NicoElNino/iStock via Getty Images Why KWEB Is Underperforming KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF ( KWEB ) has dropped 20% so far this year, approaching the April 2025 low when fears of a trade war rattled global financial markets. It seems that investors are throwing in the towel on Chinese tech stocks, giving back entire gains over the past 12 months. KWEB tracks top internet and technology comp...
NicoElNino/iStock via Getty Images Why KWEB Is Underperforming KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF ( KWEB ) has dropped 20% so far this year, approaching the April 2025 low when fears of a trade war rattled global financial markets. It seems that investors are throwing in the towel on Chinese tech stocks, giving back entire gains over the past 12 months. KWEB tracks top internet and technology companies listed in Hong Kong. Many of these are large components in the Heng Sheng Technology Index (-15% YTD). Since the start of this year, we've seen a steep divergence compared to the Heng Sheng index and China's onshore A-share index. However, onshore Chinese ETFs are more resilient, even outperforming U.S. indices this year. For instance, both Xtrackers Hvst CSI 300 China A-Shs ETF ( ASHR ) and KraneShares Bosera MSCI China A 50 Connect Idx ETF ( KBA ) only fell 2% YTD. Why should we buy the "loser" KWEB? KraneShares To answer that question, we need to figure out the fundamental reasons behind the selloff. KWEB's top holdings are concentrated in certain business exposures, which embed idiosyncratic risks. That can deviate from the broader market index. The table you see above shows the top 10 names in KWEB, making up more than 50% of the total weight. The ETF is underperforming when these stocks are selling off. But why are these stocks falling out of favor? They are laggards because they are in the middle of business transitions. Some are shifting away from e-commerce and legacy advertising to AI, cloud computing, and quick commerce. The pivots will sharply decelerate near-term revenue growth, as traditional segments (slowing the most) still play big roles in the revenue mix. The transitions create higher costs and uncertainties. Additional headwinds come from higher CapEx to fund new business initiatives, causing sharp declines in earnings and FCF. I wouldn't be surprised to see negative YoY growth The recent earnings season further exacerbated bearish sentiment as wel...
Plug Power (NASDAQ:PLUG) , a hydrogen fuel cell systems developer, closed Monday at $2.69, up 11.62%. The stock moved higher after Plug Power secured a 275-megawatt GenEco electrolyzer award for Hy2gen Canada’s Courant project. Investors are watching how this scale win shapes near-term order momentum and profitability expectations. Trading volume reached 98.5 million shares, coming in about 7% abo...
Plug Power (NASDAQ:PLUG) , a hydrogen fuel cell systems developer, closed Monday at $2.69, up 11.62%. The stock moved higher after Plug Power secured a 275-megawatt GenEco electrolyzer award for Hy2gen Canada’s Courant project. Investors are watching how this scale win shapes near-term order momentum and profitability expectations. Trading volume reached 98.5 million shares, coming in about 7% above its three-month average of 92 million shares. Plug Power IPO'd in 1999 but its lack of profitability has led to a 98% decline since going public. S&P 500 (SNPINDEX:^GSPC) added 0.43% to finish Monday at 6,611, while the Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX:^IXIC) rose 0.54% to close at 21,996. Within hydrogen fuel cell systems, industry peers Bloom Energy (NYSE:BE) closed at $135 (-0.46%), while FuelCell Energy (NASDAQ:FCEL) ended at $6.67 (+1.06%) as investors monitored clean-power contract pipelines. Plug Power’s new electrolyzer project award announced late last week is one of the most significant electrolyzer awards Plug has received to date. It has heightened investor optimism for stronger order momentum and a feasible path to profitability. Continue reading
Target's digital business just hit an all-time high as a percentage of total merchandise sales, showing that the company can hold its own against Amazon and Walmart in an increasingly digital era.
Target's digital business just hit an all-time high as a percentage of total merchandise sales, showing that the company can hold its own against Amazon and Walmart in an increasingly digital era.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images News Kevin Hassett, director of the White House's National Economic Council, expects U.S. production to surge due to fiscal policy fueling factory construction and AI increasing productivity, all of which should lower inflation, he said on Monday. He expects that inflationary pressures from the Iran war, which has led to soaring oil prices, should quickly abate once the ...
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images News Kevin Hassett, director of the White House's National Economic Council, expects U.S. production to surge due to fiscal policy fueling factory construction and AI increasing productivity, all of which should lower inflation, he said on Monday. He expects that inflationary pressures from the Iran war, which has led to soaring oil prices, should quickly abate once the conflict is resolved. Furthermore, the effect from war should be viewed as a one-off increase to prices, which the Federal Reserve typically “looks through” when setting monetary policy. Meanwhile, the infrastructure investment agreements secured by the Trump administration, combined with increased use of AI, are expected to kick in. " $18T of new spending, AI increasing productivity — it puts downward pressure on inflation, and that should take the pressure off the Fed," he said in an interview on CNBC. "They should be able to lower rates, and I expect that that’s what’s going to happen when my friend Kevin Warsh gets in there." The Senate plans to hold its confirmation hearings for Kevin Warsh as Fed chair on April 16, according to reporting by Politico. Warsh's confirmation, though, could be delayed by months as some senators object to the Justice Department's investigation into current Fed Chair Jerome Powell's handling of the Fed's multibillion-dollar renovation project. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who is on the Senate Banking Committee, has said he'll block a vote on any candidate for the Fed chair as long as the DOJ probe of Powell continues. Hassett calls the Iran war's impact on oil and inflation a "temporary disruption." He focuses on the expected increase in construction, noting that the NEC is tracking 100 groundbreakings due to deals the administration has reached. That has increased employment in the construction industry in the last few months, he said. Eventually, that will lead to increased employment in the factories and higher production. "A gain, you can’t ...
Amazon and the U.S. Postal Service have a parcel delivery in plan in place that will see a 20% reduction in package volumes. FedEx and UPS stock both fell around 1% on Monday.
Amazon and the U.S. Postal Service have a parcel delivery in plan in place that will see a 20% reduction in package volumes. FedEx and UPS stock both fell around 1% on Monday.
Rivals OpenAI , Anthropic PBC , and Alphabet Inc. ’s Google have begun working together to try to clamp down on Chinese competitors extracting results from cutting-edge US artificial intelligence models to gain an edge in the global AI race. The firms are sharing information through the Frontier Model Forum, an industry nonprofit that the three tech companies founded with Microsoft Corp. in 2023, ...
Rivals OpenAI , Anthropic PBC , and Alphabet Inc. ’s Google have begun working together to try to clamp down on Chinese competitors extracting results from cutting-edge US artificial intelligence models to gain an edge in the global AI race. The firms are sharing information through the Frontier Model Forum, an industry nonprofit that the three tech companies founded with Microsoft Corp. in 2023, to detect so-called adversarial distillation attempts that violate their terms of service, according to people familiar with the matter. The rare collaboration underscores the severity of a concern raised by US AI companies that some users, especially in China, are creating imitation versions of their products that could undercut them on price and siphon away customers while posing a national security risk. US officials have estimated that unauthorized distillation costs Silicon Valley labs billions of dollars in annual profit, according to a person familiar with the findings who described them on condition of anonymity. OpenAI confirmed it’s part of the information sharing effort on adversarial distillation through the Frontier Model Forum and pointed to a recent memo it sent to Congress on the practice, where it accused Chinese firm DeepSeek of trying to “free-ride on the capabilities developed by OpenAI and other US frontier labs.” Google, Anthropic, and the Frontier Model Forum declined to comment. Distillation is a technique where an older “teacher” AI model is used to train a newer, “student,” model that replicates the capabilities of the earlier system — often at a much lower cost than producing an original model from scratch. Some forms of distillation are widely accepted and even encouraged by AI labs, such as when companies create smaller, more efficient versions of their own models, or allow outside developers to use distillation to build non-competitive technologies. Read More: OpenAI Claims DeepSeek Distilled US Models to Gain an Edge Yet distillation has been ...
(Bloomberg) -- Rivals OpenAI, Anthropic PBC, and Alphabet Inc.’s Google have begun working together to try to clamp down on Chinese competitors extracting results from cutting-edge US artificial intelligence models to gain an edge in the global AI race. The firms are sharing information through the Frontier Model Forum, an industry nonprofit that the three tech companies founded with Microsoft Cor...
(Bloomberg) -- Rivals OpenAI, Anthropic PBC, and Alphabet Inc.’s Google have begun working together to try to clamp down on Chinese competitors extracting results from cutting-edge US artificial intelligence models to gain an edge in the global AI race. The firms are sharing information through the Frontier Model Forum, an industry nonprofit that the three tech companies founded with Microsoft Corp. in 2023, to detect so-called adversarial distillation attempts that violate their terms of servic
Geospace Technologies ( GEOS ) announced on Monday that executive management has implemented an organizational change plan that will result in a 20% reduction in its global workforce, included a voluntary early retirement plan available to eligible qualifying employees. The company said management is evaluating opportunities to operate more efficiently by optimizing its cost structure. In connecti...
Geospace Technologies ( GEOS ) announced on Monday that executive management has implemented an organizational change plan that will result in a 20% reduction in its global workforce, included a voluntary early retirement plan available to eligible qualifying employees. The company said management is evaluating opportunities to operate more efficiently by optimizing its cost structure. In connection with the workforce reduction, the company expects to incur $0.6M in termination costs in the second quarter and $0.7M in costs in the third quarter. According to the company’s SEC filing , the workforce reduction, along with cost-containment measures, is expected to produce about $10M in annual cash savings. More on Geospace Technologies Geospace Technologies Painful, But Necessary Transformation Geospace outlines growth plans for Intelligent Industrial segment with GeoVox acquisition while addressing $9.8M net loss Financial information for Geospace Technologies
May WTI crude oil (CLK26 ) on Monday closed up +0.87 (+0.78%), and May RBOB gasoline (RBK26 ) closed up +0.0202 (+0.61%). Crude oil and gasoline prices settled higher on Monday, with crude posting a 4-week high. Crude prices rallied after President Trump signaled an escalation of the conflict in...
May WTI crude oil (CLK26 ) on Monday closed up +0.87 (+0.78%), and May RBOB gasoline (RBK26 ) closed up +0.0202 (+0.61%). Crude oil and gasoline prices settled higher on Monday, with crude posting a 4-week high. Crude prices rallied after President Trump signaled an escalation of the conflict in...
Quarterly revenue reached NT$2.13 trillion, slightly missing estimates, as AI server demand held firm despite Middle East tensions impacting shipping and energy markets.
Quarterly revenue reached NT$2.13 trillion, slightly missing estimates, as AI server demand held firm despite Middle East tensions impacting shipping and energy markets.
aapsky/iStock via Getty Images In an October 31, 2023, Seeking Alpha article on leveraging war risks with the Direxion Daily Aerospace & Defense Bull 3X Shares (DFEN) product, I concluded with the following: As long as war risk remains high, defense spending will increase, supporting the leading defense contractors. DFEN leverages those war risks as the geopolitical landscape remains highly uncert...
aapsky/iStock via Getty Images In an October 31, 2023, Seeking Alpha article on leveraging war risks with the Direxion Daily Aerospace & Defense Bull 3X Shares (DFEN) product, I concluded with the following: As long as war risk remains high, defense spending will increase, supporting the leading defense contractors. DFEN leverages those war risks as the geopolitical landscape remains highly uncertain in late 2023. In late October 2023, the wounds of the October 7 attacks in Israel were still fresh, and the war between Russia and Ukraine had been raging for under two years. In April 2026, the U.S. and Israel are at war with Iran, with Iran retaliating against countries throughout the Middle East, making it a regional conflict. Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine continue to battle after the war’s fourth anniversary. The case for defense contractor shares continues to improve. The Case For Defense Stocks Has Improved The following factors have increased defense spending since October 31, 2023: The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran began on February 28, 2026, and continues in early April with a significant threat of escalation. The war between Russia and Ukraine continues with no end in sight. U.S. President Donald Trump has insisted that NATO members increase their military budgets to 5% of GDP. The U.S. administration has increased its military budget. U.S. relations with NATO partners have deteriorated, prompting them to increase their defense budgets. The bifurcation of the world’s nuclear powers continues to threaten world peace, increasing global military spending. These factors support higher spending and increased revenues and profits for the companies that produce offensive and defensive weaponry. The Top Holdings Of The DFEN ETF At $67.74 per share, the Direxion Daily Aerospace & Defense Bull 3X ETF ( DFEN ) had $394.55 million in assets under management. DFEN trades an average of over 260,000 shares per day and charges a 0.96% management fee. The $5.70 dividend yields 8....
The US Medicare program will pay private insurers 2.48% more in 2027, a meaningful improvement over the initial rates the agency proposed in January. Michelle Cortez has more on "Bloomberg The Close." (Source: Bloomberg)
The US Medicare program will pay private insurers 2.48% more in 2027, a meaningful improvement over the initial rates the agency proposed in January. Michelle Cortez has more on "Bloomberg The Close." (Source: Bloomberg)