← The Rundown
The Rundown
Amazon Working on AI Smartphone, Super Micro Founder Charged for Smuggling Nvidia Chips
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Public.com presents the rundown, your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zaydad Mani and Today is Friday, March 20th. And today's episode we'll tell you why gold is having its worst week in over 40 years. We'll also recap earnings from FedEx and what it means about the broader economy. Then we'll talk about why a major AI company's co founder was just arrested for smuggling Nvidia chips to China. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out why truckers are falling in love with Tesla's new semi truck. We got a great show for you today. Let's go. Stocks fell for the second straight day on Thursday. The S P 500 and Nasdaq were both down about 0.3%. But honestly, it could have been a lot worse. Now, at one point, stocks were down over 1% earlier in the day before bouncing back in the afternoon after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he seized the war with Iran and ending sooner than people think. He also said that Israel will help the US Reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Those comments send stocks higher and oil prices lower. International Brent crude is currently sitting around $110 a barrel, which is down from the 119 peak we saw earlier this week. But here's a headline that grabbed my attention this morning. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Saudi Arabian oil officials are privately projecting that oil could hit $180 a barrel if supply disruption lasts until late April. In fact, there are some anal they're even floating $200 a barrel. Now, for some context, the all time high price for oil was $146 back in 2008. So we are staring at potentially uncharted territory. And I think as long as there's that uncertainty, it's going to keep a lid on any real stock market rally. Now, looking beyond stocks and oil, gold also caught my attention. Gold dropped 6% on Thursday, falling to around $4,600 an ounce. Silver was even worse. It was down around 10% yesterday. Gold is now down more than 13% from its record high mark and it's on track for its worst week since 1983. Now you would think with the war breaking out and inflation potentially rising again, that that would be bullish for gold. Gold has historically been known as a safe haven asset and a hedge against inflation. Well, the problem is interest rates also play a big role in the price of gold. And what we learned this week is that central banks in the US And Europe have signaled that rate cuts are not happening anytime soon because the war is reigniting inflation concerns. And when interest rates stay high, gold becomes a less attractive investment compared to something like bonds, which actually pay you interest. So in a way, this war and potential resurgence of inflation is bad for gold, which is kind of ironic. So, yeah, a lot to keep an eye on in the markets right now. We're staying on top of everything, so make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast and tuning in every day to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines, starting with FedEx. FedEx reported earnings after the close on Thursday and they absolutely crushed it, beating on both revenues and earnings. And then to top it off, they raised their full year profit outlook. You know, FedEx is a closely watched company by investors because it's seen as an economic bellwether. When FedEx is doing well, it usually means people and businesses are buying and shipping stuff, which means the economy is humming along. But if shipping starts to slow down, that usually means the economy is starting to slow down. So that's why investors pay close attention to what FedEx reports and says. And right now, the company said the economy is holding up just fine despite the uncertainty with the war and rising oil prices. FedEx CEO Raj Subramanian said demand trends are fundamentally unchanged even with everything happening right now. He said that demand in the first two weeks of March have been in line with expectations and and the company says that its fuel surcharges are protecting their profitability from rising oil prices. FedEx stock has been on a heater lately. It's up more than 40% in the last 12 months. They recently overtook ups and market cap for the first time ever and the Stock is up another 7% this morning. the time of this recording, the company has been restructuring over the last year to make themselves more efficient. They've been combining their express and ground delivery networks. They're using more automation and AI to cut costs. We're actually going to talk more about how FedEx is using AI in our deep dive tomorrow. That deep dive is about the rise of AI agents and how AI agents are impacting the AI trade and how companies are starting to utilize them. I think it might be our best deep dive we've ever done. So keep an eye on your podcast feed on Saturday morning for that one. Let's shift gears and talk about Amazon. According to a report from Reuters, the company is ready to take another shot at smartphones. For those of you guys that were too young to Remember back in 2014, Amazon launched the Fire Phone. Jeff Bezos oversaw that project himself. Well, that phone turned out to be a massive flop and Amazon ended up killing it after just 14 months. Fast forward 12 years later, Amazon is trying again. But this time the plan is to deeply integrate Alexa and AI to make it easier for people to shop on Amazon and consume content from Prime Video or order food from grubhub. Not going to lie, I feel like none of those things are that hard to do on an iPhone, and I don't really see how an AI integrated Alexa device is going to make that better. But look, Amazon's not the only company trying to make AI native hardware. OpenAI is working with Jony I've, the legendary designer behind the iPhone, on making some sort of mystery AI device. Then you have Meta going all in on their AI powered smart glasses and all these companies are trying to find the next device that could potentially replace smartphones. Personally though, I think smartphones are pretty awesome as it is. Sure some AI features sprinkled on top could make it better, but I don't think there's going to be any major breakthroughs when it comes to hardware. But I don't know, maybe I could be wrong. Let me know what you guys think. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Shares of Firefly Aerospace are popping after the rocket company reported a surprise earnings beat and showed real signs that it's turning a corner. Firefly more than doubled its revenue last year to about $160 million. The company's starting to see some momentum. Their Alpha rocket, which is their core product and competes with companies like rocket lab and SpaceX for, finally had a successful launch last week after some earlier setbacks. On top of that, last year, the company's Blue Ghost lunar lander successfully landed on the moon for NASA, which opened the door for more government contracts including missions to the far side and south pole of the moon. The company's forecasting revenues this year to be between 420 and $450 million, which would be nearly triple last year's revenues. So that has investors pretty excited. And the Stock is up around 6.6percent this morning at the time of this recording. Now on the flip side, Super Micro is getting absolutely destroyed today. Shares are down more than 25% in the pre market after US prosecutors charged three people linked to the company, including its co founder, with smuggling billions of dollars worth of AI chips to China. Seem Super Micro is a major player in AI infrastructure. They build servers that run Nvidia chips. But remember the U.S. government had an export ban on high end Nvidia chips. And according to prosecutors, these Super Micro employees allegedly moved over $2.5 billion worth of AI technology, including Nvidia powered servers that were banned by the US Government into China by routing them through other countries like Taiwan and disguising the shipments. Now, to be clear, Super Micro itself was not charged as a company. In fact, the company says they cooperated with investigators and have taken place the employees on leave. But this is just another black eye for the company, especially because Supermicro was already dealing with credibility issues. Back in 2024, their auditor resigned. Then there was the short seller, Hindenburg. That raised red flags about the company as well. So headlines like this aren't great for the company, and investors are bailing fast. The stock has lost more than 70% of its value since peaking back in 2024. Let's wrap things the show with the fun fact Tesla semi trucks are about to hit the road. Finally, now, after years of delays, Tesla will be delivering its electric semi trucks this summer. And apparently truckers seem to love this thing. The Wall Street Journal talked to some drivers who tested some pilot models, and they were raving about it. Now, besides the fact that this truck is electric, there are some other key design changes. For one, drivers sit in the center of the cab, kind of like a F1 car, and there are screens on both sides showing everything around the truck. So that basically eliminates blind spots, which is a pretty big deal. Also, being electric makes these trucks easier to drive compared to a diesel truck. On top of that, electric trucks have way fewer moving parts, so maintenance costs should drop significantly. The semi truck will sell for around $300,000. And Tesla says the semi can go up to 500 miles on a single charge. And, and then it can recharge up to 60% in just 30 minutes. So, you know, I'm looking forward to seeing some of these Tesla semis on the road this year. Tesla's expecting to deliver between 5,000 to 15,000 trucks this year, and then they plan to ramp up up to 50,000 semis next year. And you got to imagine at some point these trucks are going to be driving themselves on the highway in the near future. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. That's the rundown for this week. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. And if you did and you have like five extra seconds, consider giving us a five star rating on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you listen to your podcasts. All that engagement really does help. Us out and it helps other people find the show. Thank you guys so much for listening, watching and commenting. Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the work behind the scenes and we'll see you guys back here tomorrow for the deep dive. 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