ASX 200 faces sharp losses following Wall Street downturn triggered by Fed’s minutes
Nvidia steals the spotlight with impressive Q1 performance
Scarlett Johansson’s legal team presses OpenAI for answers
The ASX 200 could be in for a rough ride on Thursday, thanks to Wall Street’s losses sparked by the Fed meeting minutes. At 8am AEST, the ASX200 futures contract was pointing down by -0.9%.
Overnight, the S&P 500 fell by -0.27%, the blue chips Dow Jones index was down by -0.51%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq slipped by -0.18%.
Nvidia hogged the headlines after hours, blowing past Wall Street estimates as its Q1 profit soared, with its stock price popping +7% in post-market trading.
Nvidia’s Q1 EPS (earnings per share) skyrocketed by 628% to US$5.98, on the back of a 268% increase in revenue to US$26 billion.
“The next industrial revolution has begun – companies and countries are partnering with Nvidia … to produce a new commodity: artificial intelligence,” pronounced Nvidia’s CEO and founder, Jensen Huang.
Nvidia also announced a 10-for-1 stock split and bumped up its dividend from US4c to US10c, keeping up with the trend of other big tech companies upping their quarterly payouts to shareholders.
Meanwhile, BHP got an extra week to come up with another takeover offer for Anglo American after Anglo turned down a third and supposedly final proposal worth $74 billion. Anglo said it will still entertain talks with BHP, even though it’s already turned down three offers this month.
Risk sentiment however was squashed after minutes from the two-day FOMC meeting that wrapped up on May 1 revealed that while officials felt the current policy was on track, several of them were open to tightening it more if necessary.
“Participants remained highly attentive to inflation risks and noted the uncertainty associated with the economic outlook,” the minutes read.
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said he doesn’t think the Fed will cut interest rates this year, given how the economy’s held up better than expected due to government spending.
“I still don’t see the data that’s compelling to see we’re going to cut rates here,” Solomon said, adding that he’s currently predicting “zero” cuts this year.
Scarlett presses OpenAI for answers
Lawyers for ‘Black Widow’ and ‘Lucy’ actress Scarlett Johansson reportedly pushed OpenAI to explain how they created an AI voice that she says sounds just like hers.
Her legal team sent two letters to OpenAI asking for details about how they developed a voice called “Sky,” according to her publicist.
After a live demo last week, many people noticed it sounded a lot like Scarlett’s voice from the 2013 movie “Her,” where a guy falls for his computer’s female voice.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had apparently asked her last September to be the new voice for ChatGPT, but she turned him down.
She was shocked when the company demoed a new ChatGPT voice last week that sounded like her anyway.
OpenAI has now pulled the heavily promoted voice option from ChatGPT, but has not responded to her request to explain how they created it in the first place.
Back to markets …
Gold price fell by -1.75% to US$2,379.30 an ounce.
Oil prices eased by almost -2%, with Brent crude now trading at US$81.47 a barrel.
The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield was flat at 4.42%.
The Aussie dollar dropped -0.75% to 66.20 cents.
The iron ore price added another +0.7% to US$121.60 a tonne.
Bitcoin meanwhile slipped by -0.8% in the last 24 hours to US$69,329, and Ethereum fell -0.4% to US$3,763.40.
5 ASX small caps to watch today
AFT Pharmaceuticals (ASX:AFP)
AFT has reported record profits and robust growth for the 12 months to March, driven by strong sales of over-the-counter medicines in Australasia and growing demand in international markets. Full-year operating revenue was up 25% to $195.4 million, driven by sales in International and Asian markets which grew by 70%. Record EBITDA of $26.2 million, up 22%, and NPAT increased 46% on pcp to $15.6 million.
Wisr (ASX:WZR)
Wisr announced it has executed an agreement for a $50m debt facility to provide additional strength to its balance sheet and platform to fund loan book growth. The facility, provided by the global bank Nomura, will accelerate Wisr’s path to profitability and see the company through to a self-sustaining capital position.
Kalgoorlie Gold Mining (ASX:KAL)
Extensive, thick gold mineralisation and anomalism has been discovered at KalGold’s Wessex target at Pinjin following the first pass aircore drill program. New intercepts include: 28m at 1.27g/t Au from 36m, and 12m at 1.17g/t Au from 52m.
Lefroy Exploration (ASX:LEX)
Lefroy announced the results from its Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling campaign targeting the Havelock and Lucky Strike gold targets, which commenced in April. Significant assays returned include: 5m @ 4.22g/t Au from 145m and 7m @ 2.04 g/t Au from 37m.
Sun Silver (ASX:SS1)
Sun Silver advised that it has commenced the tender process for its maiden drilling campaign at the company’s flagship Maverick Springs Silver-Gold Project in Nevada. Maverick Springs hosts an Inferred Mineral Resource of 292 million ounces of contained silver equivalent at an average grade of 72.4g/t AgEq, making it one of the most significant silver resources on the ASX, says SS1.
At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Sun Silver is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.
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