Year: 2024

The Chinese government is promoting two domestically made chip-making machines that it says have achieved significant advances, as the country strives towards technology self-sufficiency amid US sanctions.

The lithography machines, which print highly complex circuit patterns onto silicon wafers, “have achieved significant technological breakthroughs, own intellectual property rights but have yet to perform on the market”, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), which did not name the companies behind the two machines.

One of the deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines operates at a wavelength of 193 nanometres (nm), with a resolution below 65nm and an overlay accuracy below 8nm, according to a new list of “major technological equipment” published by the MIIT earlier this week. The other DUV machine has a wavelength of 248nm, with 110nm resolution and 25nm overlay accuracy, according to the list.

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The two machines are still far behind the most advanced options available on the market. One of Dutch equipment maker ASML Holding’s most advanced DUV machines, for instance, can operate at a resolution of below 38nm with an overlay accuracy of 1.3nm.

DUV machines also lag behind extreme ultraviolet (EUV) machines, which use light with a wavelength of just 13.5nm – almost 14 times sharper than DUV’s 195nm.

China has spent years pursuing technology self-sufficiency in semiconductors, but its progress in producing the lithography systems required to reliably mass produce advanced chips remains slow.

An engineer works on a deep-ultraviolet lithography system at ASML in Veldhoven, Netherlands, on June 16, 2023. Photo: Reuters alt=An engineer works on a deep-ultraviolet lithography system at ASML in Veldhoven, Netherlands, on June 16, 2023. Photo: Reuters>

Nearly all of the country’s lithography machines still come from the ASML, which has already cut off Chinese clients’ access to its cutting-edge EUV machines and is facing increased pressure from the US to withhold its DUV machines from China-based customers.

State-owned enterprise Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group (SMEE), the country’s best hope to develop its own advanced lithography systems, still lags far behind its global peers such as ASML. The company, which was added to a trade blacklist by the US in December 2022, would need breakthroughs across multiple technologies and supplier networks to overcome restrictions, according to experts.

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But SMEE has made some progress despite sanctions. The company in March last year filed a patent for “EUV radiation generators and lithography equipment”, according to corporate registry data published earlier this week.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2024. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

On Aug. 13, coffee giant Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) shocked the investing world when it named Brian Niccol as its new CEO. Niccol was formerly CEO at Chipotle Mexican Grill. And to lure him away, Starbucks was willing to absolutely break the bank. His total pay package is reportedly worth over $110 million.

With one of the largest pay packages on Wall Street, Niccol is now a superstar CEO. But Starbucks didn’t bring him in to maintain the status quo. On the contrary, the company is desperate to turn things around.

On Sept. 10, Niccol laid out a 100-day plan to start fixing things at Starbucks. And it all starts with its business in the U.S.

What’s the problem with Starbucks?

Niccol just wrote an open letter to all of Starbucks’ stakeholders, and he didn’t mince words. He said that in the chain’s U.S. coffee shops, “It can feel transactional, menus can feel overwhelming, product is inconsistent, the wait too long or the handoff too hectic.”

These observations — particularly the final one — aren’t necessarily new. In the second quarter of 2024, then-CEO Laxman Narasimhan said that some of Starbucks’ most loyal customers “sometimes chose not to complete their order, citing long wait times of product and availability.”

Former longtime Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz echoed Niccol’s thoughts in a social media post earlier this year. Schultz specifically used the term “transactional” to describe a feeling to be avoided, as did Niccol in his open letter. But Schultz would also approve of Niccol’s plan to start with the U.S. side of the business, since he said that “U.S. operations are the primary reason for the company’s fall from grace.”

In Starbucks’ North America segment (most of which is the U.S.), transactions have dropped during the last two quarters. This happens from time to time with a restaurant business. But in this case, the company believes the drop could have been avoided just by addressing things within its control. And that’s why it’s imperative to turn things around.

So what’s the plan now?

If this sounds like a small problem for Starbucks, I believe it’s fair to say that’s because it is. The company finished its fiscal third quarter in June. During the first three quarters of its fiscal 2024, it generated revenue of over $20 billion in North America, which was up 3% from the same three quarters of its fiscal 2023.

Also during the first three quarters of fiscal 2024, North America had over $4.1 billion in operating income, which was up 5%.

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In short, North America is still a huge and growing business for Starbucks, and it’s profitable. The company isn’t experiencing an outright disaster. But the problems it does have are of its own making, which is why it’s imperative to fix things.

For Niccol, part of the plan for Starbucks is perfecting the morning experience, which is crucial. After all, management says roughly half of its sales come during the morning hours. And starting someone’s day off with a bad coffee experience is an easy way to lose a customer’s loyalty.

Niccol also wants to invest in the company’s baristas. He wants to get customers interested in dining in its cafes again rather than just carrying out. And he wants customers to better connect with the brand. But all of these sound like the suggestions that Schultz made earlier this year.

This is why I believe Starbucks’ shareholders should be hopeful about the future. While Starbucks stock has been one of the greatest investments over the last 30 years, the company has struggled each time Schultz has stepped away. It’s seemed like he has a firm grasp of what makes Starbucks great, whereas others haven’t. Niccol’s plan sounds a lot like something that Schultz would come up with. And so I think Starbucks’ prospects without Schultz in charge are finally improving.

To be clear, Niccol’s plan only addresses the next three months in the U.S.; there are problems elsewhere in the business that must eventually be resolved, especially in China. In short, there’s plenty more work to do. But I believe Starbucks has quickly returned to the right path under Niccol’s leadership, which is something to get excited about.

Should you invest $1,000 in Starbucks right now?

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Starbucks’ New Superstar CEO Just Released His Plan to Fix the Business. Here’s What Investors Need to Know. was originally published by The Motley Fool

(Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve’s expected rate cuts this week won’t provide much relief to homebuyers facing high borrowing costs, according to Gary Cohn, who served as chief economic adviser to former President Donald Trump.

Most Read from Bloomberg

“Unfortunately, I think those rates have already priced in what the Fed is going to do,” Cohn said Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation. “I do not see a major impact to the mortgage market or credit-card financing or anything else by the Fed starting to drop rates this week.”

Policymakers are widely predicted to begin easing rates in their September meeting, as the US economy begins showing signs of weakness.

Measures of inflation have cooled, but home prices are still more than many Americans can afford, especially with high borrowing costs. The average for a 30-year, fixed loan is currently 6.2%, down from 6.35% a week earlier, according the most recent Freddie Mac data.

Cohn, now vice chairman at International Business Machines Corp., said consumers are under “enormous pressure” with delinquencies in credit cards ticking higher.

“We’re starting to see softness in the economy, softness in the job market,” said Cohn, who was president and chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. before running the National Economic Council under Trump.

A New York Fed report released last month showed that the share of auto-loan balances and credit-card debt becoming newly delinquent were the highest in at least a decade.

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As of Sept. 13, 2024, two stocks in the real estate sector could be flashing a real warning to investors who value momentum as a key criteria in their trading decisions.

The RSI is a momentum indicator, which compares a stock’s strength on days when prices go up to its strength on days when prices go down. When compared to a stock’s price action, it can give traders a better sense of how a stock may perform in the short term. An asset is typically considered overbought when the RSI is above 70, according to Benzinga Pro.

Trending Now:

Here’s the latest list of major overbought players in this sector.

Medical Properties Trust Inc (NYSE:MPW)

On Sept. 11, Medical Properties Trust announced it reached a global settlement agreement that restored its control over its real estate and severed its relationship with Steward Health Care. The company’s stock gained around 25% over the past month and has a 52-week high of $6.64.

RSI Value: 71.59

MPW Price Action: Shares of Medical Properties Trust gained 16.2% to close at $5.60 on Thursday.

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American Healthcare REIT Inc (NYSE:AHR)

On Aug. 5, American Healthcare posted better-than-expected quarterly earnings. “Our first year as a listed company is off to a great start. Demand for healthcare real estate is evident in our portfolio performance. Growth in the first half of 2024 is exceeding the expectations we set at the beginning of the year prompting our upward revisions to Same-Store NOI growth guidance and NFFO guidance. As we plan for the balance of the year and into 2025, we expect the elevated levels of Same-Store NOI growth to persist due to the demand-supply imbalance present in long-term care,” said Danny Prosky, the Company’s President and Chief Executive Officer. The company’s stock gained around 38% over the past month and has a 52-week high of $23.74.

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RSI Value: 87.94

AHR Price Action: Shares of American Healthcare REIT gained 3.5% to close at $23.69 on Thursday.

Better Yields Than Some REITs?

The current high-interest-rate environment has created an incredible opportunity for income-seeking investors to earn massive yields, but not through publicly-traded REITs.

Arrived Homes, the Jeff Bezos-backed investment platform has launched its Private Credit Fund, which provides access to a pool of short-term loans backed by residential real estate with a target 7% to 9% net annual yield paid to investors monthly. It paid 8.1% in July. The best part? Unlike other private credit funds, this one has a minimum investment of only $100. 

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This article Top 2 Real Estate Stocks That May Collapse This Month originally appeared on Benzinga.com

• More analysts are recommending “defensive” shares over AI plays as macro conditions change.

• Utilities, a classic defensive sector, are going toe-to-toe with tech.

• With some questioning the AI rally, investors could benefit from non-tech growth companies, an analyst said.

Defensive recommendations have taken center stage on Wall Street as the artificial intelligence trade shows signs of being overextended and as economic conditions change.

Utility stocks — a common buy when times look tough — have gone toe-to-toe with the technology sector’s blowout performance this year. Year-to-date, the utilities and tech sectors have gained 22.08% and 25.69%, respectively.

Defensive sectors of the stock market, which can also include real estate and consumer staples, tend to be better plays when macro conditions look to be softening. As employment data has weakened in recent months, investors are growing nervous about a coming downturn.

Meanwhile, though the sector has staged a comeback this week, leading AI names have struggled to find their footing, with Nvidia facing tough questions about returns on AI investments by companies. The broader S&P Global Semiconductor Index is down 5.63% for the month.

As the AI trade takes a bit of a breather, and as data shows the economy may be cooling, more analysts are recommending investors take shelter in defensive corners of the stock market.

Bank of America said investors should avoid buying the tech dip, noting that market volatility is set to pick up over the long term. In addition to dividend-paying utilities, it also suggested investors seek real estate exposure.

Similar to BofA’s call, Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson last week called the AI theme “overcooked” and said investors should shift to defensive shares.

According to Brad Conger, CIO of investment firm Hirtle Callaghan, some of the S&P 500’s more “boring” companies are at the heart of the defensive theme.

“Our positioning is that there are a lot of great growth businesses that are undervalued because of both the excitement around tech and AI,” Conger told Business Insider, citing things like waste management companies.

The performance of such defensive names would rise dramatically if the US economy took a turn, he added.

“That’s what we’ve seen in the past eight weeks — as the prospect or the possibility of recession has gone from, say, 10% to 30%, then those things got a tailwind.”

Like Morgan Stanley’s Wilson, Conger believes that AI is overstretched and he warned that hardware firms like Nvidia are facing a cliff if the technology doesn’t start to show real returns on investment.

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Firms, from BlackRock to Vanguard, agree that timelines need adjusting. JPMorgan noted in a recent report that adoption trends need to move higher if the tech hopes to avoid a “metaverse outcome,” referring to the virtual reality worlds that saw huge investment a few years ago but which ultimately never ended up producing much of a return.

To be sure, most on Wall Street are still convinced by AI’s potential. Eric Diton of Wealth Alliance told BI that Nvidia’s recent drop was a case of profit-taking and not a sign of enduring weakness

“We can’t fathom what this will look like 10 years from now, but AI will become a mainstream part of everyone’s daily life,” the firm’s president said. “There’s no doubt in my mind.”

But in tune with what others had said, Diton also touted that utilities stocks as one meaningful investment to make right now. As bullish on AI as he may be, he warned that the market has become extremely concentrated in tech’s leading names, and investors need to diversify.

“Do you need to have exposure to AI and tech? Absolutely. But do you want to do it in the way the S&P 500 is?” he said. “No,you don’t want to. You don’t want to have 20% of your net worth and three stocks.”

With the Federal Reserve anticipated to cut interest rates at its meeting this week, Diton also suggested that investors pick up high-dividend paying stocks and longer-term bonds. He also shared a preference for small-caps, which can see stronger performance when borrowing costs fall.

Read the original article on Business Insider