Desmond Yuen Pony AI ( PONY ) said its robotaxi program in partnership with Verne and Uber ( UBER ) has officially begun commercial service in Zagreb, Croatia, marking Europe's first commercial robotaxi service. Beginning today, users can book and pay for Pony.ai-powered robotaxi rides through the Verne app. The service will soon also be available through the Uber app. The service initially spans ...
Desmond Yuen Pony AI ( PONY ) said its robotaxi program in partnership with Verne and Uber ( UBER ) has officially begun commercial service in Zagreb, Croatia, marking Europe's first commercial robotaxi service. Beginning today, users can book and pay for Pony.ai-powered robotaxi rides through the Verne app. The service will soon also be available through the Uber app. The service initially spans approximately 90 square kilometers across the wider Zagreb city center area, including Zagreb Airport, with plans to expand coverage across the city. The service launch comes two weeks after Pony.ai, Verne, and Uber announced their partnership to introduce robotaxis in Europe. PONY +7.8% premarket to $9.469 Source: Press Release More on Pony AI Inc., Uber What The Market Got Wrong With Uber (Rating Upgrade) Pony AI Q4 Earnings: Early Signs Of Commercialization Amid Global Expansion Pony AI Inc. (PONY) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript Uber leans on AWS chips to speed ride and delivery matches, train AI Pony AI advances Singapore AV rollout with regulatory approval for by-invite rides
Gen Z girl looking at smartphone screen feeling upset scrolling on social media. Mementojpeg | Moment | Getty Images Governments around the world are making efforts to crack down on teen social media use amid mounting evidence of potential harms, but critics argue blanket bans are an ineffective quick fix. Australia became the first country to enforce a sweeping social media ban for under-16s in D...
Gen Z girl looking at smartphone screen feeling upset scrolling on social media. Mementojpeg | Moment | Getty Images Governments around the world are making efforts to crack down on teen social media use amid mounting evidence of potential harms, but critics argue blanket bans are an ineffective quick fix. Australia became the first country to enforce a sweeping social media ban for under-16s in December, requiring platforms like Meta's Instagram, ByteDance's TikTok, Alphabet's YouTube, Elon Musk's X, and Reddit to implement age verification measures or face penalties. Several European countries are now looking to follow Australia's lead, with the U.K. , Spain , France , and Austria drafting their own proposals. Although a national ban in the U.S. looks unlikely, state-level legislation is underway. watch now VIDEO 1:57 01:57 Tracking Europe's approach to social media bans for teenagers Europe Early Edition It comes after Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Threads, faced two separate defeats in trials related to child safety and social media harms in March. A Santa Fe jury found Meta misled users about child safety on its apps. The next day, a Los Angeles jury ruled that Meta and YouTube designed platform features that contributed to a plaintiff's mental health harms. Meta's stock drops almost 8% as 2 court defeats add to Zuckerberg's recent woes These developments are set to "unleash a lot more legislation," Sonia Livingstone, social psychology professor and director of the London School of Economics' Digital Futures for Children center, told CNBC. However, Livingstone said a social media ban for teens is a slapdash solution from governments that have failed to properly police tech giants for years. "I think the argument for a ban is an admission of failure that we cannot regulate companies, so we can only restrict children," she said, explaining that the U.S. and Europe already have a lot of legislation in the books that isn't being enforced. "Whe...
Alistair Berg CME Group ( CME ) Wednesday announced that its international average daily volume reached a record 11.4M contracts in Q1 2026, up 30% over Q1 2025. Reflecting all trading reported outside the United States , this strong performance was driven by a record interest rate ADV of 5.7M contracts, up 30% year-over-year. For the first time ever, quarterly international ADV for interest rates...
Alistair Berg CME Group ( CME ) Wednesday announced that its international average daily volume reached a record 11.4M contracts in Q1 2026, up 30% over Q1 2025. Reflecting all trading reported outside the United States , this strong performance was driven by a record interest rate ADV of 5.7M contracts, up 30% year-over-year. For the first time ever, quarterly international ADV for interest rates, metals, energy, agricultural products, equity indexes, and FX all reached record levels. "This surge in trading activity demonstrates how our global client base is turning to CME Group to manage risk in real time, through our benchmark products and on a regulated marketplace," said Julie Winkler , senior managing director and chief commercial officer, CME Group ( CME ). In Q1 2026, EMEA ADV hit a record 8.4 million contracts, up 29% from Q1 2025. The region saw ADV records across all asset classes, with metals up 75%, energy up 53%, interest rates up 31%, equity indexes up 17%, agricultural products up 13%, and FX up 1%. More on CME CME Group Inc. (CME) Presents at 47th Annual Raymond James Institutional Investor Conference Prepared Remarks Transcript CME Group's Strength Is Clear, But The Stock Looks Fully Valued CME Group: Quality Shines Through, But It Doesn't Mean To Buy CME plans to launch Avalanche, Sui futures on May 4 Insider trades: Marvell Technology, Taiwan Semiconductor among notable names
PashaIgnatov/iStock via Getty Images The iShares Investment Grade Corporate Bond BuyWrite Strategy ETF ( LQDW ) is a derivative income-focused ETF. Every month, LQDW will sell a covered call over LQD, collecting option premium as income. The premium gets distributed to shareholders alongside the coupons of the underlying bonds, which boosts the headline yield above what LQD alone would pay, but al...
PashaIgnatov/iStock via Getty Images The iShares Investment Grade Corporate Bond BuyWrite Strategy ETF ( LQDW ) is a derivative income-focused ETF. Every month, LQDW will sell a covered call over LQD, collecting option premium as income. The premium gets distributed to shareholders alongside the coupons of the underlying bonds, which boosts the headline yield above what LQD alone would pay, but also caps any price appreciation in LQDW above that month’s strike price. This ETF is really meant for specific regimes but is marketed as an ETF for all market conditions. The mismatch between what LQDW is and how it is shown to retail investors causes most of the confusion in this fixed income space. Understanding a regime map and where this type of ETF excels is the entire thesis. With correct use, this ETF is a good buy, but in the wrong environment, an investor is systematically selling bond rallies for option premiums that will not compensate for the difference. For this reason, I am initiating LQDW as a buy on Seeking Alpha. For the current rate environment, I believe LQDW is favorable, but I will be somewhat cautious as we head into the end of this year. We are currently in the only rate environment where LQDW’s structure delivers favorably, which is a range-bound rate environment. There is now only one rate cut priced for late 2026, at the earliest, which is down from around 3 heading into 2026. Additionally, due to elevated inflation uncertainty and geopolitical fronts, the Fed is in a deliberate pause at this time. The March 2026 FOMC held the fed funds rate at 3.50%-3.75% , revised core PCE expectations upward to 2.7%, and acknowledged the Iran-U.S.-Israel conflict, citing energy shocks of some size and duration. Additionally, the futures market also implies a 48% chance that there is no rate cut at all in 2026, which is up from 30% (before the conflict continued to escalate). In addition, the CME FedWatch tool also prices one small 25 bps cut likely in late Q3 or...
In this article BABA 728-HK Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT Samuel Boivin | Nurphoto | Getty Images Alibaba and China Telecom are launching a data center in southern China powered by the e-commerce giant's own chips, as the country ramps up its focus on homegrown AI infrastructure. The facility, announced on Tuesday, will feature 10,000 of Alibaba's Zhenwu semiconductors which are ...
In this article BABA 728-HK Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT Samuel Boivin | Nurphoto | Getty Images Alibaba and China Telecom are launching a data center in southern China powered by the e-commerce giant's own chips, as the country ramps up its focus on homegrown AI infrastructure. The facility, announced on Tuesday, will feature 10,000 of Alibaba's Zhenwu semiconductors which are designed for AI training and inferencing along with the ability to support AI models the size of hundreds of billions of parameters. These are among some of the largest models out there and underscore how China's biggest tech players are advancing their own AI semiconductor technology as Beijing intensifies its push for self-sufficiency. Over the past few years, the U.S. has looked to restrict China's access to key semiconductor technology, including AI chips from Nvidia , which has accelerated the country's efforts to develop domestic alternatives. watch now VIDEO 3:12 03:12 China's biggest chip names report record revenue — here's what's driving them Europe Early Edition Alibaba, one of China's largest tech firms, has been designing its own chips through its T-head unit . The Hangzhou-headquartered company is also one of China's biggest cloud computing players. It designs chips, builds data centers, and develops its own AI models which it then sells through its cloud computing division. Cloud computing has been among its fastest-growing businesses in recent quarters. There is an increased focus on building large-scale data centers in China with domestic technology. Last month, a computing cluster built with Huawei's advanced Ascend 910C AI chips went online. While U.S. tech giants are expected to spend around $700 billion this year to fuel their AI build-outs, Chinese companies have taken a different approach. They are spending less and have focused their AI on industries they believe will drive revenue growth and return on their investments. China Telecom and Alibaba sai...
Space companies are growing increasingly popular amid the pending SpaceX IPO. *Stock prices used were the afternoon prices of April 5, 2026. The video was published on April 7, 2026. Continue reading
Space companies are growing increasingly popular amid the pending SpaceX IPO. *Stock prices used were the afternoon prices of April 5, 2026. The video was published on April 7, 2026. Continue reading
Taiwanese opposition leader Cheng Li-wun blamed Japanese “imperialist forces” for dividing mainland China and Taiwan, as she paid tribute to Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen at his mausoleum in Nanjing on Wednesday. In a speech delivered after the Kuomintang (KMT) chairwoman laid a floral wreath before a statue of the founder of modern China, Cheng said Taiwan became a Japanese colony at a time o...
Taiwanese opposition leader Cheng Li-wun blamed Japanese “imperialist forces” for dividing mainland China and Taiwan, as she paid tribute to Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen at his mausoleum in Nanjing on Wednesday. In a speech delivered after the Kuomintang (KMT) chairwoman laid a floral wreath before a statue of the founder of modern China, Cheng said Taiwan became a Japanese colony at a time of national weakness, following the 1895 defeat of China in the first Sino-Japanese war. She said...
The knock on Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) stock in 2026 is self-explanatory: Capital expenditures (capex) are ballooning, Azure growth is moving a half-step slower than Wall Street demands, and an uncomfortable portion of the cloud backlog is tied to a single unprofitable partner, OpenAI. The stock has shed roughly a third of its value from all-time highs -- its worst drawdown since 2008 . On the surf...
The knock on Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) stock in 2026 is self-explanatory: Capital expenditures (capex) are ballooning, Azure growth is moving a half-step slower than Wall Street demands, and an uncomfortable portion of the cloud backlog is tied to a single unprofitable partner, OpenAI. The stock has shed roughly a third of its value from all-time highs -- its worst drawdown since 2008 . On the surface, the panic seems fair. But smart investors are looking at things beyond rising infrastructure costs and quarterly cloud growth. Let's explore some themes that deserve closer inspection at Microsoft to help determine whether this sell-off is warranted or a once-in-a-decade opportunity to buy the dip. Continue reading