Finance

Steve Cohen says AI will be decades-long theme, but Monday proves it won’t be a ‘straight line’

Published

3 months ago

January 28, 2025

Business Finance News

Steve Cohen, chairman and CEO Point72 speaking to CNBC on April 3rd, 2024.

CNBC

MIAMI BEACH, FL. — Billionaire investor Steve Cohen is standing by his long-term bullish view of artificial intelligence despite the wild volatility recently, saying the transformational shift could take decades to realize.

“This is a 10- to 20-year theme. It’s gonna affect everybody in how they conduct their lives, how they do their business,” Cohen said at iConnections Global Alts conference Tuesday. “We’re still in the first, second inning of a something that’s going to be transformational for the economy and the world….It is such a dramatic, important shift that to ignore it, and I think it’s a mistake.”

The chairman and CEO of hedge fund Point72’s comment came as young Chinese AI startup DeepSeek sparked a massive rout in U.S. technology stocks Monday. DeepSeek’s highly competitive models made seemingly from a fraction of the cost shook up investor confidence of the AI story and the hype around Nvidia’s chips.

Cohen, who also owns the New York Mets, said the AI boom could see ups and downs and the lack of accurate information could exacerbate volatility around AI-related investments.

“It’s going to be episodic. It’s not going to go in a straight line. There’ll be advances, and then it goes quiet,” Cohen said. “And there’re going to be moments when people are going to doubt it like yesterday. There’s a lot of people who own these stocks who perhaps don’t know what they own and why they own it, other than they know they should own some AI securities. And so you get a lot of misinformation.”

Nvidia, AI’s biggest enabler so far, saw shares tank 17% on Monday, or almost $600 billion in market value — the biggest ever one-day drop in value for a U.S. company. The megacap name rebounded 7% Tuesday.

Cohen also revealed that his firm has raised $1.5 billion for its new AI-focused hedge fund to capitalize on the boom.

Finance

Stocks making the biggest moves midday: Netflix, Bank of America, Boeing, Rocket Lab and more

Published

47 minutes ago

April 15, 2025

Business Finance News

These are the stocks posting the largest moves in midday trading.

Finance

Digital bank Bunq accelerates US expansion effort as profit jumps

Published

3 hours ago

April 15, 2025

Business Finance News

Dutch digital bank Bunq is plotting re-entry into the U.K. to tap into a “large and underserved” market of some 2.8 million British “digital nomads.”

Pavlo Gonchar | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Dutch digital bank Bunq on Tuesday said it’s filed for broker-dealer registration in the U.S. as it looks to further expand across the Atlantic.

Bunq CEO Ali Niknam said the broker-dealer application will be an initial step toward securing a full banking license. He couldn’t offer a firm timeline for when Bunq will secure this authorization in the U.S. — but said he’s excited for its growth prospects in the country.

Obtaining a broker-dealer license will mean Bunq “can offer our users who have an international footprint — which is the user demography we’re aiming for — a great number of our services,” Niknam told CNBC. Bunq mainly caters for “digital nomads,” individuals who can live and work from anywhere remotely.

Bunq will be able to offer most of its services in the U.S. with the exception of a savings account after securing broker-dealer authorization, Niknam added.

Bunq, which touts itself as a bank for “digital nomads,” currently has a banking license in the European Union. It has applied for an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) in the U.K. Bunq previously had operations in Britain but forced to withdraw from the country in 2020 due to Brexit.

Bunq initially filed for a U.S. Federal bank charter in April 2023. However, it withdrew the application a year later, citing issues between its Dutch regulator and U.S. agencies. The company plans to resubmit its application for a full U.S. banking license later this year.

65% jump in profit

Beyond the update on international expansion, Bunq also on Tuesday reported a 65% year-over-year jump in profit to 85.3 million euros ($97.2 million). That jump was primarily driven by a 55% increase in net interest income, while net fee income also grew 35%.

Similarly to fintech peers such as N26 and Monzo, Bunq has benefited from a high interest rate environment by pocketing yields on customer deposits sat at the central bank.

Bunq’s CEO told CNBC that, while high interest rates have certainly helped, more generally Bunq is seeing increased usage of the platform and has been focused on cost efficiency from an operational perspective.

“Because we are so lean and mean, and because we have set up all of our systems from scratch … we have been able to not only increase our profits, but also offer very good interest rates in the European market in general, and in the Netherlands specifically,” Niknam said.

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More recently, central banks in the EU and U.K. and U.S. have moved to slash interest rates in response to falling inflation and concerns of an economic slowdown, which can bite into bank earnings.

Niknam said he’s not concerned by the prospect of rates coming down and expects potential declines in interest income to be offset by a “diversified” revenue mix that includes income from paid subscription products, as well as new features. Bunq recently launched a tool that lets users trade stocks.

“This is different in continental Europe to the U.K. We had negative interest rates for long,” Niknam told CNBC. “So as we were growing, actually our cost base was also growing because we had to pay for all the deposits that people deposited a Bunq so I think we’re in a great position in 2025

Bunq is coming up against heaps of competition, especially in the U.S. market. America is already served by established consumer banking giants, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup. It’s also home to several major fintech brands, such as Chime and Robinhood.