🧠 US retail & manufacturing slow, European markets reach new highs amidst tariff concerns

🌎 Financial News

• US Tariffs 🏛️ Trump launches plan to target countries with new tariffs – BBC: US President Donald Trump is sharpening plans to hit exports from countries that he says have trade policies that are unfair to the US.

• US Retailers 🛍 Retail sales slumped 0.9% in January, down much more than expected – CNBC: Retail sales slipped 0.9% for the month from an upwardly revised 0.7% gain in December, worse than the Dow Jones estimate for a 0.2% decline.

• US Manufacturing 🛍 US manufacturing output unexpectedly falls in January on weak motor vehicle production – Reuters: Manufacturing production, which accounts for 10.3% of the economy, unexpectedly fell in January, weighed down by a sharp decline in motor vehicle output.

• Europe 🏰 Eurozone records marginal GDP growth after forecasts of stagnation – EuroNews: Regional output was slightly better than previously thought, although the eurozone is still hampered by productivity woes.

📊 Markets & ETFs

• US Markets 💼 Stock-market rally says Trump tariffs more ‘bark than bite.’ Investors beware – MarketWatch: Who’s afraid of a global trade war? Not Wall Street. The S&P 500 ended the week record close after the Trump administration explores how to impose reciprocal tariffs on a number of US trading partners.

• US Exchanges 🛍 The New York Stock Exchange is launching an exchange in Texas – CNBC: Previously the Chicago Stock Exchange, the NYSE Chicago will soon become NYSE Texas. In January, the NYSE announced that it had filed for registration of the Texas Stock Exchange with the SEC.

• European Markets 🏰 European shares end at record peak on earnings boost; tariffs eyed  – Reuters: The European stock markets have been exceptional this year, with both the Euro Stoxx 600 Index and the DAX repeatedly reaching new highs, despite the risks of a widening global trade war.

 📈 Stocks

• $BRK.B 🚂 Warren Buffett bought shares in booze, pizza and pool companies in Q4, while ditching Ulta Beauty – MarketWatch: Constellation Brands shares jumped after Berkshire Hathaway disclosed new stake in beer and wine maker during Q4-2024.

• $DASH 🍔 DoorDash stock jumps as 25% sales growth, outlook top estimates – CNBC: The food-delivery company gained after reporting stronger-than-expected revenue growth and gave an upbeat sales forecast for Q1-2025.

• $DKNG 🏈 DraftKings pops on customer gains and lifts outlook, without the Super Bowl – Investopedia via Yahoo! Finance: The sportsbook operator rallied after lifting its guidance following its Q4 report, as revenue increased 13% driven by healthy customer engagement and new customer acquisitions.

• $ABNB 🏈 Airbnb pops more than 14%, its best day ever, on earnings beat – CNBC: The online rental platform offered light guidance for Q1-2025, but said it benefited this time last year from Easter and an extra day in February.

• $RDDT 🌐 Reddit shares plunge after Google algorithm change contributes to miss in user numbers – CNBC: The social media forum reported weaker-than-expected Q4 user growth following a Google search algorithm change that caused some “volatility”.

• $BYD 🏈 DeepSeek and BYD partnership drives EV maker's shares to record high – EuroNews: After announcing a collaboration with the AI firm, the Chinese EV-maker and Tesla competitor said it would roll out an advanced self-driving system in all of its models, ranging from cheaper to more exclusive vehicles, labelled as "God's Eye".

🚀 Magnificent 7

• $AAPL 📱 iPhone AI features will be powered by Alibaba in China – TheVerge: Alibaba has announced that it is partnering with Apple to provide artificial intelligence features to iPhones in China. Apple Intelligence features have not yet been enabled in China, which is thought to have contributed to the company’s local decline in smartphone sales.

• $NVDA 🏽 Nvidia trims Arm, SoundHound, Stake, Buys – Investors.com: In its Q4 regulatory filing, the GPU chipmaker disclosed that it had trimmed its position in Arm, sold off Nano-X Imaging, Serve Robotics and SoundHound AI, and added stakes in Nebius Group and WeRide.

• $META 🤳 Meta Platforms stock just closed higher for the 20th straight day – Investors.com: Meta stock hasn't had a losing session since Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States.

🦾 Artificial Intelligence

•  $TSMC 🏽 TSMC considers running Intel’s US factories After Trump team request – Bloomberg via Yahoo! Finance: Trump officials raised the idea of a deal between the two companies in recent meetings with the Taiwanese chipmaker. It’s unclear whether Intel is open to a transaction.

• $ARM 🏽 Arm takes manufacturing into its own hands as it plans to sell chips – EuroNews: The British chip designer is reportedly ready to compete against its own clients (such as Qualcomm) for deals, as it seeks to boost profits by manufacturing and selling its own chips in 2025.

• $DELL 🌐 Dell shares pop on report of $5B deal for AI servers for Elon Musk’s xAI – CNBC: Dell would sell $5B worth of servers containing Nvidia GPU’s to Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI. Musk’s company announced a $6B funding round in December.

• $SMCI 🌐 Supermicro posts strong AI earnings, but warns of Blackwell supply challenges – Data Center Dynamics: Supermicro has said it expects net sales for Q2-2025 to be in the range of $5.6-5.7B, despite the company still failing to deliver its delayed annual report.

• 📧 Subscribe to Unprompted Invest beyond Nvidia in the $15T AI market, from infrastructure, ingest & training, and inference. (Coming Soon)

💱 Crypto Currencies

• $HOOD 💱 Robinhood had a huge quarter thanks to crypto — here’s why that may continue – MarketWatch: These latest earnings show that Robinhood benefited from the recent crypto bull run, and it could encourage Robinhood to push farther into crypto.

• $COIN 💱 Coinbase clears earnings estimates, revenue spikes 138% – Reuters: The crypto exchange beat estimates for Q4 profit, driven by higher trading volumes in bitcoin and other digital tokens following the US election.

• $GME 🎮 GameStop is considering investing in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, sources say – CNBC: GameStop is exploring investments in alternative asset classes, including crypto and bitcoin.

• $BTC ₿ Bitcoin retail demand dips just 2% as analyst eyes BTC price breakout  – Cointelegraph: Bitcoin retail investor demand remains healthy despite rangebound BTC price action leaving new all-time highs out of reach.

• $ETH 🌐 NYSE proposes rule change to allow ETH staking on Grayscale’s spot Ether ETFs – Cointelegraph: Asset manager Grayscale plans to introduce staking to its spot Ether ETFs but says it will not guarantee or promote any specific level of returns to investors.

🏖️ Retirement

• Boomers 👍 Boomers are refusing to hand over their $84T in wealth to their children – DailyMail: A new survey of wealthy Americans by Charles Schwab, Boomers are holding on to their money for as long as they can, rather than handing them down as inheritance to their children.

• Millennials 🥑 For the first time in history, women will have serious philanthropic power. Will they choose to use it? – Ms Magazine: As wealth and power increasingly grow in the hands of a few, it is clear how the world of philanthropy has been overwhelmingly shaped and guided by men. From economic inequality to climate change, if women philanthropists don’t step up now, when will they?

• Social Security 🌐 Why benefit increases prompted by the Social Security Fairness Act may be difficult to implement – CNBC: A new law, the Social Security Fairness Act, provides benefit increases for more than 3.2M individuals including certain teachers, police officers, firefighters and other public servants.

• 📧 Subscribe to Great Wealth Xfer Covering the global $84T wealth transfer from Boomers to Millennials and Gen Z. (Coming Soon)

For those in the US, enjoy the long President’s Day Weekend, our last until May! We’ll be back next Saturday morning to recap the week’s financial news.

Thanks to moomoo for sponsoring.

✨ Happy Unprompting,

Rawee
[email protected]

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