Business, Financial & Legal - Page 68

TSMC continues forging ahead to be the dominant leader in the industry, where Taiwan Semicondctor Manufacturing Company is so ahead of the competition it might take them to 2030, if ever, to catch up.

Well, it's not just there -- but the company teased its recent 3nm node with 3x the silicon density over 7nm, with 51% less power, and it is up to 32% faster than TSMC's current 7nm node. TSMC hosted its Technology Symposium last week, where all of these announcements flew out.

TSMC also teased what it has coming in 2023, where the industry leader will have 12-stack next-gen HBM on next-gen GPUs coming out of its fabs. How can it get better? Well, with all of this chip production for companies like AMD, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Intel, Apple, Huawei and many others -- it must be using most of the latest equipment to make next-gen chips, right?

TSMC is so ahead of the game that even Korean giant Samsung might not catch up until 2030, or ever (more on that here) -- but Beijing thought it could compete with TSMC with its own $20 billion fab plant in Wuhan.

Wuhan was the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a partially-built factory sitting there doing nothing now in Western Wuhan. Wuhan Hongxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (HSMC -- because that's not obvious) was meant to be the "key part of a US$20 billion investment that turned the province into a chip manufacturing hub" reports South China Morning Post.

Construction on the new plant started in 2018 and was meant to make 14nm and 7nm chips, with HSMC expecting to make around 30,000 chips per month. Beijing offered a 10-year corporate t ax break to established companies that could make chips that were 28nm or smaller, but even with this help HSMC has failed with its new facility.

TSMC is a leader in the semiconductor space, but Samsung has been wanting a bigger piece of the semiconductor pie for a while now -- with goals of being the #1 semiconductor manufacturer by 2030. Well, it looks like TSMC might have just ended that battle, 10 years before it even began.

DigiTimes is reporting that TSMC will use Hsinchu Baoshan as their HQ for the new 2nm node, which Apple being the customer of the 2nm wafer, should be using in a future iPhone.

TSMC will create 10,000 jobs in its two new major R&D and production bases in Taiwan, with an investment of "at least NT$600 billion" reports DigiTimes. In USD, we're talking about an investment of around $20 billion -- which is not a small amount of money.

2020 has been a massive year for Elon Musk, with significant achievements happening in both Tesla and SpaceX.

Now, according to a Bloomberg report, Elon Musk's net worth has now risen above $100 billion, which just happens to be the exact same day Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos reached the $200 billion mark. In just 2020, Tesla stock has seen a rise of 400%, which has caused Musk's personal wealth to exceed by $73 billion this year.

Most of the Musk's wealth has come from the increasing price of Tesla stock, which isn't really that surprising when you look at the numbers. As of June this year, Musk owned 40.4 million Tesla shares, which equates to $87 billion of his net worth. Comparatively, at the beginning of 2020, Musk owned about 38.7 million shares, worth $16.2 billion. If you are after any more information regarding this topic, check out his link here.

Tesla stock isn't stopping right now, with the electric vehicle giant seeing its stock hit a record high, breaching $2000 on Thursday.

The increase in Tesla stock prices jolted the market capitalization to $370 billion,with Tesla silently driving upwards into its five-for-one stock split that comes on August 21, where it gets distributed to anyone who has Tesla stock.

Once this happens, it could see Tesla be included in the S&P 500 stock index, where if Tesla can secure a place in the S&P 500, funds that track the index are required to buy Tesla shares. We all know what happens from there, Tesla shares continue to skyrocket.

Intel is accelerating its $20 billion stock buyback strategy because of lower share values, and soon plans to buy up $10 billion worth of stock.

Despite sharp upticks in Q2 revenues ($19 billion, +20%) and net income ($5.1 billion, +22%), Intel's shares have dived nearly 20% in the last month due to the delay of its 7nm process to 2022.

Intel believes its shares are worth more than their recent trade values, so the company is spending $10 billion of its cash reserves to buy up 166 million shares of its stock. The motivation here is to raise stock prices by reducing the amount of shares on the market, thereby reducing dilution of the share value.

The entire world is changing and evolving to new standards, tens of millions more people working from home -- all over the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. In the middle of it, Samsung and Logitech see opportunity -- and have announced a new strategic partnership.

The companies will be collaborating on bringing the world the most "comprehensive display lineup including digital signages and desktop monitors, with Logitech's wide variety of video conferencing solutions for both meeting rooms and personal desks".

Samsung explains that its displays can turn any space, whether it is in the office or at home, into a productive workspace. Samsung adds: "Samsung monitors are available in a wide range of sizes, resolutions and screen types, from ultra-wide curve to traditional flat screens, to offer users the perfect fit. When paired with Logitech's USB-compatible conference cams such as MeetUp and Rally, and webcams such as Brio, C930e and C925e, any location can be transformed into an integrated workspace, saving users' valuable time while still providing powerful functionality".

If you were about to pull the trigger on a new upgrade, I would suggest waiting just a little while longer. Not only do we have NVIDIA's next-gen Ampere-based GeForce RTX 3000 series cards, but AMD's new RDNA 2-based Radeon cards, too.

In the middle of that, SSD and RAM prices are plummeting and will continue to do so well into 2021. According to a new report, the prices are tumbling because of an oversupply of both DRAM and NAND-based products.

DRAMeXhange explains: "Despite the traditional peak season for electronics sales and the release of Apple's new iPhones in 3Q20, the quarterly decline in NAND flash ASP [average selling price] will likely reach 10 percent, due to the client end's excess inventory under the impact of the pandemic".

Google is saying that it could "no longer guarantee" accurate search results, as well as news organizations having the power to "artificially inflate their ranking online" and Google services to Australians could change under new laws proposed by the Australian government.

Where is this coming from? The ACCC (or Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) ruled that Australians should be paying for the news it uses. Google hit back, saying that the proposed changes would make internet and video search results "dramatically worse", adding that "the way Aussies search every day on Google is at risk".

In a new "open letter" to Australians, Google Australia managing director Mel Silva said: "We're going to do everything we possibly can to get this proposal changed so we can protect how search and YouTube work for you in Australia and continue to build constructive partnerships with news media businesses; not choose one over the other".

Sony wants to buy AT&T's Crunchyroll anime service, but it's not willing to pay the huge $1.5 billion asking price.

AT&T is interested in selling its Cruncyroll division to Sony, sources tell The Information. Sony also wants to buy. But there's just one big problem: The price tag. AT&T wants $1.5 billion for Crunchyroll, and Sony simply isn't willing to pay that much. For perspective, that's more than the all time record $1 billion profit high the PlayStation division made in Q1'20.

If Sony acquires Crunchyroll (and right now it seems to be a matter of when, not if) it'll be an undisputed king of on-demand anime content. Sony Pictures already owns Funimation, which it bought in 2017 for $143 million.

David Blaine is returning, but not in the way you'd expect -- the magician has announced his first major live event in over 10 years that will broadcast exclusively on his YouTube channel.

The magician is calling his new stunt 'Ascension' which will see Blaine attach himself to a bunch of helium balloons -- which would look like the Pixar movie Up. Blaine will hold onto the helium balloons, he will float across the Hudson River between New Jersey and New York.

Blaine tweeted out: "This stunt has been 10 years in the making. Let's turn worry into wonder and take magic to new heights". YouTube gets in on the Ascension hype, adding: "Watch in disbelief as David Blaine magically ascends above Earth, in his biggest live performance yet".

AT&T currently owes over $150 billion in debt, but sub-2% bond interest rates and lucrative broadband business give the company extreme confidence in managing these colossal numbers.

Photo credit: Roberto Machado Noa (Getty Images)

At the recent 23rd Annual Oppenheimer Conference, AT&T Chief Financial Officer John Stephens discussed the company's strategies and current position to handle its $152 billion in debt, and gives slight inference on whether or not WarnerMedia's WB Games division will be sold. Reports say Warner Bros., who is wholly-owned by AT&T, will sell of its gaming division in a $4 billion deal that includes all major game studio subsidiaries like Netherealm, Monolith, WB Montreal, and Rocksteady.

Amazon caused the great retail decline, and now it may go full circle to resurrect the very malls it helped killed.

Amazon may buy up all defunct Sears and JC Penney stores and transform them into fulfillment centers. Sources tell The Wall Street Journal that Amazon is in talks with Simon Malls, the largest US mall operator in the United States, to utilize the empty stores for its massively-growing delivery business.

Before both companies closed down a majority of stores, JC Penney and Sears were cornerstones to pretty much every mall in America. Now these empty buildings are eyesores that don't generate revenue. Amazon centers could revitalize revenue for Simon Malls and solve one of Amazon's biggest problems.

The entire TikTok mess right now is taking over headlines, with Microsoft reportedly buying the entire global operations of TikTok and not just the US portion -- but now things just got more serious.

President Trump has just signed a new executive order that gives just 45 days for both TikTok and WeChat, and their respective Chinese-owned parent companies from operating in the US and doing business with American companies, if they're not sold.

In his letter to Congress, President Trump explains: "Like TikTok, WeChat automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users -- threatens to allow the CCP access to Americans' personal and proprietary information".

The last week has been an interesting one for both Microsoft and TikTok, with the Trump administration and China thrown into the mix over rumors that the Windows giant was going to acquire the TikTok's US business.

But now we have new reports from the Financtial Times that says they've had sources tell them Microsoft is reportedly mulling a complete buyout of TikTok's entire global business from ByteDance. ByteDance is based in China, and has the Trump administration keeping a close eye over the deal.

The Financial Times reports that this deal would reportedly not include ByteDance's sister Chinese app, Douyin. One of the roadblocks of this huge acquisition of TikTok is that Microsoft is looking into whether it is able to add regions like India and Europe into the deal.

This has been a super hot bit of news for a week or so now, but it's being reported that NVIDIA is in "advanced talks" to acquire ARM in a deal worth over $32 billion, reports Bloomberg.

NVIDIA is reportedly the one and only company that is in discussions with ARM owner SoftBank, with a deal that could be inked "in the next few weeks". If the deal does get stamped, it would be one of the largest in the tech industry and would have regulators looking into it, and its competitors beginning to sweat.

SoftBank acquired ARM for $31 billion back in 2016, and have only continued to expand since then. ARM-based designs are in hundreds of millions of Android and iOS smartphones and tablets, Apple recently said it would be switching over to ARM-based chipsets moving forward -- and plenty of NVIDIA's own products pack ARM-based chips.

Intel has been hurting for many years now, and in that time AMD has been shining brighter than the brightest star in the sky.

AMD stock has been enjoying a healthy ride towards the moon, with Intel's recent stumbles seeing AMD stock reaching record highs of nearly $80. At the time of writing, AMD stock was at $77 with a market cap of $90.9 billion.

Intel in comparison has their stock at $47 while they enjoy a larger $201 billion market cap.

Amazon doubles its Q2 profits to $5.2 billion thanks to huge spending during COVID-19 lockdowns.

Amazon just reported its Q2'20 profits for the quarter ended June 30, 2020, and the results are astronomical. The retail titan generated $5.2 billion in Q2 profits on $88.9 billion in net sales revenues due to exceptionally high demand in deliveries and shipments from April onwards. North America made up 62% of total net revenues during the period, generating $55 billion in revenues. That's more than double the international sales, which raked in $22.6 billion.

Amazon spends almost as much as it makes, though. The company reported only $2.1 billion of operating income on $55 billion in North American geographical revenues. Altogether, Amazon spent over $83 billion on operating expenses including facilities management and more.

If you follow Elon Musk on Twitter you will know that he hip fires tweets all day long, so if you did follow him you'll notice he has been tweeting out artists and songs including Nirvana and their infamous 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', something that as a follow of Musk on Twitter, made me listen to (all week, thanks Elon).

But then it was this tweet that kick started a conspiracy:

Musk tweeted out: "Billy G is not my lover" which I'm sure he was referencing the song "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson, but people thought it was Bill Gates. Yeah, Elon Musk and Bill Gates -- but how did it turn into some sort of conspiracy theory?

COVID-19 hasn't stopped tech sector growth, and Apple's third quarter 2020 performance is the best June of all time.

Apple today reported record Q3 performance across range of services and products. The company made $11.25 billion on $59.7 billion in total revenues, with a sharp 18% EPS jump to $2.61. Products made 77% of total net revenues, or $46 billion, up nearly double-digit percentage points over last year. Services pulled in $11.25 billion and saw a 15% jump over Q3'19.

While iPhone sales drove the quarter's total net sales ($59.68 billion), iPad saw the biggest uptick with 31% growth to $6.58 billion in sales. Wearables were also up 16.7%.