Right there$NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$As the results were about to be announced, big news came from the periphery. Stanley Druckenmiller (Stanley Druckenmiller), a hedge fund giant and founder of Duquesne Capital Management, believes that artificial intelligence (AI) has already exploded too much, so the Nvidia stock holdings were drastically reduced by 72% in the first quarter of this year. According to Duquesne's 13-F file, Drucken Miller's hedge funds have had an average annual return of 30% for the past 30 years.
As revenue and profits soared, Nvidia's stock price has risen more than 500% since the beginning of 2023. It is now the third most valuable company in the world, after Microsoft and Apple, which means that with a market capitalization of $2.2 trillion, it will be difficult to double again.
Furthermore, Jeffrey Gundlach (Jeffrey Gundlach), CEO of Doubleline Capital (Doubleline Capital), known as the king of new debt, still insists that the US will still experience an economic recession. Although it is hard to say that it will definitely happen this year, it will definitely happen in 2024 or 2025. In fact, judging from history, US dollar interest rate cuts are often accompanied by bad things. At the beginning of interest rate cuts, the stock market also often slumped.
Nvidia was cut off by financial giants
According to Duquesne's 13-F filings, Drucken Miller's hedge fund had an average annual return of 30% for the past 30 years and sold 72% of Nvidia's shares in the first quarter of this year.
Drucken Miller bought Nvidia in large numbers when ChatGPT was first launched, but he now believes that Nvidia's rally has lost momentum.
Nvidia will reveal first-quarter results after the market on Wednesday local time. As a result, the market generally believes that the stock is likely to fluctuate on Thursday. Prior to that, as revenue and profits soared, Nvidia's stock price had risen by more than 500% since the beginning of 2023. It is now the third most valuable company in the world, behind Microsoft and Apple.
In the fourth quarter of last year, Nvidia's revenue soared 265% to US$22.1 billion, driven by 409% growth in the data center business. As the company dominates the data center GPU market, its pricing capabilities continue to expand, and profits are growing faster. Adjusted net profit soared 491% to $12.8 billion. Its first-quarter guidance called for another strong performance, forecasted revenue of around $24 billion, and adjusted net profit of $13 billion.
Tesla said in a recent earnings report that it has installed 35,000 Nvidia H100 GPU superchips, and this number is expected to grow to 85,000 by the end of this year. According to reports, the price of the H100 is as high as 40,000 US dollars, which means that Nvidia will receive 3.4 billion US dollars in revenue from Tesla alone this year. Similarly, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently stated that by the end of this year, his company will have a multi-billion dollar H100. According to these data, big tech companies are hoarding Nvidia components for the artificial intelligence revolution. This also means that Nvidia's position has not wavered.
Since mid-April, Nvidia shares have risen by more than 20%, and the recent trend has been quite steady. By yesterday's close, the stock price had reached more than 953 US dollars, which is only one step away from the record high of 974 US dollars.
What are the risks of US stocks?
Some netizens once joked that the biggest risk for US stocks is that they will keep rising (investors can easily go short). In fact, most of the time, risks do rise. Analysts believe that now the market is waiting for the US dollar to cut interest rates, but when interest rates are actually cut, US stocks will not necessarily rise. On the contrary, when interest rates are cut, it is probably also when they fall harshest.
Jeffrey Gunlak, CEO of the investment management company Dual Tier Capital and known as the king of new debt, insisted that the world's largest economy could experience a recession.
Recently, when asked if he still thinks America will experience a recession, Gunlak answered, “Of course.” Although he said it was “hard to say” if that would happen this year. However, according to interview records, he “definitely” believes that a recession may occur in 2024 or 2025.
Gunlak is considered to be one of the most influential figures in the financial market; however, he is uncertain about the exact timing of the economic downturn. According to reports, as early as September and November of last year, he indicated that the recession might arrive in the first half of this year. Instead, the economy has surpassed expectations, although this may be beginning to change.
The World Federation of Large Enterprises said that rising US inflation, rising interest rates, and rising household debt ratios may continue to put pressure on the economy this year. The agency's leading economic index released on Friday showed a second consecutive month of decline in April. Meanwhile, the New York Federal Reserve Imperial Factory Index, which was released last Wednesday, weakened further in May and fell to a negative value of 15.6. This is the sixth time in a row that the reading is below zero, which is a sign that the situation is getting worse.
“I think the data released this past week is very worrying.” Gunlak said, “A month ago, if you subdivided the economy into 6 or 7 major sectors, all of these sectors were experiencing positive growth. Suddenly there were more negatives than positives in the same numbers this year.”
“The positive things aren't that positive,” he continued. “I think the lifestyle adjustment brought about by printing money: they decided not to get checks from the government, but they are willing to put the money on credit cards. Those credit card bills are really starting to increase.”
Editor/Jeffrey