Coffee With Greta: Tech Declines
DJIA Futures: -30 (-0.1%)
SPX Futures: -17 (-0.3%)
NASDAQ Futures: -99 (-0.5%)
Good morning friends!
Futures are falling as tech stocks slip and traders await this week’s Fed decision.
Let’s get right to it!
Nvidia Falls After Announcing New Chips
Nvidia (NVDA) shares are falling 2.4% ahead of the open after announcing new AI chips on the first day of its GTC Conference.
The conference kicked off after the market close on Monday with a keynote speech by CEO Jensen Huang.
He announced a new generation of AI chips and software named Blackwell.
The first Blackwell chip is the GB200 and it will ship later this year.
Huang said, “Hopper is fantastic, but we need bigger GPUs.”
Hopper is the company’s current line of AI GPUs.
Nvidia also unveiled new AI software called NIM as executives say the company is becoming less of just a chipmaker and more of a platform provider.
SMCI Plunges On Share Offering
Super Micro Computer (SMCI) shares are tumbling 10.3% in premarket trade after announcing a new share offering this morning.
In a filing, SMCI said it plans to sell 2 million additional shares of common stock.
That pushes its total shares outstanding to over 58 million.
The move comes a day after SMCI began trading on the S&P 500 with a market cap near $60 billion.
The filing said, “The principal purposes of this offering are to obtain additional capital to support our operations, including for the purchase of inventory and other working capital purposes, manufacturing capacity expansions and increased research and development (‘R&D’) investments.”
Goldman Sachs is the underwriter for the new offering and has an option to purchase up to 300,000 additional SMCI shares within the next 30 days.
Homebuilding Rebounds
New home construction rebounded more than expected in February.
The Census Bureau reported housing starts jumped 10.7% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.52 million units.
That topped expectations for a 7.4% increase to 1.43 million and was the largest gain in nine months.
Single-family starts jumped 11.6% while multi-family building rose 8.6%.
January’s starts were also revised higher to a 12.3% drop vs the initial 14.8% decline.
The number of new building permits issued also rose 1.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.52 million vs 1.49 million expected.
That was the highest rate of new permits issued since August 2023.
Single-family permits rose 1% and multi-family permits rose 2.4%.
In Case You Missed It
- Homebuilder sentiment rose unexpectedly this month. The National Association of Homebuilders sentiment index rose 3 points to 51 vs 48 expected. It’s the fourth straight monthly gain and the first positive reading since July. Confidence in current sales conditions rose 4 points to 56, the six-month expectations index rose 2 points to 62, and buyer traffic increased 2 points to 34. Just 24% of builders said they are lowering home prices to attract buyers, down from 36% in December 2023.