Tesla, the top stock by trading volume on Monday, closed up 0.89% with a turnover of $27.517 billion. The UK communications regulator announced it has launched a formal investigation into social media platform X, owned by Elon Musk, under the UK's Online Safety Act. The probe will determine if the platform has fulfilled its duty to protect UK citizens from illegal content and will be treated as a "highest priority" matter, with the possibility of blocking the platform "in the most serious cases."
The regulator's statement expressed "deep concern" over the misuse of the AI chatbot "Grok," integrated into platform X, to generate and disseminate fake sexually explicit content involving real individuals. The investigation will assess whether platform X has "failed to comply with its legal obligations under the Online Safety Act." This includes evaluating the risks of UK users encountering content illegal in the UK on the platform, whether X has taken appropriate measures to prevent UK users from seeing illegal content such as non-consensual intimate images, the speed of content removal upon identifying illegality, and assessing the risks "Grok" poses to minors in the UK.
NVIDIA, the second by volume, closed up 0.04% with a turnover of $25.448 billion. Thermo Fisher Scientific will collaborate with NVIDIA to develop AI-based laboratory automation solutions.
Apple, ranked third, closed up 0.34% with a turnover of $11.708 billion. Apple began pushing the watchOS 26.3 developer preview Beta 2 update to Apple Watch users, coming 28 days after the previous Beta/RC release.
Alphabet's Class A shares (GOOGL), the fourth by volume, closed up 1% with a turnover of $11.132 billion, pushing its market capitalization above $4 trillion. Reports indicate Apple is set to partner with Google, leveraging Google's technology to power AI features for products like Siri launching later this year. This multi-year collaboration will utilize Google's Gemini model and cloud technology to aid Apple in developing its future foundation models.
Apple stated, "After careful evaluation, we believe Google's technology provides the strongest technical foundation for Apple Foundation Models, and we are excited about the innovative new experiences it will bring to users."
Additionally, Google and Walmart announced an AI shopping integration solution based on Gemini, employing a new Universal Commerce Protocol to enable a seamless user experience from product discovery to checkout within the Google interface.
Meta Platforms, ranked sixth, closed down 1.70% with a turnover of $9.39 billion. Media reports citing three informed sources stated that Meta's Reality Labs division, responsible for related product development, plans to cut approximately 10% of its workforce.
The report noted that Reality Labs currently employs about 15,000 people, and the layoff plan could be announced as early as Tuesday, significantly impacting the unit focused on developing virtual reality headsets and the virtual social network.
The metaverse was once a key project championed by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who prioritized its development and invested heavily. However, since 2020, this business segment has accumulated losses exceeding $60 billion.
Broadcom, ranked tenth, closed up 2.10% with a turnover of $7.331 billion. According to a January 8th trading disclosure, Cathie Wood's ARK Invest made a significant adjustment to its holdings last week, purchasing 31,573 shares of Broadcom valued at approximately tens of millions of dollars. This is currently the only ARK fund holding Broadcom stock.
Walmart, ranked twelfth, closed up 3% with a turnover of $5.797 billion. Google announced a collaboration with Walmart and other major retailers to expand the shopping capabilities of its Gemini AI model, advancing its application from a "smart assistant" to a "virtual merchant" capable of directly completing transactions.
Alibaba, ranked thirteenth, closed up 10.17%, marking its largest single-day gain since August 29th, with a turnover of $5.783 billion. J.P. Morgan suggested investors consider gradually accumulating Alibaba shares, expressing a constructive view on its trading prospects over the next 6 to 12 months.
The bank anticipates that Alibaba Cloud's revenue growth will continue accelerating in the coming quarters, as generative AI workloads expand from pilot phases to broader deployment, demonstrating Alibaba's capability to capture and monetize AI-driven demand in China.
J.P. Morgan believes that several consecutive quarters of stable cloud business growth momentum should shift investor focus from short-term expenditures to the sustainability of higher-quality engine growth, thereby supporting valuation multiple expansion.
SanDisk, ranked fifteenth, closed up 3.14%, hitting another record high, with a turnover of $5.596 billion. News suggesting that "SanDisk's enterprise-grade flash chip prices may double" was a primary driver for the stock's rise. Nomura analysts predict that SanDisk might double the price of high-capacity 3D NAND flash for enterprise SSDs this quarter in response to strong demand for server-grade storage in the coming quarters. It remains unclear to what extent this price hike for high-capacity 3D NAND will affect mainstream flash memory pricing for consumer devices.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC), ranked nineteenth, closed up 2.52% with a turnover of $4.15 billion. Susquehanna raised its price target for TSMC from $400 to $415.
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