Wall Street’s new biggest bull is growling a bit like a bear. Wells Fargo Securities’ Chris Harvey hiked his S & P 500 year-end price target by about 20% this week. However, he’s less than enthusiastic about the path of higher market prices. “It’s weird. This won’t sound great. But even though we were high on the Street, I don’t feel bullish,” the firm’s head of equity strategy told CNBC’s ” Fast Money ” on Tuesday. “It’s not that ‘Wow, multiples are so cheap. Things are going to be fantastic. The economy is on fire. The Fed’s cutting rates and they’re going to start slashing tomorrow.'” Harvey, who once referred to himself during a CNBC interview as ” not a real positive guy ,” raised his official 2024 S & P 500 target to 5,535 on Monday. It implies a roughly 6% gain from Tuesday’s close of 5,209.91. Harvey made his comments on “Fast Money” a day before the Labor Department releases its March consumer price index report . He suggested the economy is in a period of malaise. Yet, he thinks stocks can still grind higher with mega-cap technology and growth companies leading. “You don’t need a strong economy for large cap because you’re going to get a market share shift. The winners, the higher profit, the higher-growth companies are going to gain more of that market share,” said Harvey. “So, if the winners keep winning, you don’t need that growth and that’s what we’re banking on.” Between now and year-end, he recommends a balanced approach to investing. He likes being overweight in communication services and sees artificial intelligence as a secular story. “If the status quo stays, growth is good. That’s good for growth. That’s good for momentum, and it’s good for large caps,” Harvey added. “If we start to see rates go lower, well what works? Things that are out of favor: utilities , small caps , more levered companies.” Harvey’s S & P 500 2023 year-end target was 4,420. The index ended the year up 24.2% — settling at 4,769.83. Disclaimer
Check out the companies making headlines before the bell. Micron — The chip stock plunged nearly 13% in premarket trading after the chipmaker issued weaker-than-expected second-quarter guidance. First-quarter revenue was inline with analysts’ expectations, while earnings topped estimates, however. Lamb Weston — Shares of the frozen potato maker sank 18% after posting quarterly results that fell short of estimates on the top and bottom lines. Lamb Weston posted adjusted earnings of 66 cents per share on $1.60 billion in revenue. That fell short of the EPS of $1.01 and $1.67 billion in revenue expected by analysts polled by FactSet. The company also named a new CEO as it faces ongoing pressure from activist investor Jana Partners to switch up its leadership team. Darden Restaurants — The Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse parent jumped 8% after reporting an earnings and revenue beat for its fiscal second quarter. Darden also raised its full-year revenue guidance. It now expects revenue of $12.1 billion, up from its previous guidance of $11.80 billion to $11.9 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected guidance of $11.97 billion. Lennar — The homebuilder sank 10.2% after earnings for the first fiscal quarter missed analyst expectations. Lennar earned $4.06 per share on $9.95 billion in revenue, while analysts surveyed by LSEG had anticipated $4.16 a share and $10.08 billion, respectively. Tesla — The electric vehicle stock added 3% after slumping more than 8% during Wednesday’s session after markets sold off as the Federal Reserve indicated fewer rate cuts next year. Conagra Brands — The packaged food company dipped 2% after lowering its fiscal year outlook. Conagra now sees its fiscal year adjusted earnings coming in at a range between $2.45 to $2.50 per share, lower than its prior guidance of between $2.60 to $2.65 and FactSet’s estimate of $2.58. However, Conagra reported a fiscal second-quarter adjusted earnings and revenue beat versus FactSet consensus. Accenture — The IT services management company surged 7% after topping fiscal first quarter revenue expectations and lifting its full-year guidance. Accenture said it now expects revenues to grow between 4% and 7%, versus a prior forecast of 3% to 6%. Carmax — Shares rose more than 6% after the company’s third-quarter results topped Wall Street’s expectations. Carmax earned 81 cents per share on revenue of $6.22 billion for the period. That’s above the 62 cents per share on revenue of $6.05 billion that analysts polled by FactSet were expecting. Palantir — The artificial intelligence software stock gained nearly 3% after announcing an expanded partnership with the U.S. Army , with a contract worth up to roughly $619 million. Shares had slumped about 4% during Wednesday’s selloff. — CNBC’s Sarah Min, Yun Li, Alex Harring, Michelle Fox, Lisa Han and Sean Conlon contributed reporting
Workers setting up the TuSimple booth for CES 2022 at the Las Vegas Convention Center on Jan. 3, 2022.
Alex Wong | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Embattled Chinese autonomous trucking company TuSimple has rebranded to CreateAI, focusing on video games and animation, the company announced Thursday.
Now, just over two years after CEO Cheng Lu rejoined the company in the role after being pushed out, he expects the business can break even in 2026.
That’s thanks to a video game based on the hit martial arts novels by Jin Yong that’s slated to release an initial version that year, Cheng said. He anticipates “several hundred million” in revenue in 2027 when the full version is launched.
Company co-founder Mo Chen has a “long history” with the Jin Yong family and started work in 2021 to develop an animated feature based on the stories, Cheng said.
The company claims its artificial intelligence capabilities in developing autonomous driving software give it a base from which to develop generative AI. That’s the next-level tech powering OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which generates human-like responses to user prompts.
Along with the CreateAI rebrand, the company debuted its first major AI model called Ruyi, an open-source model for visual work, available via the Hugging Face platform.
“It’s clear our shareholders see the value in this transformation and want to move forward in this direction,” Cheng said. “Our management team and Board of Directors have received overwhelming support from shareholders at the annual meeting.”
He said the company plans to increase headcount to around 500 next year, up from 300.
Cutting production costs by 70%
While still under the name TuSimple, the company in August announced a partnership with Shanghai Three Body Animation to develop the first animated feature film and video game based on the science fiction novel series “The Three-Body Problem.”
The company said at the time that it was launching a new business segment to develop generative AI applications for video games and animation.
CreateAI expects to lower the cost of top-tier, so-called triple A game production by 70% in the next five to six years, Cheng said. He declined to share whether the company was in talks with gaming giant Tencent.
When asked about the impact of U.S. restrictions, Cheng claimed there were no issues and said the company used a mix of China and non-China cloud computing providers.
The U.S. under the Biden administration has ramped up limits on Chinese businesses’ access to advanced semiconductors used to power generative AI.
This is a comparison of Wednesday’s Federal Open Market Committee statement with the one issued after the Fed’s previous policymaking meeting in November.
Text removed from the November statement is in red with a horizontal line through the middle.
Text appearing for the first time in the new statement is in red and underlined.