Charles Liang, chief executive officer of Super Micro Computer Inc., during the Computex conference in Taipei, Taiwan, on Wednesday, June 5, 2024. The trade show runs through June 7.
Annabelle Chih | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Super Micro shares plunged 22% on Wednesday to their lowest level since May of last year after the embattled server maker issued disappointing unaudited financials and failed to provide specifics plans to keep its Nasdaq listing.
The stock dropped to $21.55 as of early afternoon and is now down 82% from its high in March, a selloff that’s wiped out about $57 billion of market cap.
Super Micro had its worst week on the market on record last week after the resignation of its auditor, Ernst & Young, the second accounting firm to bow out in under two years. The company faces accusations from an activist of accounting irregularities and that it’s shipped sensitive chips to sanctioned nations and companies, violating export controls.
Super Micro hasn’t filed audited financials since May and is at risk of being delisted by Nasdaq if it doesn’t report results for the latest fiscal year to the SEC by mid-November. The company said late Tuesday, in reporting preliminary results for the first fiscal quarter, that it doesn’t know when it will file annual financials.
On a call with analysts, the company said it wouldn’t discuss any questions related to Ernst & Young’s decision to resign and didn’t address corporate governance issues. CEO Charles Liang said Super Micro was actively in the process of hiring a new auditor.
Analysts at Mizuho suspended coverage of the stock on Wednesday “due to a lack of full financial detailed and audited statements.” Wedbush analysts, who have the equivalent of a hold rating on the stock, said the report left “more questions than answers.”
“Management seems fully focused on finding an auditor and resolving its late filing status,” the Wedbush analysts wrote. “However, we don’t know how significant the hurdles might be in achieving this goal.”
Liang said on the call that the company is “working with urgency to become current again with our financial reporting.”
For the quarter ending Sept. 30, Super Micro said it generated net sales of between $5.9 billion and $6 billion. That’s under analyst expectations of $6.45 billion, but is still up 181% on an annual basis. The company’s business has been booming of late because it ships servers packed with Nvidia’s processors for artificial intelligence.
NVIDIA founder, President and CEO Jensen Huang speaks about the future of artificial intelligence and its effect on energy consumption and production at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 27, 2024.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images
Super Micro shares soared 246% last year after jumping 87% in 2023. The stock peaked at $118.81 in March, shortly after being added to the S&P 500.
Liang said demand is strong for the latest Nvidia GPU, called Blackwell, which started shipping in recent weeks.
When asked by an analyst when Blackwell revenue might show up in Super Micro’s financials, Liang said that “we are asking Nvidia every day,” adding that the companies continue to work together closely.
“Our capacity is ready, but not enough new chips,” Liang said.
Analysts asked if the company’s plans for building Blackwell-based servers had changed, which could suggest that other server makers might receive additional capacity or allocations of Nvidia GPUs at Super Micro’s expense.
“To clarify one of the comments from earlier with respect to Nvidia, we have the deepest of relationships with Nvidia,” CFO David Weigand said. “Now we have multiple state-of-the art-projects in progress and we’ve spoken to Nvidia and they’ve confirmed they’ve made no changes to allocations. We maintain a strong relationship with them, and don’t expect that to change.”
Super Micro’s forecast for the December quarter was also below estimates. The company said revenue will be between $5.5 billion and $6.1 billion, trailing the $6.86 billion average analyst estimate, according to LSEG. Adjusted earnings per share will be 56 cents to 65 cents. Analysts were looking for EPS of 83 cents.
Super Micro said its board of directors had commissioned a special committee to look into Ernst & Young’s concerns. In a three-month investigation, the committee found there was “no evidence of fraud or misconduct” from management, the company said.
“The Committee is recommending a series of remedial measures for the Company to strengthen its internal governance and oversight functions, and the Committee expects to deliver the full report on the completed work this week or next,” Super Micro said, adding that it intends to take all steps to keep its listing on Nasdaq.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, attends the 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland, January 18, 2024 (L), and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos speaks during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, November 2, 2021.
Reuters
Leaders of major technology companies congratulated President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance on their victory in the U.S. presidential election Wednesday.
The messages were similar, with CEOs remarking that they wish Trump success when he returns to the Oval Office, and look forward to working with his administration.
Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos celebrated Trump’s win in a post on X, calling it an “extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory.”
Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post and founded space company Blue Origin, has had a rocky relationship with Trump and was a frequent target of the former president during his first term. Trump repeatedly took aim at Bezos’ ownership of the Post, Amazon’s tax record and its relationship with the Postal Service. Bezos also took swings at Trump, remarking in a 2015 social media post, “#sendDonaldtospace.” Bezos recently struck a more conciliatory tone and in July praised Trump for his “courage under literal fire” following the attempted assassination of Trump at a Pennsylvania rally that month. Bezos has posted twice on X this year, with both posts mentioning Trump.
Andy Jassy, who took the helm from Bezos when he stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021, also extended his congratulations to Trump.
“Congratulations to President-elect @realDonaldTrump on a hard-fought victory,” Jassy wrote in a post on X. “We look forward to working with you and your administration on issues important to our customers, employees, communities, and country.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a post on X that he hopes Trump will see “huge success in the job.” In a follow up post, he wrote, “it is critically important that the US maintains its lead in developing AI with democratic values.”
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg called Trump’s election win a “decisive victory” and said he looked forward to forward to working with the Trump administration. “We have great opportunities ahead of us as a country,” Zuckerberg wrote in a post on Threads, Meta’s rival to Elon Musk’s X app. The two men have also had a rocky relationship at times. In 2021, Facebook banned Trump for two years shortly after the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Musk, who also runs electric vehicle maker Tesla, space exploration company SpaceX, and brain tech startup Neuralink, also unsurprisingly cheered Trump’s win.
Musk has been a key ally for Trump in his campaign for the White House, with the former president promising prior to his election to appoint Musk as the head of a government efficiency commission. Musk also contributed nearly $75 million to America PAC, a pro-Trump super political action committee that he established earlier in the year. Tesla shares rallied more than 13% on Wednesday afternoon as investors were optimistic that a Trump win would benefit the vehicle maker.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google parent Alphabet, also congratulated Trump on his victory and said he’s committed to working with the president-elect’s administration.
Microsoft CEO Sundar Pichai said: “Congratulations President Trump, we’re looking forward to engaging with you and your administration to drive innovation forward that creates new growth and opportunity for the United States and the world.”
Cisco founder and CEO Chuck Robbins wrote in a post on X that the company looks forward to working with Trump and Congress on policies around “connectivity, innovation, cybersecurity, and more.”
Box CEO Aaron Levie also sent his good wishes to Trump. He wrote in a post on X, “Wild ride. Congrats to @realDonaldTrump on becoming President again. What’s great about America is that we’re on a rocket ship right now and can keep accelerating with the right policies and execution.”
Michael Dell, CEO and chairman of Dell Technologies, added his own congratulations in a post on X.
The Nintendo Switch game console store in Shanghai, Feb 25, 2024.
Cfoto | Future Publishing | Getty Images
Nintendo on Wednesday said it will allow current Switch games to be played on the hit console’s successor as it looks to drum up excitement among its current user base for the highly-anticipated device.
Shares of Nintendo closed 5.8% higher in Tokyo on Wednesday, after the announcement.
“Investors think this is a sign Nintendo’s next device will not be a risky experiment but rather a continuation,” Serkan Toto, CEO of Tokyo-based games consultancy Kantan Games, told CNBC.
“I believe investors want Nintendo to adopt the iPhone approach of gradually improving a winning product instead of trying to reinvent the wheel with every new console generation.”
Backward compatibility of games is critical for console makers for several reasons: firstly, when new consoles launch, they often do not have a huge amount of games to choose from. Making older games available for the new Switch will boost the device’s appeal on this front.
Secondly, current Switch users who are thinking of purchasing new games ahead of the new console launch may hold off until after its debut. Making current games playable on the Switch’s successor removes that concern.
The Switch is Nintendo’s second-best selling console in history, behind the Nintendo DS.
But demand for the Nintendo Switch, which was first released in 2017, is slowly beginning to fade — albeit from high levels. Investors have been waiting for more details about the console’s successor, which the company said it will announce in its fiscal year ending March 2025.
Pavlo Gonchar | SOPA Images | LightRocket via Getty Images
Wise posted a 55% jump in profit in the first half of its 2025 fiscal year Wednesday, citing customer growth and expanding market share.
The British digital payments firm said that its first-half profit totalled £217.3 million, up from £140.6 million in the same period a year ago.
That came on the back of a 25% increase in active customers, with Wise reporting a total of 11.4 million consumer and business clients.
Revenues at the money transfer platform climbed 19% year-on-year for the period to £591.9 million, Wise reported Wednesday.
Shares of Wise surged as much as 8% shortly after the London market opened Wednesday, adding to gains from Tuesday on a partnership with Standard Chartered to power the bank’s cross-border payments offering for retail customers. The stock was last up almost 6% as of 8:20 a.m. London time.
Earlier this year, Wise issued a sales warning that sent shares of the U.K. online payments firm down as much as 21%.
Back in June, Wise said it was expecting underlying year-over-year income growth of 15-20% for its fiscal 2025, much lower than the 31% growth clip it achieved in the 12 months ending in March 2024.
The softer guidance came off the back of a series of price reductions.
Last month, Wise reported a 17% increase in underlying income for the second quarter of 2024.
The firm also said it was on track to achieve an underlying profit before tax (PBT) margin of 13% to 16% in the medium term — reiterating previous guidance from June — and wouldn’t have to make “further material investments in reduced pricing” in the second half.
On Wednesday, Wise said that its underlying PBT margin for the first-half period was 22%, above its target range of 13% to 16%.
However, the firm added that investments it’s made in reducing pricing will take that margin down to a level close to that target range for the second half of its 2025 fiscal year.