This report is from today’s TNC’s Daily Open, our international markets update. TNC Daily Open keeps investors informed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are.
U.S. consumers were less willing to spend in January, resulting in lower-than-expected retail sales for the month. Given how heavily the U.S. economy depends on consumer spending, this might impact gross domestic product.
In contrast, purse strings appear looser in the corporate sphere. According to reports, the first discussions are underway for a merger, including Intel, Broadcom, and TSMC, which may split the venerable American chipmaker.
Elon Musk was also making money. On February 10, the “special government employee” submitted a bid of $97 billion for OpenAI. On Friday, though, the artificial intelligence startup firmly rejected it.Â
Bret Taylor, the chairman of OpenAI, stated in a statement that the business “is not for sale,” demonstrating that some things are beyond the reach of money.
What To Note Today
OpenAI rejects Musk
Elon Musk’s offer to pay $97.4 billion to acquire the nonprofit parent company of the artificial intelligence startup OpenAI has been turned down. On Friday, William Savitt, the counsel for OpenAI, informed Musk’s attorney, Marc Toberoff, that the board had determined the billionaire’s “much-publicized ‘bid’ is not a bid at all.” According to Savitt’s letter, the “proposal, even as first presented, is not in the best interest of OAI’s mission and is rejected.”
Intel is of interest to TSMC and Broadcom
According to persons familiar with the situation, the Wall Street Journal said on Saturday that Broadcom and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company are evaluating bids for Intel that would divide the chipmaker in two. According to the Journal, TSMC is examining the U.S. company’s chip factories, while Broadcom is interested in Intel’s chip design and marketing division. The discussions are still in their early phases, and neither company is collaborating with the other.
Diverse markets in the Pacific
On Friday, major U.S. benchmarks showed mixed results. Although the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.37%, the S&P 500 saw minimal movement. The Nasdaq Composite, however, increased by 0.41%. At the conclusion of the week, all indices were up. When Japan’s GDP report was released, the Nikkei 225 fell flat. Despite Tencent’s shares rising about 2.6% and reaching their highest level since July 2021 throughout the trading day, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index lost about 0.3%.
Japan’s economy barely makes it until 2024
Preliminary official data for the three months ending December show that Japan’s GDP grew by 0.7% every quarter. That was above the 0.4% gain in the third quarter and was greater than the 0.3% increase predicted by a Reuters poll. Exports boosted economic growth, although domestic demand somewhat shrank. After expanding by 1.5% in 2023, full-year GDP fell to 0.1%.
Xi gives a speech at the Entrepreneur Symposium
According to state media Xinhua, Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke Monday at a symposium attended by notable businesspeople, including Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, Ren Zhengfei, the CEO of Huawei, and Lei Jun, the CEO of Xiaomi. According to analysts, Xi’s attendance at the conference might be a watershed moment for China’s tech industry and indicates more official support for private sector entrepreneurs.
Funds leaving Chinese stocks
The CSI 300 surged last September as China unveiled stimulus plans to bolster the national economy. In January, a second wave of measures was launched to address the stock market. Why, therefore, has the amount of money allocated to stocks listed in China and Hong Kong decreased yearly over the previous five years?
Bottom Line
According to analysts, data centres, the vital infrastructure needed to power the global digital shift and train massive language models, have been expected to increase exponentially for years. The launch of DeepSeek’s innovative and cost-effective R1 model is unlikely to have any immediate effects because data centres typically take at least two years to build, and orders have mostly already been scheduled for 2025.
However, Andre Kukhnin, an equity research analyst at UBS, stated in an interview that DeepSeek is unlikely to “substantially reduce demand for power for inference,” which refers to passing data through an AI model to solve a job or make a forecast. According to Ryan Cox, director of AI at consulting firm Synechron, DeepSeek’s more effective technology would eventually increase demand for data centres.
