Finance

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) earnings Q3 2024

Published

5 days ago

October 11, 2024

CEO of Chase Jamie Dimon looks on as he attends the seventh “Choose France Summit”, aiming to attract foreign investors to the country, at the Chateau de Versailles, outside Paris, on May 13, 2024.

Lucovic Marin | Getty Images

JPMorgan Chase is scheduled to report third-quarter earnings before the opening bell Friday.

Here’s what Wall Street expects:

Earnings: $4.01 a share, according to LSEG
Revenue: $41.63 billion, according to LSEG
Net interest income: $22.73 billion, according to StreetAccount
Trading Revenue: Fixed income of $4.38 billion, Equities of $2.41 billion, according to StreetAccount

JPMorgan will be watched closely for clues on how banks are faring at the start of the Federal Reserve’s easing cycle.

The biggest American bank has thrived in a rising rate environment, posting record net income figures since the Fed started hiking rates in 2022.

Now, with the Fed cutting rates, there are questions as to how JPMorgan will navigate the change. Like other big banks, it’s margins may be squeezed as yields on interest-generating assets like loans fall faster than its funding costs.

Last month, JPMorgan dialed back expectations for 2025 net interest income and expenses, and analysts will want more details on those projections.

Analysts will also want to hear JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s thoughts about the upcoming U.S. election and the industry’s efforts to push back against an array of regulatory moves to rein in fees and force banks to hold more capital.

Shares of JPMorgan have jumped 25% this year, exceeding the 20% gain of the KBW Bank Index.

Wells Fargo is scheduled to release results later Friday, while Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley report next week.

This story is developing. Please check back for updates.

Finance

China’s Alibaba claims AI translation tool beats Google, ChatGPT

Published

8 hours ago

October 16, 2024

Business Finance News

Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba has invested heavily in its fast-growing international business as growth slows for its China-focused Taobao and Tmall business.

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

BEIJING — Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba‘s international arm on Wednesday launched an updated version of its artificial intelligence-powered translation tool that, it says, is better than products offered by Google, DeepL and ChatGPT.

That’s based on an assessment of Alibaba International’s new model, Marco MT, by translation benchmark framework Flores, the Chinese company said.

Alibaba’s fast-growing international unit released the AI translation product as an update to one unveiled about a year ago, which it says already has 500,000 merchant users. Sellers based in one country can use the translation tool to create product pages in the language of the target market.

The new version is based only on large language models, allowing it to draw on contextual clues such as culture or industry-specific terms, Kaifu Zhang, vice president of Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group and head of the business’ artificial intelligence initiative, told CNBC in an interview Tuesday.

“The idea is that we want this AI tool to help the bottom line of the merchants, because if the merchants are doing well, the platform will be doing well,” he said.

Large language models power artificial intelligence applications such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which can also translate text. The models, trained on massive amounts of data, can generate humanlike responses to user prompts.

Alibaba’s translation tool is based on its own model called Qwen. The product supports 15 languages: Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Ukrainian.

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Zhang said he expects “substantial demand” for the tool from Europe and the Americas. He also expects emerging markets to be a significant area of use.

When users of Alibaba.com — a site for suppliers to sell to businesses — are categorized by country, developing countries account for about half of the top 20 active AI tool users, Zhang said.

Chinese companies have increasingly looked abroad for growth opportunities, especially e-commerce merchants. PDD Holdings‘ Temu, fast fashion seller Shein and ByteDance’s TikTok are among the recent global market entrants. Many China-based merchants also sell on Amazon.com.

Contextual clues

Since Alibaba launched the first version of its AI translation tool last fall, the company said merchants have used it for more than 100 million product listings. Similar to other AI-based services, the basic pricing charges merchants by the amount of translated text.

Zhang declined to share how much the updated version would cost. He said it was included in some service bundles for merchants wanting simple exposure to overseas users.

His thinking is that contextual translation makes it much more likely that consumers decide to buy. He shared an example in which a colloquial Chinese description for a slipper would have turned off English-speaking consumers if it was only translated literally, without getting at the implied meaning.

“The updated translation engine is going to make Double 11 a better experience for consumers because of more authentic expression,” Zhang said, in reference to the Alibaba-led shopping festival that centers on Nov. 11 each year.

Alibaba’s international business includes platforms such as AliExpress and Lazada, which primarily targets Southeast Asia. The international unit reported sales growth of 32% to $4.03 billion in the quarter ended June from a year ago.

That’s in contrast to a 1% year-on-year drop in sales to $15.6 billion for Alibaba’s main Taobao and Tmall e-commerce business, which has focused on China.

The Taobao app is also popular with consumers in Singapore. In September, the app launched an AI-powered English version for users in the country.

Nomura analysts expect that Alibaba’s international revenue slowed slightly to 29% year-on-year growth in the quarter ended September, while operating losses narrowed, according to an Oct. 10 report. Alibaba has yet to announce when it will release quarterly earnings.