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China is responding to a Trump administration plan to sell weapons to Taiwan by sanctioning 20 U.S. defense companies, including Boeing (NYSE: BA), Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) and privately-held Anduril Industries.
Company executives will be banned from entering China and any assets they own in China will be frozen, reports The Wall Street Journal.
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Wall Street remains pretty quiet as trading resumes for the week’s final day. CICC is one of the few analysts still at its desk initiating coverage of stocks this week, starting Walmart (NYSE: WMT) at outperform rating with a $125 price target.
Details on the initiation are few at present, but it’s logical to assume CICC thinks Walmart had a good Christmas selling season. Regardless, Walmart stock opened 0.1% lower this morning, and the Voo is still up less than 0.1%.
Nvidia stock is up 1% however.
This article will be updated throughout the day, so check back often for more daily updates.
‘Twas the day after Christmas, and all along Wall Street, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) looks mostly flat premarket this morning, not down exactly, but up less than 0.1%. That’s okay, though. If the Voo doesn’t move an inch today, it will still end the week up 1.4% after gains won earlier in the week.
The big news today concerns Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA), which is making what CNBC calls “its largest purchase ever,” spending $20 billion to acquire the assets of an artificial intelligence semiconductor chip manufacturer called “Groq.”
(Note: No, not Elon Musk’s Grok AI service. That’s a different company.)
CNBC says Groq was most recently valued at $6.9 billion on the private market in September, so the price Nvidia is paying represents roughly a 3x increase in the company’s value in three months.
(And people say “AI is a bubble.” Pfui!)
Details are a bit unclear. Groq itself describes the transaction as a “non-exclusive licensing agreement” of its “inference technology” to Nvidia, and says it will continue under its own steam as an independent company. Other commentators, though, say that Nvidia is getting “all of Groq’s assets.”
For 3x Groq’s price three months ago, one would hope so!
Valuation
Groq is said to be targeting $500 million in revenue this year. Assuming it gets there, the valuation on this deal would be 40 times current year sales. For comparison, Nvidia’s own stock costs less than 25x trailing sales today.
So yes, Nvidia is buying Groq at a premium. Then again, with a stock market valuation of $4.6 trillion, if anyone can afford to buy things at a premium, it’s Nvidia.
[select fisher pitch]
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