Intel Reportedly Considers Cutting MobilEye Stake

8 minutes ago

Shares of MobilEye Global (MBLY) slumped Friday after reports that Intel (INTC) is considering selling off some of its stake as part of the chipmaker’s effort to improve its financial position.

Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, said Intel could offload some of its holdings in a public sale or third-party transaction. Intel has about an 88% stake in MobilEye, according to a recent regulatory filing.

MobilEye, which provides hardware and software for self-driving vehicles, has been struggling as automakers cut back production to clear out their post-pandemic inventory glut. Shares have plunged this year, with today’s losses sending them to record lows.

Intel shares have also been sinking. Recent reports have indicated CEO Pat Gelsinger and other executives are looking at options including shedding assets. The stock is trading around its lowest level in more than a decade.

MobilEye shares were down nearly 7% in recent trading, while Intel shares fell 3%.

–Bill McColl

Berkshire Further Trims Bank of America Stake

23 minutes ago

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, BRK.B) further trimmed its stake in Bank of America (BAC), selling just over 18.7 million shares over the course of this week, according to a filing by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Berkshire has made cuts to its stake in Bank of America in recent months after the bank’s stock hit a two-year high following an earnings beat. The bank’s stock price has retreated from its July 16 closing price of $44.13, but is still close to 18% above where it started the year.

Berkshire sold Bank of America stock in each of the last nine trading sessions, dating back to Aug. 26, bringing its stake down to about 864 million shares at Thursday's close, from just under 950 million shares at the start of the month. The latest sales put Berkshire's stake at just over 11% of Bank of America's 7.77 billion outstanding shares, currently worth about $34.7 billion.

Bank of America shares were down 2% in recent trading.

–Aaron McDade

Chip Stocks Once Again Leading S&P 500 Lower

1 hr 3 min ago

Friday's early-session selloff is broad based, but it's technology stocks that are showing the biggest declines.

The Information Technology Sector was down 1.5% recently, led by steep declines for chip makers.

AI investor darling Nvidia (NVDA), which has been especially volatile since releasing quarterly results last week that fell short of the loftiest Wall Street expectations, was down about 4% in recent trading.

The top decliner on the S&P 500 Friday is chipmaking giant Broadcom (AVGO), which was down nearly 10%. Other chip stocks, including Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Micron (MU), were also down sharply.

The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) was down nearly 4%.

Bitcoin Trading at Lowest Levels Since Early August

3 hr 23 min ago

Bitcoin (BTC) lost ground in early trading on Friday, moving below $56,000, after falling more than 3% yesterday as investors braced for the highly anticipated August jobs report, a key piece in the puzzle for gauging the timing and size of widely expected interest rate cuts by the Fed.

Rate cuts could provide a boost to the legacy cryptocurrency, which has fallen around 24% since setting its record high on March 14 amid a lack of new narratives to drive bullish sentiment.

Bitcoin has oscillated within a channel-like pattern since topping out in March this year, with the price recently trading towards the pattern's lower trendline.

Investors should watch key support levels on Bitcoin's chart at $53,000 and $47,000, while monitoring important resistance levels at $65,000 and $68,500.

Read the full technical analysis piece here.

-Timothy Smith

Broadcom Price Levels to Watch as Stock Tumbles

3 hr 31 min ago

Broadcom (AVGO) shares were down more than 7% in premarket trading after the chipmaker late Thursday reported fiscal third-quarter results that topped expectations but issued light revenue guidance for the current quarter. 

Broadcom shares have traded within a symmetrical triangle on declining volume since mid-June, with the price sending an ominous signal ahead of the chipmaker’s quarterly report by testing the pattern’s lower trendline. The stock sits positioned to stage a significant breakdown from the triangle on Friday.

Investors should monitor important lower price levels on Broadcom's chart at $141, $120, $104, and $91.

Read the full technical analysis piece here.

–Timothy Smith

How Will the Jobs Report Affect Rate-Cut Expectations?

3 hr 54 min ago

One of the big questions heading into this morning’s release of the August employment report is how the data will affect the Federal Reserve’s thinking about interest rate cuts.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell has signaled that rate cuts could come as soon as the mid-September meeting of the central bank’s policy committee, but has said that incoming data will drive the decisions on the pace and depth of the easing.

Heading into Friday’s data release, market participants were pricing in a 39% likelihood that the Fed will cut the influential fed funds rate by half a percentage point when it meets on Sept. 18, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, which forecasts rate movements based on fed funds futures trading data. While that’s up from the 30% chance that was priced in a week ago, it’s down from around 70% a month ago when markets tanked following the weaker-than-expected July jobs report.

If the number of jobs added in August comes in far below the 161,000 estimated by economists or the unemployment rate is higher than the 4.2% consensus view, expectations for a half-point rate cut are likely to rise.

Looking further out, market participants see an 85% likelihood that the fed funds rate will be cut a full percentage point by the end of 2024, to a range of 4.25%-4.50%. That would mean that the Fed has to make at least one half-point cut in one of its three remaining scheduled meetings.

Major Index Futures Lower Ahead of Jobs Report

4 hr 38 min ago

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 0.4%.

S&P 500 futures were down 0.7%.

Nasdaq 100 futures were off 1.2%.

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