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OpenAI is reportedly considering plans to overhaul its corporate structure to make itself more investor friendly ahead o...
03/09/2024

OpenAI is reportedly considering plans to overhaul its corporate structure to make itself more investor friendly ahead of a multi-billion dollar fundraising round that is expected to draw in finance from Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia. 
The artificial intelligence organization has talked to investors about moving even further away from its current non-profit structure, including by possibly removing a cap on profits paid out to investors from OpenAI’s for-profit subsidiary, the Financial Times reported, citing three sources. 
OpenAI, which was first started in 2015, currently consists of an overarching non-profit organization which sits in full control of the ChatGPT developer’s for-profit subsidiary, to ensure it works to further the non-profit organization’s mission. 
Any profits received by OpenAI’s investors, including top shareholder Microsoft are currently capped at sums equivalent to 100 times the value of the initial investment. 
Apple and Nvidia are reportedly in talks to invest in ChatGPT creator OpenAI by taking part in a multi-billion dollar funding round led by venture capital firm Thrive Capital, according to the Wall Street Journal.
OpenAI’s for-profit subsidiary was launched in 2019 in line with plans to make it easier to draw in private investment and in order to give the startup the ability to grant employees stock options, with a view to boosting its recruitment efforts. 
On its website, OpenAI says it exists as an organization to “build artificial general intelligence that is safe and benefits all of humanity.” The startup says investors would be wise to view any investments “in the spirit of a donation.”
The AI research organization is currently pushing ahead with plans for a new fundraising round that could see it valued at over $100 billion, making it one of the most valuable startups to ever come out of Silicon Valley. 

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Volkswagen is considering closing factories in Germany for the first time in its 87-year history as the carmaker battles...
02/09/2024

Volkswagen is considering closing factories in Germany for the first time in its 87-year history as the carmaker battles to cut costs and survive the transition to electric cars.
Volkswagen, which was founded in 1937, said on Monday that it could no longer rule out unprecedented plant closures in Germany as it seeks ways to save several billion euros.
The announcement has put the car giant on a collision course with unions, who called it a “black day” for the company.
VW, which also owns brands including Audi, Seat and Skoda, considers one large vehicle plant and one component factory in Germany to be obsolete, according to the powerful works council union. It vowed “fierce resistance” to the executive board’s plans.
Bosses are also planning to end the group’s job security programme, which has been in place since 1994 and prevented job cuts until 2029. VW said all measures would be discussed with the works council.

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The largest U.S. public pension by assets recently made major changes in some of its biggest investments.In the second q...
02/09/2024

The largest U.S. public pension by assets recently made major changes in some of its biggest investments.
In the second quarter, California Public Employees’ Retirement System slashed stakes in artificial-intelligence chip maker Nvidia, software firm International Business Machines, and retailer Walmart, while buying more shares of electric-vehicle maker Lucid Group. Calpers, as the pension is known, disclosed the stock trades, among others, in a form it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In response to a request for comment on the investment changes, the pension emailed the statement, “Calpers’ global public equities are largely managed using quantitative and systematic investment approaches and, as such, we do not comment on our individual holdings or trades or discuss investment strategy.”
The pension has assets of more than $520 billionExternal link, making it the largest public pension in the countryExternal link.

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Struggling automaker Volkswagen (VOW3.DE) is stuck in a massive cost clearout as it seeks to calm investors amid fears o...
31/08/2024

Struggling automaker Volkswagen (VOW3.DE) is stuck in a massive cost clearout as it seeks to calm investors amid fears of falling EV demand. Its latest strategy to get there reportedly involves six-figure paydays for employees it deems surplus to requirements.
The German auto giant agreed last year to reduce its costs by €10 billion as fears mounted over a slowdown in EV uptake and new competition from cheap Chinese rivals.
Part of this cost-cutting drive includes a 20% reduction in administrative personnel costs, which is likely to involve a significant reduction in Volkswagen’s 684,000-strong workforce at the end of 2023.

The German publication Wolfsburger Allgemeine Zeitung reports that the automaker is offering lucrative packages to employees no longer needed as part of a push to reduce personnel costs.
Between April and June, the group reportedly offered staffers a special bonus of €50,000 if they agreed to take severance. Alongside typical incentives, the publication says this saw some employees receive up to €450,000 if they departed the company.

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Ulta Beauty’s (ULTA) glow-up may be coming to an end.On Thursday after market close, the beauty retailer reported second...
30/08/2024

Ulta Beauty’s (ULTA) glow-up may be coming to an end.
On Thursday after market close, the beauty retailer reported second quarter results that missed estimates across the board. Revenue came in at $2.55 billion, compared to $2.62 billion expected. Earnings per share of $5.30 also fell short of the $5.50 expected.
CEO Dave Kimbell acknowledged the disappointing results in an earnings call.
“We do not believe these results reflect the strong engagement with our brand, the strength of our operating model, or the performance I know we can deliver over the longer term,” he said.
He outlined a few factors weighing on Ulta, including normalizing demand post-pandemic, more value-conscious consumers, and a shift in the marketplace.
“There are significantly more places to buy beauty, especially prestige beauty, with more than 1,000 new points of distribution opened in the last three years. As a result, our market share continues to be challenged, particularly within prestige beauty,” Kimbell said.

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On Tuesday afternoon, NFL owners voted to approve a measure to allow private equity funds to buy stakes — small stakes f...
29/08/2024

On Tuesday afternoon, NFL owners voted to approve a measure to allow private equity funds to buy stakes — small stakes for now — in teams. It is a significant shift in the NFL’s ownership rules, which, until now, had allowed a team to have limited partners, but had never allowed institutional investment — pooled money from investors — as part of ownership.
What does that mean? Access, very soon, to hundreds of millions of dollars in cash for owners who want to sell a small portion of their teams to a private equity fund.
What it is very, very unlikely to mean? Any changes in the way franchises run that are noticeable or meaningful to fans. A private equity fund is not going to buy an entire NFL team. This was an important move for the business side of football, because access to cash should allow greater owner spending on franchises, which should theoretically allow greater financial stability for those teams. But an executive from a private equity firm is not going to be sitting in the draft room choosing the next quarterback.

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The number of 401(k) millionaires hit an all-time high, according to Fidelity Investment’s latest quarterly report, buoy...
28/08/2024

The number of 401(k) millionaires hit an all-time high, according to Fidelity Investment’s latest quarterly report, buoyed by steady investing and strong stock-market performance.
Retirement savers with at least $1 million in their 401(k) plans grew by 2.5% between the first and second quarters of the year, and IRA millionaires increased by 6% in that same time frame, according to the Fidelity data, which analyzes the investment firm’s 48 million 401(k), 403(b) and IRA accounts. Fidelity attributed reaching this milestone to starting early and consistently contributing through the years, as well as “strong market conditions” according to the report.

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Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is on the cusp of becoming just the ninth company in the world to achieve a $1 trill...
28/08/2024

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is on the cusp of becoming just the ninth company in the world to achieve a $1 trillion valuation.
The conglomerate’s total market capitalization stood at nearly $993 billion as of Tuesday’s close, according to Dow Jones Market Data — leaving it just $7 billion shy of the milestone.

Berkshire Hathaway has seen its total market cap increase by about $218 billion since the start of 2024, according to Dow Jones data. That figure is more than the entire market value of iconic American companies like American Express Co., McDonald’s Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and Progressive Corp. Berkshire’s Class A shares have gained 27.4% in 2024 to finish at $691,349 a share on Wednesday, according to FactSet data. Meanwhile, the conglomerate’s Class B shares have risen 29.2% this year to $460.63 a share.

Achieving a 13-figure valuation would mark the latest milestone in a storied history for Berkshire Hathaway. Founded in the 19th century, the company was a prosperous New England-based textile manufacturer for much of its life, before falling on hard times. Buffett took control in the mid-1960s and redirected the company into the insurance business with several strategic acquisitions.

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U.S. labor board prosecutors have determined that a union’s claims that Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) illegally refused t...
27/08/2024

U.S. labor board prosecutors have determined that a union’s claims that Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) illegally refused to give raises to workers at a Michigan restaurant after they became the first and only employees of the fast-casual chain to unionize have merit.
The National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel will issue a formal complaint against Chipotle unless it settles the claims by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, NLRB spokeswoman Kayla Blado said on Monday.

Workers at the Lansing, Michigan, restaurant voted 11-3 to join the Teamsters in 2022, but have yet to secure a contract with Chipotle. The union in a complaint filed last year said Chipotle withheld raises from the store’s employees by falsely claiming that they were not eligible for pay bumps because they had unionized.

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Cava Group (CAVA) tumbled late Monday after CEO Brent Schulman and several key executives and directors disclosed stock ...
27/08/2024

Cava Group (CAVA) tumbled late Monday after CEO Brent Schulman and several key executives and directors disclosed stock sales of Cava stock in the wake of the Mediterranean-themed restaurant chain’s post-earnings spike to record highs.

CEO Schulman sold 210,504 shares for $24.87 million. Ted Xenohristos, Cava co-founder and chief concept officer, sold 98,490 shares for $12.387 million. CFO Patricia Tolivar sold 5,000 shares for $628,175. Board member James White sold 1,500 shares for $190,770.
A trust linked to board member David Bosserman sold 5,000 shares for $627,550.

Cava stock fell 6.8% in after-hours trading. Shares climbed 3.1% to 125.80 in Monday’s regular session.
On Friday, Cava skyrocketed 19.6% after second-quarter earnings spiked 183% with revenue growth picking up to 35%, both beating analyst views.

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When Elon Musk took over Twitter in 2022, he told the company’s staff they would need to work at an “extremely hardcore”...
26/08/2024

When Elon Musk took over Twitter in 2022, he told the company’s staff they would need to work at an “extremely hardcore” rate to build Twitter 2.0.
Now, he’s reportedly making them explain why they should be given their stock options.
In an email sent to staff, reported by The Verge, Musk reportedly said that the company would reward stock options based on employee impact and that workers would need to submit a one-page summary of their contributions to X to get them.
One source also told The Verge that employees were still waiting for their annual equity refresher, which was expected in April.

It comes nearly two years after Musk gave staff at the company a famous ultimatum.

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Ride-hailing platform Uber (UBER) has been fined 290 million euros ($324 million) in the Netherlands for sending the per...
26/08/2024

Ride-hailing platform Uber (UBER) has been fined 290 million euros ($324 million) in the Netherlands for sending the personal data of European taxi drivers to the United States in violation of EU rules, Dutch data protection watchdog DPA said on Monday.

Uber has stopped the practice, the DPA added.
“This flawed decision and extraordinary fine are completely unjustified,” Uber spokesperson Caspar Nixon told Reuters in an email.
“Uber’s cross-border data transfer process was compliant with GDPR during a 3-year period of immense uncertainty between the EU and US,” he added, saying the company would appeal and was confident that “common sense will prevail”.
The DPA said Uber transferred personal data to the United States and failed to appropriately safeguard the data.
“This constitutes a serious violation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR),” it said.

Uber can appeal the decision with the DPA and if unsuccessful can then file a case with the Dutch courts. The appeals process is expected to take some four years and any fines are suspended until all legal recourses have been exhausted, according to the DPA.
The investigation was triggered after a French human rights organisation lodged a complaint on behalf of more than 170 taxi drivers in France with the country’s data protection authority. However, as Uber has its European headquarters in the Netherlands, it was forwarded to the DPA.
French national data protection regulator CNIL said in a separate statement that it had cooperated with the DPA.

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Durov, the Russian-French billionaire founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested at Bourget airport out...
25/08/2024

Durov, the Russian-French billionaire founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested at Bourget airport outside Paris on Saturday evening, TF1 TV and BFM TV said, citing unidentified sources.
Durov was travelling aboard his private jet, TF1 said on its website, adding he had been targeted by an arrest warrant in France as part of a preliminary police investigation.
TF1 and BFM both said the investigation was focused on a lack of moderators on Telegram, and that police considered that this situation allowed criminal activity to go on undeterred on the messaging app.
Durov faces possible indictment on Sunday, according to French media.
The encrypted Telegram, with close to one billion users, is particularly influential in Russia, Ukraine and the republics of the former Soviet Union. It is ranked as one of the major social media platforms after Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and Wechat.
Telegram did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The French Interior Ministry and police had no comment.
Russian-born Durov founded Telegram with his brother in 2013. He left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with government demands to shut down opposition communities on his VKontakte social media platform, which he sold.

“I would rather be free than to take orders from anyone,” Durov told U.S. journalist Tucker Carlson in April about his exit from Russia and search for a home for his company which included stints in Berlin, London, Singapore and San Francisco.
After Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Telegram has become the main source of unfiltered - and sometimes graphic and misleading - content from both sides about the war and the politics surrounding the conflict.
The platform has become what some analysts call ‘a virtual battlefield’ for the war, used heavily by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his officials, as well as the Russian government.

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NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will return to earth with SpaceX after the Starliner spacecraft that too...
24/08/2024

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will return to earth with SpaceX after the Starliner spacecraft that took them to the International Space Station was beset with problems, the space agency announced Saturday.
“NASA has decided that Butch and Suni will return with [SpaceX’s] Crew 9 next February and that Starliner will return uncrewed,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, during a press conference Saturday afternoon. “I want you to know that Boeing has worked very hard with NASA to get the necessary data to make this decision.”
The NASA administrator said Starliner is “an important part” of NASA’s crew access to the ISS. Nelson added that he had talked to Boeing’s new CEO Kelly Ortberg. “I told him how well Boeing worked with our team to come to this decision,” he said.

Earlier this month NASA discussed the possibility of bringing Wilmore and Williams back to Earth on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.

NASA and Boeing have wrestled with helium leaks and thruster issues on Starliner, which launched on June 5 and arrived at the ISS the following day. The capsule was initially expected to be docked at the orbiting space lab for at least eight days before bringing the two astronauts home. They have now been there for more than 70 days.

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Investors should buy gold even as the metal hovers around record-high prices, according to Bank of America investment st...
24/08/2024

Investors should buy gold even as the metal hovers around record-high prices, according to Bank of America investment strategist Michael Hartnett.
In a note on Thursday, Hartnett said investors should “do what central banks are doing… buy gold.”
That’s because interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve in the coming months pose a risk to stoking a rebound in inflation next year, Hartnett said, and real assets, like gold, have historically performed well during bouts of inflation.
Hartnett’s comments come amid a record rally in the precious metal, with gold prices surging about 20% year-to-date, outpacing the gains of the S&P 500 by a few percentage points, and outperforming technology stocks.
Hartnett noted that gold is the only asset that’s outperforming US tech shares.

The perplexing factor behind gold’s rally is that investors haven’t been chasing it.
Instead, gold has experienced a net $2.5 billion in outflows so far this year, which means investors have been taking profits amid the precious metal’s record rally.
That also means that the buying in gold has come from another cohort of the market.

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Apple Inc. is planning to hold its biggest product launch event of the year on Sept. 10, when the company will unveil th...
23/08/2024

Apple Inc. is planning to hold its biggest product launch event of the year on Sept. 10, when the company will unveil the latest iPhones, watches and AirPods, according to people familiar with the situation.

Though the timing hasn’t yet been announced, the company is making preparations for that date, which falls on a Tuesday, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private. The unveiling will be followed by the phones going on sale Sept. 20, in line with Apple’s typical approach in recent years.

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Burberry Group Plc (BRBY.L, BURBY, BB2.F, BB2.HA, BRBYL.XC) is on the verge of exiting the FTSE 100 Index, ending the lu...
23/08/2024

Burberry Group Plc (BRBY.L, BURBY, BB2.F, BB2.HA, BRBYL.XC) is on the verge of exiting the FTSE 100 Index, ending the luxury-goods maker’s 15-year stay in the UK blue-chip gauge.

Hampered by an industry-wide slowdown in demand and a faltering brand revamp, the firm’s shares have slumped by a third over the past three months, sending Burberry tumbling down the market-value rankings that index compiler FTSE Russell uses to determine changes to the benchmark.
Ahead of Tuesday’s quarterly announcement of provisional changes to the index, Burberry’s market capitalization of £2.5 billion ($3.3 billion) puts it 140th in the FTSE 350 Index of the UK’s large and midcap stocks. That’s far below where it needs to be to retain its place in the FTSE 100, which it has been a constituent of since September 2009.

Burberry “looks a shoe-in for relegation from the FTSE 100,” said Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown.

Burberry has been hit particularly hard by the demand slowdown gripping the luxury industry, especially in the all-important Chinese market. That resulted in a recent profit warning from the British firm, which didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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BMW (BMWG.DE) ,led the European battery electric vehicle (BEV) market for the first time, beating U.S. automaker Tesla (...
23/08/2024

BMW (BMWG.DE) ,led the European battery electric vehicle (BEV) market for the first time, beating U.S. automaker Tesla (TSLA.O) , opens according to market research firm JATO Dynamics.
The German auto giant sold 14,869 BEV cars in July, about 300 more than Tesla last month.

The data underscored traditional automakers’ success in the market after trailing pure electric-vehicle manufacturers, driven by government policies and brand royalty.

KEY QUOTES
“The lack of clarity around the incentives for - and future of - EVs continues to present a barrier to consumers considering an EV. These factors, alongside the low residual value of EVs contributed to the decline seen in July,” said Felipe Munoz, Global Analyst at JATO Dynamics, referring to a drop in total EV sales.
CONTEXT
Tesla, the world’s most valuable automaker, remains the dominant player, but traditional automakers such as BMW and Volvo are gaining ground due to uncertainties surrounding EV subsidies and incentives.

CEO Elon Musk’s polarizing persona has also been influencing sentiment toward Tesla, according to some reports.
BY THE NUMBERS
BMW reported a 35% jump in sales last month from a year earlier, while Tesla saw registrations fall 16%, the report said.
About 139,300 new electric cars were registered last month, down 6% from July 2023, according to the report, which added market share of EVs slipped to 13.5% from 14.6% a year earlier.

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“Startup failures in the US have jumped 60 per cent over the past year, as founders run out of cash raised during the te...
22/08/2024

“Startup failures in the US have jumped 60 per cent over the past year, as founders run out of cash raised during the technology boom of 2021–22,” Financial Times reports.
Shutdowns are rising sharply, even as billions of dollars of venture capital flow into artificial intelligence startups.
The jump in bankruptcies is because “an abnormally high number of companies raised an abnormally large amount of money during 2021–2022”, said analysts at Morgan Stanley in a recent note to clients.
The trend isn’t new. The first signs were noticed at the end of 2022.
But it still persists, which will impact the startup world in the long term.
More startups fail. Fewer startups receive investments.
According to Morgan Stanley, VC-backed companies employed 4 million people in the US.
The newspaper also states that investment is “going to startups working on artificial intelligence.”
So, when the AI bubble bursts, we’ll wake up in a different world.

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Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation exchange-traded fund has had big ups and downs. Its investors, though, have mostly missed o...
22/08/2024

Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation exchange-traded fund has had big ups and downs. Its investors, though, have mostly missed out on the gains and swallowed a big chunk of the losses, new numbers show.
The $5.8 billion fund, known by its stock ticker ARKK, became a standout because of Wood, the star portfolio manager and CEO of ARK Invest, and her bold bets on pandemic-era tech stocks such as Tesla and Zoom Video Communications.
The fund more than doubled in value in 2020—at one point becoming the largest active ETF overseeing nearly $30 billionExternal link. Shares plunged during the next two years and have yo-yoed since. While the fund posted a 68% return in 2023, it’s down about 14% so far this year.
But the average ARK investor has seen results far worse than the fund itself, according to data from fund research Morningstar.

In fact, since its 2014 inception, the fund has returned 9.7% on average per year, according to Morningstar. That’s far below the triple-digit returns that investors once dreamed of, but more or less in line with long-term stock returns.
And for investors, it’s even more bleak: Their average annual return, calculated by Morningstar is -17%.

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Software engineers may have to develop other skills soon as artificial intelligence takes over many coding tasks.That’s ...
21/08/2024

Software engineers may have to develop other skills soon as artificial intelligence takes over many coding tasks.
That’s according to Amazon Web Services’ CEO, Matt Garman, who shared his thoughts on the topic during an internal fireside chat held in June, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by Business Insider.
“If you go forward 24 months from now, or some amount of time — I can’t exactly predict where it is — it’s possible that most developers are not coding,” said Garman, who became AWS’s CEO in June.
“Coding is just kind of like the language that we talk to computers. It’s not necessarily the skill in and of itself,” the executive said. “The skill in and of itself is like, how do I innovate? How do I go build something that’s interesting for my end users to use?”
This means the job of a software developer will change, Garman said.
“It just means that each of us has to get more in tune with what our customers need and what the actual end thing is that we’re going to try to go build, because that’s going to be more and more of what the work is as opposed to sitting down and actually writing code,” he said.

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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. broke ground in eastern Germany on its first European plant as the continent seek...
20/08/2024

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. broke ground in eastern Germany on its first European plant as the continent seeks to safeguard its chip supplies amid growing US-China tensions.

“We are dependent on semiconductors for our sustainable future technologies, but we must not be dependent on other regions of the world for the supply of semiconductors,” said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who attended a ceremony on Tuesday to mark the start of construction of the €10 billion ($11 billion) fab in the city of Dresden. About half of the funding will be covered by state subsidies.
Germany is leading the European Union push to produce one-fifth of the world’s semiconductors by 2030, with the bloc seeking to build up capacity following Covid-era disruptions and as the relationship between Washington and Beijing deteriorates. The US, Japan and others are also showering subsidies on the chip industry to localize production of the components that control everything from cutting-edge artificial intelligence to everyday gadgets.
TSMC is the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, with Apple Inc. and Nvidia Corp. relying on it for their most important products. It will anchor the Dresden project with a 70% stake in the plant, which will produce chips for the automotive and industrial sectors.

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For the first time ever, a bar of gold is worth a cool one million dollars.The milestone was reached Friday, when the pr...
20/08/2024

For the first time ever, a bar of gold is worth a cool one million dollars.

The milestone was reached Friday, when the precious metal’s spot price surpassed $2,500 per troy ounce, an all-time high. With gold bars typically weighing about 400 ounces, that would make each one worth more than $1 million.
There are some nuances to the figure. While gold bars in the London market — the global center for trading the precious metal — normally weigh about 400 troy ounces, they can contain 350 to 430 ounces of pure gold, according to the London Bullion Market Association. It’s also possible for individuals to buy much smaller, more affordable bars such as those sold by Costco.
In the first half of this year, central bank net purchases of gold stood at 483.3 tons, equivalent to almost 40,000 bars, according to a Bloomberg calculation using figures from consultancy Metals Focus. It’s one of the factors that has supported the precious metal’s blistering rally so far this year, along with expectations of looser monetary policy from the US Federal Reserve.

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European defense contractors traded sharply lower on Monday after a report Germany would stop providing new military aid...
19/08/2024

European defense contractors traded sharply lower on Monday after a report Germany would stop providing new military aid to Ukraine.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, citing internal documents and letters from Finance Minister Christian Lindner, said Berlin will continue to provide previously approved assistance, and future aid will come from proceeds on frozen Russian assets.
Rheinmetall shares slumped 4%, while BAE Systems shares fell 3%. Rolls-Royce Leonardo and Thales also saw shares fall.
The Stoxx aerospace and defense index has surged 23%. this year.

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