While markets may be tired of the rhetoric surrounding a possible U.S.-Iran deal, the latest developments are hard to ignore as a long-term arrangement over the Strait of Hormuz could create a clearer path for interest rates and the wider economy.
Is this deal the final one? The latest twist in the long saga is that Washington and Tehran are finalizing a draft agreement that would give Iran oversight of shipping entering the Persian Gulf but without tolls, according to The Wall Street Journal. While not perfect, that would broadly be a relief for global energy markets.
Just like every other time a deal has reportedly been close, there is no guarantee this will mark the end of the conflict. But international oil prices have fallen significantly this week and were trading just under $80 a barrel early Thursday. That's a more pleasant picture for a Federal Reserve grappling with inflation than the spike above $100 a barrel in late July, threatening to push up energy prices.
There was some other arguably good news on inflation for the Fed this week as hiring by private-sector employers grew less than expected in July, human-resources company ADP said. Private employers added 44,000 jobs to payrolls in July according to ADP, below the 65,000 consensus forecast and marking the slowest growth since January. While it will be quickly overshadowed by the official payroll report on Friday, the overall picture is of a healthy but not overheating labor market.
Markets are still feeling their way with new Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh and his policy to give only limited guidance on the central bank's thinking. A Hormuz deal could be just the thing to settle nerves ahead of next month's rate decision.
-- Adam Clark
Get more of the journalism you love. Choose Barron's as a preferred source in Google.
Google Shakes Up AI Leadership Amid Another High-Profile Departure
Google shook up leadership in its artificial intelligence team, with another high-profile departure as the cloud computing giant races to keep up with the competition in releasing frontier AI models. Jeff Dean, who has led much of Google's AI research for the past 15 years, is the latest to leave.
-- Dean was Alphabet-owned Google's 30th employee in 1999. His new company
is called Discovery Loop, and it's aimed at automating science and
engineering research. He will be joined by three other Google engineering
luminaries: Oriol Vinyals, Quoc Le, and Sanjay Ghemawat.
-- The four have been responsible for many of the company's breakthroughs in
AI research and computing, and their departures could weigh on Google's
AI efforts. They join four other prominent Google AI scientists who left
in June: Noam Shazeer, Nobel Prize winner John Jumper, Jonas Adler, and
Alexander Pritzel.
-- Demis Hassabis, who shared the Nobel Prize with Jumper, was the CEO of
Google's DeepMind AI lab, and he will step back to become DeepMind's
chairman and Alphabet Chief Scientist. Koray Kavukcuoglu will replace him,
but as a senior vice president.
-- CEO Sundar Pichai wrote: "We are committed to being at the frontier, and
are super focused on the areas where we need to improve. I'm really
excited for our upcoming model releases and the progress we're seeing. We
have to continue to move fast and with clear purpose."
What's Next: Alphabet's Gemini artificial-intelligence models have generally been viewed as trailing those from OpenAI and Anthropic, and these moves may be seen as a reflection of Google's third-place status.
-- Adam Levine and Liz Moyer
IonQ's Revenue Nearly Quadruples. Cloud Demand Grows.
IonQ kicked off the quantum earnings season by posting about the "strongest quarter" in its history, with revenue nearly quadrupling from a year ago on the growing adoption of its Tempo quantum computer and continued demand for its cloud computing services.
-- The Maryland-based company, which has expanded from its roots in quantum
computing into adjacent technologies like networking and sensing,
reported a narrower-than-expected adjusted loss of 33 cents a share and
revenue of $80.1 million, beating expectations.
-- The surge in revenue came even as IonQ posted a wider quarterly loss of
nearly $1.9 billion versus $177.5 million a year ago. Its adjusted Ebitda
loss of $120.3 million reflects the costs of its commercial relationship
with and acquisition of SkyWater Technology.
-- The company remains unprofitable even as its technology continues to gain
traction, both with enterprises and at the government level. For now,
earnings mean very little in the world of quantum computing, as investors
await technical milestones that are expected to supercharge the sector.
-- To boost growth ahead of broader commercialization, IonQ has leaned
heavily into acquisitions, completing the $1.8 billion purchase of chip
maker SkyWater last week, bringing its semiconductor foundries in-house
to gain full control of the hardware supply chain.
What's Next: Along with the revenue beat, a full-year guidance hike boosted optimism about the report. IonQ now sees revenue between $280 million and $290 million for the year, up from a prior range of $260 million to $270 million. Analysts were looking for $268.6 million.
-- Mackenzie Tatananni
AMD's Earnings Show How Hard It Is to Be in Nvidia's Shadow
Advanced Micro Devices has had a stellar year so far, but the reaction to its earnings report is a painful reminder that it still has some ground to make up on AI chip leader Nvidia. The bar is getting higher for AMD stock, which has more than doubled this year.
-- The big question hangs over AMD's ability to take market share from
Nvidia's graphics-processing units. The test is coming soon as AMD's
Helios AI server racks containing its latest GPUs are scheduled to arrive
on the market in the second half of 2026.
-- It has already signed up Meta Platforms, OpenAI, and Anthropic as
customers for a total of 14 gigawatts of computing capacity powered by
its GPUs. However, there is a catch. As part of those deals, AMD has
issued warrants entitling Meta and OpenAI to up to 160 million shares
each.
-- They get the full allotment if they both deploy six gigawatts of AMD's
GPUs and AMD's stock hits a series of price levels up to $600 a share. If
full warrant conditions are reached, AMD could hand $192 billion in
equity value to Meta and OpenAI, arguably financing their investments.
-- In contrast, Nvidia has structured its own "circular financing" deals in
such a way that it receives stakes in many of its customers. Of course,
AMD would argue that if the warrants are the price of getting major
customers to adopt its chips rather than Nvidia's on a major scale then
it's well worth paying.
What's Next: AMD estimates it can generate "double-digit billions" in revenue from each gigawatt of computing capacity powered by its chips. That means it can expect a minimum of $140 billion in revenue from the 14 GW commitments it has secured so far.
-- Adam Clark
Berkshire Hathaway's Earnings Report Is Coming. What to Expect.
Berkshire Hathaway's stock repurchase activity could be the most important figure in the company's second-quarter earnings report, which is expected out on Saturday. A July securities filing by Chairman Warren Buffett indicated that Berkshire repurchased from $5 billion to $11 billion of stock in the quarter.
-- First-quarter repurchases were $235 million, the first time the company
bought back stock since May 2024. The more buybacks in the period, the
more bullish for the stock. Berkshire shares lag the S&P 500's 14% total
return this year and stocks of companies like Union Pacific, Chubb, and
NextEra.
-- Berkshire hasn't said its results will be out on Saturday, but that
should be the day based on the history of its second-quarter profit
releases. It discloses the date a few days before. Wall Street expects
Berkshire's earnings to fall by about 3% to $7,553 a class A share.
-- UBS analyst Brian Meredith is projecting a 3% gain -- almost $8,000 a
class A share -- driven by buybacks; higher earnings at railroad unit
BNSF; and lower catastrophe losses at Berkshire's big property and
casualty insurance businesses.
-- Wall Street also will be focused on Berkshire's investment activity and
cash levels. The company surprised Wall Street when it bought $10 billion
of Alphabet stock in June at below $350 a share as part of the search
giant's $85 billion equity capital raise. Alphabet shares are now close
to $360.
What's Next: The second-quarter 10-Q filing probably will be released on Saturday, too. It will lay out the size of Berkshire's equity purchases and sales, but probably not detail individual securities. Those names will come in Berkshire's 13-F report, which is expected on Aug. 14.
-- Andrew Bary
-- Newsletter edited by Liz Moyer, Patrick O'Donnell, Callum Keown
Comments