Spending on artificial intelligence helped give some Chinese tech companies a boost in the first quarter, despite economic headwinds. “The standout for this [first quarter] reporting season was the growth in cloud business for Alibaba and Baidu ,” said Brian Tycangco, an analyst at Stansberry Research. Alibaba said earlier this month its cloud revenue in the latest quarter rose by 18% year on year , while Baidu on Wednesday said its AI cloud business grew by 42% . “At these rates of growth, cloud business is poised to become the 2nd largest business segment for both companies,” Tycangco said. “More importantly, cloud will become the basis for a return to heady growth days after several years of single-digit topline growth.” Alibaba, Tencent and JD.com also reported double-digit growth in marketing revenue, which they said were bolstered by AI tools that were able to target consumers more effectively. The trend signals a fundamental change in Chinese markets. “AI/Tech/New Economy [are] further gaining traction as equity market leaders,” Morgan Stanley’s chief China equity strategist Laura Wang said in a May 20 note. “We believe that a new generation of equity market leaders is forming in these sectors, after a 5-year-long disruption period post market peak in early 2021,” she said, noting how consumer and internet stocks previously led gains. Out of Morgan Stanley’s 60 Chinese AI stock picks, those rated overweight, traded in Hong Kong and with expected upside of more than 50% as of May 19 are: Gushengtang — This health-care company is focused on traditional Chinese medicine, and it’s training targeted AI models to create an “AI physician assistant.” The company said customer visits rose by 12.7% in the first quarter to 1.21 million. Bairong — This cloud-based AI services company is focused on state-owned banks and other financial services companies. The company added in its 2024 annual report that Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall e-commerce platforms use Bairong’s AI model service to evaluate consumers’ purchasing power. When it comes to more popular names, the Morgan Stanley analysts prefer Alibaba and Tencent over Baidu and iFlytek. They also prefer Meituan, Meitu and Trip.com over Kuaishou and JD.com. Among mainland China-listed companies, 68% mentioned AI in their 2024 annual reports, up from 43% in the first half of 2024, HSBC Qianhai Securities head of research Steven Sun, said in a May 16 report. “We also observed a slightly upward revision of 2025e consensus capex for major cloud service providers after 1Q25 results, suggesting they are still upbeat about their AI business.” The information technology sector saw earnings rise by 24.7% in the first quarter from a year ago on improving AI penetration, the HSBC report said, noting it was one of the fastest-growing sectors. One of HSBC’s buy-rated picks is enterprise software and cybersecurity company Sangfor, listed in Shenzhen, with a price target of 143 yuan. The firm thinks accelerating AI adoption can help drive earnings growth. Chinese-developed DeepSeek surprised global investors in late January with its ability to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT, while claiming a fraction of development cost. In the months since, several Chinese companies have also released new AI tools for generating video or 3D models. China’s recent tech breakthroughs stem from the country’s breadth of engineers, data and vast social media and e-commerce ecosystem, the Morgan Stanley analysts said, noting how government support can enable faster tech adoption. “We continue to believe that such structural improvement would be less susceptible to the ongoing tariff dispute and the overall macro challenges,” the report said. “This is important in attracting foreign investors to build long-term commitments of allocation, as they discover a decent number of companies that are distinctive and exclusively available in China, despite the broad macro slowdown.” Listed Chinese stocks generate the majority of their revenue domestically, with only 3% U.S. revenue exposure, the analysts said. — CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
What was shaping up to be a relatively calm week quickly got volatile on Friday, following Israel’s overnight strike on Iran. Here is a closer look at the three biggest themes that defined the market this week. 1. Geopolitics: The attack on Iranian nuclear infrastructure rippled through financial markets on Friday. U.S. stocks sold off on the increased tensions overseas. The S & P 500 and Nasdaq Composite tumbled 1.13% and 1.3% on Friday, respectively. Meanwhile, Brent crude futures and West Texas Intermediate crude futures added around 7% and 7.5%, respectively. Gold rose to a two-month high, as well, as investors see it as a safe haven from all the volatility. Prior to the attack, stock benchmark were on track to close the week in the positive. Instead, the S & P 500 and Nasdaq lost 0.4% and 0.6% over that stretch, snapping back-to-back weekly wining streaks. Despite a modest gain Friday, part of the safe-haven trade, the U.S. dollar index had a tough week. On Thursday, we wrote about how long-term fundamental investors should view the weaker dollar. Another big geopolitical event for investors was an announcement by U.S. and Chinese delegations that the two sides agreed on a trade-deal framework, particularly focused on rare-earth minerals. 2. Economic data: Investors received good news on the inflation front on Wednesday and Thursday. On Wednesday, the c onsumer price index, a measure of goods and services inflation across the U.S. economy, showed that core prices rose less that expected last month. The May producer price index , a gauge of wholesale inflation in the country, came in lower than expected Thursday, too. The labor market continued to show it was softening but not breaking. Weekly jobless claims for the week ending June 7 were unchanged, while continuing claims were still at multiyear highs. On the whole, the batch of economic data was encouraging as the rate of inflation subsides and unemployment remains low, providing the consumer with more buying power. 3. AI updates: It was also a week chock full of company specific news and events within the generative artificial intelligence race. AI remains one of the most important, if not the most important, drivers for financial markets. On Monday, we heard from Apple, when the company hosted its annual worldwide developer conference. Though expectations were about as muted as we’ve ever seen, the event still managed to disappoint due to the lack of AI updates. Meta Platforms, on the other hand, got investors excited this week when news broke that the company took a large investment in Scale AI and will bring the startup’s CEO on board to help start a new “superintelligence” unit within the company with the goal of achieving artificial general intelligence. Early Wednesday morning, we heard from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who spoke at the company’s GTC event in Paris. While there weren’t many new updates, Huang reaffirmed that there is still a lot more accelerated compute capacity that needs to be built out, highlighting demand from hyperscale customers and sovereign entities alike. Europe, he argued, is likely to 10 times its compute capacity over the next two years. Outside the portfolio, Oracle and Advanced Micro Devices made news on AI, too. Oracle stock jumped Thursday after reporting better-than-expected quarterly results the prior evening. Impressively, the stock soared again Friday, despite the broader market sell-off, en route to its best week since 2021 . BMO Capital also upgraded Oracle to a buy rating. Oracle CEO Safra Catz’s comments on its cloud infrastructure business confirmed that there’s growing demand for AI computing power. Indeed, Oracle said revenues from that business should surge 70% year over year in its fiscal 2026. Elsewhere, Advanced Micro Devices unveiled its new AI server chip for 2026 at a company event Thursday, part of its attempt to rival Nvidia’s market-leading offering. AMD also announced that it’s landed a new high-profile customer OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT and Club holding Microsoft’s AI partner. The chip isn’t expected to launch until 2026, though. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long AAPL, META, NVDA. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
According to Sprott Asset Management CEO John Ciampaglia, a “real shift” upward is underway due to increasing global energy demand — particularly as major tech companies look to power artificial intelligence data centers.
“We’ve been talking about uranium and nuclear energy non-stop for four years at Sprott, and we’ve been incredibly bullish on the segment,” he told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week.
Ciampaglia’s firm runs the Sprott Physical Uranium Trust (SRUUF), which Morningstar ranks as the world’s largest physical uranium fund. It’s up 22% over the past two months.
“It’s [uranium] a reliable form of energy. It has zero greenhouse gases. It has a very good long-term track record,” Ciampaglia said. “It provides a lot of electricity on a large scale, and that’s right now what the grid is calling for.”
Ciampaglia finds attitudes are changing toward nuclear energy because it offers energy security with a low carbon footprint. Uranium is “incredibly energy-dense” compared to most fossil fuels, he said, which makes it a promising option to ensure energy security.
He cited the 2022 energy crisis in Europe after Russia cut its oil supply to the region and April’s grid failure in Spain and Portugal as cases for more secure energy sources.
“We think this trend is long term and secular and durable,” Ciampaglia said. “With the exception of Germany, I think every country around the world has flipped back to nuclear power, which is a very powerful signal.”
‘You need reliable power’
VanEck CEO Jan van Eck is also heavily involved in the uranium space.
“You need reliable power,” he said. “These data centers can’t go down for a fraction of a second. They need to be running all the time.”
But he contends there’s a potential downside to the uranium trade: Building new nuclear power plants can take years.
“What’s going to happen in the meantime?” Van Eck said. “Investors are not patient, as we know.”
Van Eck also thinks it’s possible the Trump administration’s positive attitude toward nuclear power could fast track development.
He highlighted nuclear technology company Oklo during the interview. Its shares soared on Wednesday after the company announced it was anticipating a deal with the Air Force to supply nuclear power to a base in Alaska.
The agreement came not long after President Donald Trump in May signed a series of executive orders to rework the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, expedite new reactor construction and expand the domestic uranium industry.
“Trump controls federal land, so that’s not a NIMBY [not in my backyard] kind of potential risk,” said Van Eck. “They’re going to leverage that hard to start to show the safety of these newer, smaller technologies.”
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Camping is a fun summer activity. What’s not fun is having no access to electricity. You can’t charge your phone, watch TV, or make your morning cup of coffee. Thankfully, portable power stations allow you to do all that and more. It’s literally like bringing along a giant battery for all of your electronics. Portable power stations are also good to have around your home in case of power outages.
There’s just the problem of price. Portable power stations are notoriously expensive, especially ones that have a larger energy storage capacity. The good news is that we were able to find a solid deal on a 1,056-watt-hour (or 1 kilowatt-hour) power station. This $800 Anker Solix C1000 Portable Power Station is $550 at Amazon for a limited time. At 31% off, you’re saving $250.
Anker Solix C1000 Portable Power Station, $550 (was $800) at Amazon
The Anker Solix C1000 features a power output of 1,800 watts, making it strong enough to handle multiple electronics and small appliances at once. It has 11total power ports. You get two USB-A and USB-C ports, a car socket, and six AC outlets. Additionally, it also functions as a night light and has a handle for easy carrying. It weighs about 28 pounds.
Now let’s talk about charging. There are two ways you can charge the Anker Solix C1000. The first way is just by plugging it into a standard AC wall outlet. Or if you have the portable solar panels (sold separately), you simply connect the wires and place the panels in the sun. When plugged into an AC outlet, your power station can be fully charged in about an hour. If you charge up with solar, it’ll likely take around two hours. The digital display on the front of the power station shows you the battery and charging status.
Shoppers have found multiple uses for this portable power station. “We bought it mainly for short power outages and to run our refrigerator, but it will have many other uses for sure,” one shopper said. “Just this past week, I had to do some repairs to our floating dock, and there is no extension cord long enough to reach, so I brought this Anker Solix C1000 and it powered our two saws and drills without any issue at all. It’s very cool and has lots of different outlets. Very impressive unit!”
Others say they get daily use out of it. “I love it. I use it every day. I am traveling and camping everywhere,” one shopper shared. “I use it to power a car mobile refrigerator, a little portable air conditioner, and of course, my iPhone and other electronics, and sometimes an electric stove. It can take on all tasks with no problem. I love the mobile design and durability.”
You don’t need to be ‘roughing it’ the next time you go camping. Consider grabbing the Anker Solix C1000 Portable Power Station to keep all your devices charged and bring along a few essentials for the kitchen or living room. You’ll feel like you never left home.