Chip stocks bounce back as OpenAI files for Wall Street float – business live

3 hours ago 6

Introduction: Chip stocks bounce back ahead of ‘brat summer’ for AI firms

Good morning and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.

For the second day running, circuit breakers have been triggered on the Seoul stock exchange. But this time, it’s because the market is rising unusually quickly, rather than tumbling like it did on Monday.

Shares in South Korea’s chip giants are surging today, as investors pile back into the market after yesterday’s sell-off.

This rally is boosting optimism that the recent drop in tech shares is a blip, rather than the long-feared AI market crash.

Samsung Electronics’s shares are up over 9% today, while memory chipmaker SK Hynix have surged by 15%.

Those two heavyweight stocks have driven South Korea’s KOSPI up by 8.4% in Tuesday’s session, a day after it tumbled by 8%. Today’s market rally triggered successive temporary suspensions of program buy orders, known as “sidecars” in South Korea.

SK Hynix was boosted by a new multiyear partnership with Nvidia to develop next-generation memory for AI systems, whicch saw Nvidia’s Jensen Huang tour Seoul, meeting tech firms and handing out fried chicken to journalists:

Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang hands out fried chicken to members of the media as he eats and drinks beer with SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won at Kkanbu Chicken.

Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote, points out that the wild swings in the KOSPI are unusual, and worrying.

A day with a rise or fall of less than 5% in the Kospi has become rare – a sign of just how volatile this market has become and, therefore, how much of the move is driven by speculation. Indeed, the Kospi’s volatility index keeps rising to unbelievable levels, suggesting that when the music stops, there will be carnage.

Anyway, today we continue to observe the tech-versus-non-tech narrative play out – technology attracting flows while non-tech pockets of the market lag behind.

That narrative will be tested in the coming months, though, as several massive tech firms attempt to float on the stock market.

Last night, OpenAI filed for its initial public offering – which could value the firm behind the ChatGPT chatbot at more than $1tn. That puts OpenAI in a race with fellow artificial intelligence pioneer Anthropic, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX which is due to float on Friday.

Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB:

The OpenAI news means that we will hear more about how much revenue it is generating and how much cash it is burning through in the coming weeks.

2026 is set to be the ‘brat summer’* for these AI names, with their soaring valuations and big promises for how AI will change the world and send their revenues soaring.

[* For the benefit of any high court judges reading, here’s a guide to Charli xcx’s recent album, Brat]

The agenda

7am BST: German trade data
9:45am BST: Treasury Comittee hearing on Financial Inclusion Strategy
11am BST: NFIB’s US Business Optimism Index
1.30pm BST: US trade data for April

Key events

Chinese exports climb as AI boom drives trade

Strong demand for AI-related products led to a surge in China’s exports last month, new data shows.

China’s exports rose by 19.4% year-on-year in May, up from 14.1% in April, with chip exports more than doubling on an annual basis.

China’s exports of hi-tech products (50.9%), semiconductors (110.9%), automatic data processing machines (66.0%), mobile phones (44.3%), autos (39.3%), and ships (31.0%) continued to grow strongly in May, reported Lynn Song, ING’s chief economist for Greater China.

The pound is strengthening against the US dollar today, as calm returns to the markets.

Sterling is up a third of a cent at $1.3376.

Enrique Díaz-Alvarez, chief economist at global financial services firm and FX firm Ebury, says:

“A light week in terms of macroeconomic news out of the UK meant the focus for sterling traders was mostly elsewhere. We did see an MPC member (Greene) stating that she would consider voting for a hike at the next Bank of England meeting later this month.

“A notable upward revision in the PMI business indices last week suggests that the initial confidence drop was overstated and that the UK economy is more resilient to the Middle East events than first feared. We look to this week’s April monthly GDP data, released Friday, to validate this modestly optimistic view.”

OpenAI to float: What the experts say

Here’s some early reaction to OpenAI filing confidential paperwork for an initial public offering on the US stock market:

Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at investing and trading platform IG:

“Just when the supersized tech rally was looking a little tired, along comes the news of OpenAI’s decision to IPO.

Presumably the move has been spurred along by Anthropic’s recent move towards a public listing, but and now markets face the test of yet another superheavyweight firm listing to test demand for these highly-valued companies that promise to reshape not just the investing landscape, but the entirety of human society.”

Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club:

The race is on to extract money out of the roar of enthusiasm for companies providing the backbone to the artificial intelligence revolution. There’s now a hat trick of mega listings on the cards, with OpenAI’s filing for an IPO coming hot on the heels of Anthropic and SpaceX. The research company behind the hugely successful ChatGPT had first-mover advantage, buoyed by an early deal with Microsoft, but Anthropic has gained ground and is tackling adeptly from behind, winning reams of enterprise contracts.

The price of staying at the top of the game is eye-watering for OpenAI – it’s estimated to be spending more than $100 billion a year on the infrastructure and processing power to support its services and power the next generation of AI models. To stay high and dry in its AI fortress, the company reckons that by spending at this level, it will create a moat too difficult to cross for the competition, enabling it to keep raking in revenues and eventually turn big profits.

But this is a risk, especially with technological developments moving so fast, and future models not necessarily needing the capacity. The risk is that swathes of this infrastructure could become obsolete.

Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB:

OpenAI is currently valued at $850bn, the ‘baby’ of the group, since Anthropic is now valued ahead of OpenAI at $965bn. The company laid out the ‘third phase of OpenAI’ on Monday and said that it is undertaking research into artificial general intelligence, and looking at becoming a ‘product company’.

The latter is interesting for investors, since it would be a major potential source of future revenue. Although it is early days, if OpenAI launches its own product range, it could become a major competitor to Apple and Google, and their share prices are worth watching closely on Tuesday.

Major Gulf stock markets have rebounded today, on relief that that Iran and Israel said yesterday they had stopped their latest spate of attacks.

Saudi Arabia’s benchmark index, the Tadawul, has gained 0.8%, with lender Saudi National Bank up over 3% earlier today.

Dubai’s main share index is up 0.75%, and Kuwait’s main market is 1.5% higher.

London’s stock market is slipping in early trading, down almost 0.5% or 48 points at 10,323.

Pharmaceuticals group GSK are the top faller, down 2.7%, after striking a $10.6bn (£7.9bn) deal to buy US cancer specialist Nuvalent.

Mining stocks are also lower, as are oil producers BP and Shell.

UK accounting watchdog to investigate PwC's audit of WH Smith

The UK’s accounting regulator has launched an investigation into PricewaterhouseCoopers, over its auditing of travel retailer WH Smith.

The investigation will look into PwC’s auditing of WH Smith’s financial statements for the financial year ended 31 August 2024.

The Financial Reporting Council says:

The investigation will be conducted by the FRC’s Enforcement Division under the Audit Enforcement Procedure.

WH Smith is already being investigated by the City watchdog over an accounting error that misstated profits at its North American arm.

Surprise interest rate rise in Indonesia

We have a surprise interest rate rise, in Jakarta, triggered by the Iran war.

Indonesia’s central bank has raised interest rates by 25 basis points today, to 5.5%, as it tried to prop up the Indonesian rupiah.

The ‘off-cycle’ decision comes just a few weeks after the bank raised borrowing costs for the first time in two years,

The bank explained:

“This increase is a follow-up measure to strengthen the stabilization of the rupiah exchange rate against the impact of heightened global volatility caused by the war in the Middle East.”

Oil drops as Trump says Iran peace deal in 'final throes'

The oil price is dropping this morning, after Donald Trump declared that negotiations towards an Iran peace deal are in their ‘final throes’.

The US president made the comments to reporters at JFK airport after attending the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden (where he was roundly booed by the crowd)

Trump insisted that Iran and Israel “were going back and forth and now they both agreed through me to stop and we’re in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal”.

Asked whether it would be matter of days or weeks, he said it would take “two or three days”, adding that the strait of Hormuz would “open up right away” once the deal was signed.

Brent crude has dropped by 1% this morning, to $93 a barrel – still around $20/barrel above its levels before the conflict began in late February.

The AI trade has continued to bounce back this morning, reports Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid:

The KOSPI (+7.35%) is sharply higher after its 9th worst day in 45 plus years of history yesterday (-8.29%). The Nikkei (+2.19%) is also benefiting from a recovery in technology stocks after a decline of over -3.5% yesterday.

Chinese stocks are up just over half a percent and other markets are broadly flat. S&P 500 (+0.26%) and NASDAQ 100 (+0.54%) futures are also continuing to recover after a decent session yesterday.

Full story: OpenAI confidentially files for initial public offering

OpenAI has filed confidentially to go public on the US stock market, according to a company blogpost published on Monday. The artificial intelligence giant’s debut on Wall Street is expected to be one of the most highly valued listings in market history with a valuation at more than $850bn.

“We recently submitted a confidential S-1. We expect it to leak so we’re just announcing it,” the company’s post reads. “We have not decided on timing yet; it may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company. But it’s a complicated set of tradeoffs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best.”

An S-1 is an investor prospectus submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in advance of an initial public offering (IPO). The confidential filing will give regulators a period to review and discuss the company’s financial disclosures before investors and the public are able to view them.

More here: