based on their ultra-low levels of corruption and amazing quality of life. North America has lost it's way and is rife with corruption. We could do well, if we could cleanse ourselves of most of these parasites. Meanwhile, China seems to have fallen off a cliff with Xi's fascist extremism. China is hurting far more than is known in the west. They are far worse off than we are. Xi would never have met with Biden, if conditions at home were even half way reasonable. China is on fire and probably a lot closer to revolution than we realize.
Further... Tesla gets amazing treatment in China. If they mention they would like to expand, neighboring land becomes available and they make the one and only bid on that land auction. Three years ago, China built a new 5 lane bridge and expanded the pier Tesla uses to ship cars out of GF3. In the last couple of months, Tesla tripled the size of the staging area next to the pier and China is almost done twinning the bridge to the export pier. That is 10 lanes of bridge for exporting cars. Imagine if someone wanted a new bridge to export cars from America. Imagine the paperwork and red tape. My gawd. Tesla is jamming control frequencies around GF3 to prevent drone surveillance. This has put a cramp on my style. I think it's safe to say the Model 3 redesign has improved production significantly. Further, phase 3 has likely started. The Model Y redesign must be close to production, as well. Tesla is scaled up to ship hundreds of thousands of cars from Shanghai.
Yes. I imagine we would start off with a government study about the project. Then followed up with another study...about the first study, which would eventually be formulated into a report of some type. This would then require a few congressional hearings about the study and who conducted it and by all means what party.
And yet…. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...d-open-talks-to-negotiate-his-possible-return This whole thing is just… bizarre. I personally have no opinion, but I will say this, I kinda have a feeling about Altman, personally never liked him, kinda reminds you of the whole Zuckerberg deal with his partners at the beginning of fb… I also greatly suspect that this thing has to do with politics, much like Facebook had, and still does to this day. if it was just an issue with Altman I would say that he’s being ambushed, but it’s between him and Ilya clearly, and I don’t know, the statement that OpenAI issued on day 1 of that crisis which stated that they are there for ALL humanity left me with a funny feeling that this may even relate to crap that takes place in the Middle East right now. It just sounds like a line that would be borrowed from that conflict. AI is GREATLY influencing politics and governmental intelligence. Just look at Palantir, their biggest clients are the government and the military, NVDA also facilitates to our military, so OpenAI is likely the granddaddy of them all. I suspect that today will be a red day and NVDA will jump start the green again in the after market Oh, I’m at 54.04% YTD… 0.96 Shy of my ATH…
Well, there you go WXYZ. I noticed a large red breaking news ticker across the screen. The FED minutes show no discussion of rate cuts. How can this possibly be even a news story, let alone breaking news. I am not sure I have ever seen something catch so much attention for so long than the FED and all of their thoughts, musings, hints, public appearances, and etc. They are obsessed with it and them. I really do wish at some point a glitch or misprint, maybe even a slip up of the wrong word....just something bonkers to sit back and watch these idiots flip out.
Agree Smokie. AND....how in the world is no mention of rate cuts even remotely news? Is there a single person in the world that expected some mention of rate cuts at this point? This stuff is.....CRAZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZY.
A moderate loss for me today....relatively speaking. I had six stocks DOWN and two UP. The two winners....COST and GOOGL. I also got beat by the SP500 today by.....0.39%. A meaningless day today. In addition to what I said earlier....I am sure it will be very shallow and mild on Wall Street this week. Everyone is probably taking the week off. I await the NVDA earnings.
HERE are the NVDA earnings. Nvidia earnings are out — here are the numbers https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/21/nvidia-nvda-q3-earnings-report-2024.html (BOLD is my opinion OR whaat I consider important content) 'Nvidia shares slid 4% in extended trading on Tuesday after the chipmaker reported fiscal third-quarter results that surpassed Wall Street’s predictions. Here’s how the company did, compared to the consensus among analysts surveyed by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv: Earnings: $4.02 per share, adjusted, vs. $3.37 per share expected Revenue: $18.12 billion, vs. $16.18 billion expected During the quarter, Nvidia announced the GH200 GPU, which has more memory than the current H100 and an additional Arm processor onboard. The H100 is expensive and in demand. Nvidia said Australia-based Iris Energy, an owner of bitcoin mining data centers, was buying 248 H100s for $10 million, which works out to about $40,000 each. As recently as two years ago, sales of GPUs for playing video games on PCs were the largest source of Nvidia’s revenue. Now the company gets most revenue from deployments inside server farms. Analysts polled by StreetAccount expect Nvidia’s data center revenue to come in at $12.97 billion, which would work out to a 239% increase. The introduction of the ChatGPT chatbot from Microsoft-backed startup OpenAI in 2022 caused many companies to look for ways to add similar generative AI capabilities to their software. Demand for Nvidia’s GPUs strengthened as a result. Nvidia faces obstacles, including competition from AMD and lower revenue because of export restrictions that can limit sales of its GPUs in China. Some analysts said ahead of Tuesday’s report that they were anticipating another quarter of outperformance from Nvidia. “GPU demand continues to outpace supply as Gen AI adoption broadens across industry verticals,” Raymond James’ Srini Pajjuri and Jacob Silverman wrote in a note Monday to clients, with a “strong buy” recommendation on Nvidia stock. “We are not overly concerned about competition and expect NVDA to maintain >85% share in Gen AI accelerators even in 2024.” Executives will discuss the results with analysts on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET." MY COMMENT Very preliminary....not much detail here. I will look for more.
Here is another take. Nvidia earnings crush Wall Street estimates again https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nvid...tw_l1gbd0noiom,twitter_yfsocialtw_l1gbd0noiom (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Nvidia (NVDA) reported third quarter earnings after the bell on Tuesday that topped Wall Street's expectations as the artificial intelligence hype cycle remains front and center for investors. The chipmaker reported earnings per share of $3.36 on revenue of $18.12 billion, both of which topped analyst expectations.The company's revenue guidance for the current quarter came in at $20 billion, plus or minus 2%; analysts had been projecting fourth quarter guidance of $17.8 billion. This report comes after the stock closed at a record high of $504.09 per share on Monday, with AI once again becoming the story of the moment for investors amid the ongoing drama surrounding Sam Altman's departure from ChatGPT maker OpenAI and his move to join Microsoft (MSFT). Here's what Nvidia compared to the Street's expectations, as compiled by Bloomberg, versus how it performed in the same quarter last year. Revenue: $18.12 billion vs. $16.1 billion expected ($5.93 billion in Q3 last year) Adjusted EPS: $4.02 vs. $3.36 expected ($0.58 in Q3 last year) Data center revenue: $14.51 billion vs. $12.82 billion expected ($3.83 billion in Q3 last year) Gaming revenue: $2.86 vs. $2.7 billion expected $(1.57 billion in Q3 last year) Nvidia's stock as moved significantly on earnings releases this year. In August, the stock hit an all-time high after Nvidia reported second quarter results that smashed Wall Street's expectations on both revenue and earnings per share, as well as guidance that exceeded lofty estimates. Back in May, one analyst referred to the company's forecast as "guidance for the ages." Shares of the chipmaker were down about 1% after hours on Tuesday. The print could have significant implications for the overall market, too. Nvidia has been a driver of momentum in the stock market this year as a key member of the "Magnificent Seven" stocks — along with Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), Meta (META), and Tesla (TSLA). Together, these stocks have gained more than 70% this year through mid-November against a 6% rise for the remaining 493 stocks in the S&P 500. Evercore ISI senior managing director Julian Emanuel noted on Sunday that "it's still NVDA's world," and warned investors to be ready for "post-NVDA volatility" no matter which way the stock swings. MY COMMENT A HUGE BEAT....but will it be enough? Obviously what will matter most is the forward guidance for the next quarter. We do know this already: "The company's revenue guidance for the current quarter came in at $20 billion, plus or minus 2%; analysts had been projecting fourth quarter guidance of $17.8 billion." I will look for more detail and analysis after the earnings conference which i believe starts at 5:00. I am sure this will be the headline tomorrow: "...the company called for a negative impact in the next quarter because of export restrictions in China and other countries."...We expect that our sales to these destinations will decline significantly in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, though we believe the decline will be more than offset by strong growth in other regions,” Nvidia’s said in a letter to shareholders."... "With respect to guidance, Nvidia called for $20 billion in revenue for the fiscal fourth quarter. That implies nearly 231% revenue growth." https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/21/nvidia-nvda-q3-earnings-report-2024.html
Here is the official release from the company: https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-financial-results-for-third-quarter-fiscal-2024 Here is the CFO commentary: https://s201.q4cdn.com/141608511/files/doc_financials/Q3FY24/Q3FY24-CFO-Commentary.pdf
Per the CFO commentary: "Revenue Revenue was $18.12 billion, up 206% from a year ago and up 34% sequentially. Data Center revenue was a record, up 279% from a year ago and up 41% sequentially. Strong sales of the NVIDIA HGX platform were driven by global demand for the training and inferencing of large language models, recommendation engines, and generative AI applications. Data Center compute grew 324% from a year ago and 38% sequentially, largely reflecting the strong ramp of our Hopper GPU architecture-based HGX platform from cloud service providers (CSPs), including GPU-specialized CSPs; consumer internet companies; and enterprises. Our sales of Ampere GPU architecture-based Data Center products were significant but declined sequentially, as we approach the tail end of this architecture. We recognized initial revenue on the ramp of our L40S GPU and the GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip for a broad range of customers. CSPs drove roughly half of Data Center revenue, while consumer internet companies and enterprises comprised approximately the other half. Networking was up 155% from a year ago and up 52% sequentially, almost entirely due to strong growth in InfiniBand infrastructure to support our HGX platform. On October 17, 2023, the U.S. government (USG) announced new and updated licensing requirements effective in our fourth quarter of fiscal 2024 for exports to China and Country Groups D1, D4, and D5 (including but not limited to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam, but excluding Israel) of our products exceeding certain performance thresholds, including A100, A800, H100, H800, L4, L40, L40S and RTX 4090. The licensing requirements also apply to the export of products exceeding certain performance thresholds to a party headquartered in, or with an ultimate parent headquartered in, Country Group D5, including China. On October 23, 2023, the USG informed us the licensing requirements were effective immediately for shipments of our A100, A800, H100, H800, and L40S products. These licensing requirements did not have a meaningful impact on our revenue in the third quarter of fiscal 2024 as they were announced near the end of the fiscal quarter and we had additional demand from customers outside of the named country groups. Our sales to China and other affected destinations, derived from products that are now subject to licensing requirements, have consistently contributed approximately 20-25% of Data Center revenue over the past few quarters. We expect that our sales to these destinations will decline significantly in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, though we believe the decline will be more than offset by strong growth in other regions. Gaming revenue was up 81% from a year ago and up 15% sequentially. Strong year-on-year growth reflects higher sell-in to partners following normalization of channel inventory levels. Sequential growth reflects strong demand for our GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs for back-to-school and the start of the holiday season. Professional Visualization revenue was up 108% from a year ago and up 10% sequentially. The year- on-year increase reflects higher sell-in to partners following normalization of channel inventory levels. The sequential increase was primarily due to stronger enterprise workstation demand and the ramp of notebook workstations based on the Ada Lovelace GPU architecture. Automotive revenue was up 4% from a year ago and up 3% sequentially. The year-on-year increase primarily reflects growth in sales of auto cockpit solutions and self-driving platforms. The sequential increase was driven by sales of self-driving platforms. Gross Margin GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins increased significantly from a year ago and sequentially, driven by improved product mix from Data Center revenue growth and lower net inventory provisions and related charges. In the third quarter of fiscal 2024, provisions for inventory and related charges were $681 million. Sales of previously reserved inventory or settlements of excess inventory purchase obligations resulted in a provision release of $239 million, primarily from Ampere GPU architecture products. The net inventory provisions were $442 million and the unfavorable effect on our gross margin was 2.4 percentage points. In the third quarter of fiscal 2023, provisions for inventory and related charges were $702 million. Sales of previously reserved inventory or settlements of excess inventory purchase obligations resulted in a provision release of $21 million. The net inventory provisions were $681 million and the unfavorable effect on our gross margin was 11.5 percentage points. Expenses GAAP operating expenses were up 16% from a year ago and up 12% sequentially, driven by compensation and benefits, including stock-based compensation, primarily reflecting growth in employees and compensation increases. Non-GAAP operating expenses were up 13% from a year ago and up 10% sequentially, primarily reflecting growth in employees and compensation increases. We are monitoring the impact of the geopolitical conflict in and around Israel on our operations, including the health and safety of our approximately 3,400 employees in the region who primarily support the research and development, operations, and sales and marketing of our networking products. Our operating expenses in the third quarter of fiscal 2024 include expenses for financial support to impacted employees and charitable activity. Other Income & Expense and Income Tax GAAP other income and expense (OI&E) includes interest income, interest expense, gains and losses from non-affiliated investments and other. Non-GAAP OI&E excludes the gains or losses from non- affiliated investments and the portion of interest expense from the amortization of the debt discount. Interest income was $234 million, up from a year ago and sequentially, reflecting higher cash and investments and higher yields. Net losses from non-affiliated investments were $69 million, driven predominantly by mark-to-market losses from publicly traded equity investments. GAAP effective tax rate was 12.2%, which reflects tax benefits from the foreign-derived intangible income deduction, stock-based compensation, a resolution of an Internal Revenue Service audit, and the U.S. federal research tax credit. Non-GAAP effective tax rate was 14.6%. Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities were $18.28 billion, up from $13.14 billion a year ago and $16.02 billion a quarter ago. The increases primarily reflect higher revenue partially offset by taxes paid and stock repurchases. Accounts receivable was $8.31 billion with days sales outstanding (DSO) of 42, with the DSO decline from prior periods due to the linearity of shipments. Accounts receivable was reduced by approximately $570 million from customer payments received prior to the invoice due date. Inventory was $4.78 billion with days sales of inventory (DSI) of 92. Purchase commitments and obligations for inventory and manufacturing capacity were $17.11 billion and prepaid supply agreements were $3.67 billion. Other non-inventory purchase obligations were $4.43 billion which includes $3.60 billion of multi-year cloud service agreements, primarily to support our research and development efforts. Cash flow from operating activities was $7.33 billion, up from $392 million a year ago and $6.35 billion a quarter ago, driven by higher revenue partially offset by higher cash tax payments. We paid $4.35 billion in cash taxes in the third quarter of fiscal 2024, largely for previously deferred federal income tax payments related to the disaster relief made available by the IRS for certain California taxpayers. Depreciation and amortization expense was $372 million, including amortization of acquisition- related intangible assets. Starting in fiscal 2024, we extended the useful lives of most of our servers, storage, and network equipment from three years to a range of four to five years, and assembly and test equipment from five to seven years. This change in useful lives drove a favorable impact to operating expenses of $24 million and to cost of revenue of $17 million in the third quarter. During the third quarter, we utilized cash of $3.91 billion towards shareholder returns, including $3.81 billion in share repurchases and $99 million in cash dividends. Fourth Quarter of Fiscal 2024 Outlook Outlook for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024 is as follows: • Revenue is expected to be $20.00 billion, plus or minus 2%. • GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins are expected to be 74.5% and 75.5%, respectively, plus or minus 50 basis points. • GAAP and non-GAAP operating expenses are expected to be approximately $3.17 billion and $2.20 billion, respectively. • GAAP and non-GAAP other income and expense are expected to be an income of approximately $200 million, excluding gains and losses from non-affiliated investments. • GAAP and non-GAAP tax rates are expected to be 15.0%, plus or minus 1%, excluding any discrete items."
From here on over the rest of this week...it will be a game of spin and expectations.....with some fear-mongering in there regarding China sales. I am not expecting a big gain in the stock immediately......probably....some weakness....considering the gains of the past weeks. NOT that I care....being a long term investor. At lest with this report.....in the can....we can now coast on through the tail end of earnings. It has been an EXCEPTIONAL reporting season.
You know what’s funny? OpenAI IS A NON FOR PROFIT! In other words, they’re asking their investors to invest “in the spirit of donation” (that’s right out of their playbook), and you know who’s in charge of recruiting those “donors”? SAM ALTMAN!!! So in other words, the 80-90 billion valuation of that company came from investors that Sam recruited (KNOWING they won’t see a dime of that money anytime soon), who’s the same guy that created that company, who’s the real reason why there’s OpenAI to begin with That board is hands down the most incompetent board ever created ever since the architects of the Tower of Babel
