By Alexandra Alper and Stephen Nellis WASHINGTON, May 21 (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Thursday plans to launch a new program to entice foreign firms to buy U.S. AI tools with billions in export financing, according to a document seen by Reuters, as it seeks to beat China in the race to expand worldwide use of its technology. The U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM) is expected to approve t...
By Alexandra Alper and Stephen Nellis WASHINGTON, May 21 (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Thursday plans to launch a new program to entice foreign firms to buy U.S. AI tools with billions in export financing, according to a document seen by Reuters, as it seeks to beat China in the race to expand worldwide use of its technology. The U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM) is expected to approve the plan later on Thursday to provide financing for foreign purchases of American artificial intelligence tools, according to a one-page description of the program obtained by Reuters. Under the program, which follows through on an executive order signed by President Donald Trump last July, the Commerce Department would have to sign off on specific licenses for sensitive AI technologies such as advanced chips like those made by Nvidia before financing deals could be inked. Financial support from EXIM would include insurance and loan guarantees for medium-term transactions and direct loans and loan guarantees for long-term deals, the document showed. "The ExportAI Initiative strengthens American AI leadership by modernizing EXIM financing tools and supporting the export of trusted U.S. AI technologies across industries of the future," the document said. It was not immediately clear which countries and companies would benefit from the new program, but the move shows the Trump administration continues to see U.S. AI exports globally as critical to winning the AI race against China. China's DeepSeek last month released a free and open-source AI model tailored for chips made by China's Huawei, a move that some AI advocates say shows China is vying for global influence in both the hardware and software used to create AI systems. DeepSeek's models have become widely used over the past year because they are competitive with the capabilities of U.S. models, though some U.S. firms have accused DeepSeek of piggybacking off their technology. The Biden administration had ba...
The S&P 500 Index has had a fitful 2026 as it aims for a fourth-straight year of double-digit percentage gains , something it hasn’t done since the 1990s, while contending with risks from the war in Iran and rising inflation. But one high-profile culprit is most responsible for holding back the market: Microsoft Corp. The software giant is down 13% this year, making it by far the biggest drag on t...
The S&P 500 Index has had a fitful 2026 as it aims for a fourth-straight year of double-digit percentage gains , something it hasn’t done since the 1990s, while contending with risks from the war in Iran and rising inflation. But one high-profile culprit is most responsible for holding back the market: Microsoft Corp. The software giant is down 13% this year, making it by far the biggest drag on the index’s 8.6% gain, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. While Meta Platforms Inc. and Tesla Inc. , both of which have lost more than 7% in 2026, are the next closest, their moves amount to a fraction of Microsoft’s weight. The stock is struggling amid tepid results from Microsoft’s cloud-computing division, concerns about the company’s position in the artificial intelligence landscape and caution about the scale of its AI-related spending. It also has gotten caught up in investors’ broader angst about software’s growth potential in an AI world. “There are a lot of problems Microsoft has to solve, a lot of questions where we haven’t gotten good answers on its ability to successfully transition into a more AI-forward company,” said Howard Chan , chief executive officer at Kurv Investment Management, which owns Microsoft shares. “Its death has been exaggerated many times, and with sentiment so negative we see more upside than downside. But until we get answers, I don’t think it’s going to be smooth sailing.” Meanwhile, the two other major players in cloud computing, Alphabet Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. , are putting up double-digit percentage gains in 2026. With the Nasdaq 100 Index rising 16% in 2026, Microsoft is on pace for its third-straight year trailing the tech-heavy benchmark. If the 29-percentage-point gap between the two lasts through the end of December, it would mark the most severe underperformance since 2003. Microsoft’s earnings report in late April pointed to underwhelming growth in its Azure cloud computing business, especially relative to Alphabet and Ama...
Key Points The acquisition will make NextEra Energy the top renewable and nuclear company in the country. The deal comes amid unprecedented energy demands from data centers and hyperscalers. 10 stocks we like better than NextEra Energy › NextEra Energy (NYSE: NEE) made big waves this week, announcing a megadeal to acquire Dominion Energy (NYSE: D) in an all-stock transaction valued at $66.8 billio...
Key Points The acquisition will make NextEra Energy the top renewable and nuclear company in the country. The deal comes amid unprecedented energy demands from data centers and hyperscalers. 10 stocks we like better than NextEra Energy › NextEra Energy (NYSE: NEE) made big waves this week, announcing a megadeal to acquire Dominion Energy (NYSE: D) in an all-stock transaction valued at $66.8 billion, pending approval. As with any gigantic merger or acquisition, investors are trying to understand what this will mean for their holdings. One thing NextEra's investors should know about this deal is that it will make the combined company the world's leading renewable energy operator. Moreover, because of the sheer size and scale, it will also solidify NextEra's position as the second-largest nuclear power operator and largest natural gas utility in the U.S. Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue » There are also risks involved with a deal of this magnitude. In the short term, the financial implications of this acquisition may put real pressure on NextEra's balance sheet. There's significant integration risk in bringing Dominion under the NextEra umbrella. The all-stock transaction will also dilute current NextEra shareholders. The short-term pain of integration and other operational risks is real, but investors should remain patient. In the long term, NextEra will have the opportunity to maintain market dominance and grow its energy business like never before. The price the company and shareholders will have to pay in the interim may hurt a bit, but it will be worth it over the course of several years. NextEra's share price fell slightly on the news, but as of this writing, it's rebounded. NextEra is trading around $90 per share, about 9% below its 52-week high. Should you buy stock in NextEra En...
JHVEPhoto/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Investment Thesis Quality compounder at a sub-1x PEG . ServiceNow ( NOW ) trades at 19x FY27E EPS with 20%+ subscription growth, 35%+ FCF margins, 98% gross retention, and an $11B net cash balance sheet. The PEG<1x is one of the lowest in the high-quality software cohort, and 45% below the peer median of 1.8x. Agentic AI is a tailwind, not a substitute ....
JHVEPhoto/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Investment Thesis Quality compounder at a sub-1x PEG . ServiceNow ( NOW ) trades at 19x FY27E EPS with 20%+ subscription growth, 35%+ FCF margins, 98% gross retention, and an $11B net cash balance sheet. The PEG<1x is one of the lowest in the high-quality software cohort, and 45% below the peer median of 1.8x. Agentic AI is a tailwind, not a substitute . At Knowledge 2026, NOW shipped Action Fabric and an MCP with Anthropic , which positions the company as the orchestration layer that Claude, Copilot, Gemini, and custom agents run governed work on. NOW saw 130% YoY growth in $1M+ Now Assist customers, plus $750M Q1 ACV on track to a $1.5B FY26 target. This is the leading indicator that the orchestration thesis is winning at the CIO level. Margin trajectory is quantified and ahead of consensus . Management committed to +100bps of non-GAAP operating margin and +100bps of FCF margin in FY27 at the May 4th Analyst Day , with a path to a Rule of 60 by FY30. In my model, I forecast FY27 EPS of $5.45, slightly below sell-side estimates. Long-range floor anchors the multi-year case . Management's 2030 subscription floor of $30B implies ~18-20% CAGR off the FY25 base of $12.9B. The current multiple is pricing ~16-17% growth in perpetuity at a 9% discount rate, materially below management guidance, consensus, and the trailing five-year actual CAGR of 23%. Financial Snapshot SEC Filings; own estimates. Financials on a non-GAAP basis. FY26E reflects Q1-26 actuals plus Analyst Day implied guidance. FY27-FY28 reflect May 4, 2026 Analyst Day commitment to +100bps non-GAAP operating margin and +100bps FCF margin in FY27. EPS restated for the 5-for-1 stock split effective December 17, 2025. Key Debates & My Take Debate 1: Will Agentic AI Cannibalize NOW or Anchor It? The bear view : If a Microsoft ( MSFT ) Copilot agent can read a ticket, a Salesforce ( CRM ) Agentforce agent can resolve it, and a custom-built LLM application can route it,...
Csenge Advisory Group purchased a new position in shares of Astera Labs, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALAB - Free Report) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm purchased 7,784 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $1,295,000. Several other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Assetmark Inc. grew its stake...
Csenge Advisory Group purchased a new position in shares of Astera Labs, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALAB - Free Report) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm purchased 7,784 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $1,295,000. Several other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Assetmark Inc. grew its stake in shares of Astera Labs by 374.1% in the 3rd quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 128 shares of the company's stock valued at $25,000 after buying an additional 101 shares in the last quarter. Hilltop National Bank raised its position in Astera Labs by 100.0% during the fourth quarter. Hilltop National Bank now owns 200 shares of the company's stock valued at $33,000 after acquiring an additional 100 shares in the last quarter. Aventura Private Wealth LLC bought a new position in Astera Labs during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $33,000. Wexford Capital LP acquired a new stake in Astera Labs in the third quarter valued at approximately $39,000. Finally, National Bank of Canada FI lifted its stake in Astera Labs by 159.0% in the third quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 202 shares of the company's stock valued at $39,000 after acquiring an additional 124 shares during the last quarter. 60.47% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Astera Labs alerts: Sign Up Insiders Place Their Bets In related news, General Counsel Philip Mazzara sold 14,076 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $231.78, for a total transaction of $3,262,535.28. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel owned 104,139 shares in the company, valued at $24,137,337.42. This represents a 11.91% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. The sale was made t...
30 Cities With Uber During NVIDIA’s earnings call with investors on Wednesday, Huang shared updates about the company’s self-driving exploits. “Our partnership with Uber will power the robotaxi fleet across nearly 30 cities and 4 continents by 2028,” he shared. Huang also touted the chipmaker’s physical AI push, sharing that the NVIDIA CUDA cores, which are parallel processing programs that can ha...
30 Cities With Uber During NVIDIA’s earnings call with investors on Wednesday, Huang shared updates about the company’s self-driving exploits. “Our partnership with Uber will power the robotaxi fleet across nearly 30 cities and 4 continents by 2028,” he shared. Huang also touted the chipmaker’s physical AI push, sharing that the NVIDIA CUDA cores, which are parallel processing programs that can handle several tasks at the same time, would enhance Robotics, autonomous vehicles, and embedded medical instruments, among other things. “The next wave is physical AI. With billions of autonomous and robotic systems operating in the physical world,” Huang said during the conference call. Last fiscal year, NVIDIA’s automotive revenue hit a record $2.3 billion, which demonstrated a 39% surge. Nvidia’s Earnings Call, Jensen Huang Bullish On Vera Rubin Huang was also bullish on the NVIDIA Vera Rubin platform, saying that he expected AI companies to adopt the chip in their compute, sharing that the company was “growing share in inference very, very quickly.” Uber’s $10 Billion Robotaxi Bet NVDA Price Action: NVIDIA shares gained 1.17% at $223.20 during pre-market trading on Thursday. Check out more of Benzinga's Future Of Mobility coverage by following this link.
Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang announced the chipmaker’s partnership with ride-hailing giant Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE:UBER) will target global expansion of Robotaxis in the next two years. 30 Cities With Uber During NVIDIA’s earnings call with investors on Wednesday, Huang shared updates about the company’s self-driving exploits. “Our partnership with Uber will power the robotaxi ...
Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang announced the chipmaker’s partnership with ride-hailing giant Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE:UBER) will target global expansion of Robotaxis in the next two years. 30 Cities With Uber During NVIDIA’s earnings call with investors on Wednesday, Huang shared updates about the company’s self-driving exploits. “Our partnership with Uber will power the robotaxi fleet across nearly 30 cities and 4 continents by 2028,” he shared. Read Also: Blame Nvidia: Your Next Uber Driver Might Be A GPU Floating 250 Miles Above Earth Huang also touted the chipmaker’s physical AI push, sharing that the NVIDIA CUDA cores, which are parallel processing programs that can handle several tasks at the same time, would enhance Robotics, autonomous vehicles, and embedded medical instruments, among other things. “The next wave is physical AI. With billions of autonomous and robotic systems operating in the physical world,” Huang said during the conference call. Last fiscal year, NVIDIA’s automotive revenue hit a record $2.3 billion, which demonstrated a 39% surge. Nvidia’s Earnings Call, Jensen Huang Bullish On Vera Rubin The chipmaker reported its first-quarter revenue, which came in at $81.615 billion, up 85% YoY and beating the analyst consensus of $78.796 billion. NVIDIA’s datacenter revenue came in at $75.2 billion, which was up +92% YoY. NVIDIA’s adjusted earnings came in at $1.87 per share, which was ahead of Wall Street estimates of $1.76 per share. View more earnings on NVDA Huang was also bullish on the NVIDIA Vera Rubin platform, saying that he expected AI companies to adopt the chip in their compute, sharing that the company was “growing share in inference very, very quickly.” Uber’s $10 Billion Robotaxi Bet Meanwhile, Uber has outlined a $10 billion investment commitment towards Robotaxis, with CEO Dara Khosrowshahi predicting that the autonomous vehicle sector represented a trillion-dollar total addressable market (TAM) for Uber. The company...
Applied Digital Corp.（APLD）美股盘前涨近12%，该公司达成一份关于超大规模云服务商（Hyperscaler）的租赁协议。 风险提示及免责条款 市场有风险，投资需谨慎。本文不构成个人投资建议，也未考虑到个别用户特殊的投资目标、财务状况或需要。用户应考虑本文中的任何意见、观点或结论是否符合其特定状况。据此投资，责任自负。
Applied Digital Corp.（APLD）美股盘前涨近12%，该公司达成一份关于超大规模云服务商（Hyperscaler）的租赁协议。 风险提示及免责条款 市场有风险，投资需谨慎。本文不构成个人投资建议，也未考虑到个别用户特殊的投资目标、财务状况或需要。用户应考虑本文中的任何意见、观点或结论是否符合其特定状况。据此投资，责任自负。
Mitchells & Butlers (LON:MAB) said first-half trading remained ahead of the wider market, with management pointing to resilient sales, cost controls and balance sheet progress despite weaker second-quarter momentum and significant inflationary pressures. Chief Executive Officer Phil Urban said the pub and restaurant operator delivered profit “just slightly ahead of expectations and slightly ahead ...
Mitchells & Butlers (LON:MAB) said first-half trading remained ahead of the wider market, with management pointing to resilient sales, cost controls and balance sheet progress despite weaker second-quarter momentum and significant inflationary pressures. Chief Executive Officer Phil Urban said the pub and restaurant operator delivered profit “just slightly ahead of expectations and slightly ahead of last year” in the second quarter, despite higher employer national insurance costs and elevated steak prices. He said the performance showed “the power” of the company’s Ignite improvement program and its work on cost mitigation. Tim Jones, chief financial officer, said in his final City presentation for the company that first-half sales were strong enough to offset “very stiff cost headwinds,” allowing operating profit to remain at GBP 181 million. Earnings per share rose 3.6%, helped by lower interest costs as debt continued to decline. Sales Growth Slowed in the Second Quarter Jones said like-for-like sales increased 3.3% across the first half, with a strong festive period contributing to first-quarter like-for-like growth of 4.5%. Growth slowed to 1.8% in the second quarter. Urban attributed much of the slowdown to poor weather and calendar shifts, including the timing of Mother’s Day and Easter. He said guest metrics remained at an all-time high, suggesting the brands remained healthy, but that visit frequency had dipped as consumers became more cautious with spending. Urban said there had been a clear split between wet-led and dry-led brands, with pubs outperforming restaurants. He highlighted Miller & Carter as a brand that had faced a difficult first half because steak had become more expensive as an input cost and “more of a luxury item” for consumers. However, he said guest review scores and trading on key calendar dates remained strong. Management also said London sites had continued to trade strongly. In response to an analyst question about premium versus va...