Bitcoin briefly climbed above $70,000 as investors braced themselves for MicroStrategy earnings and counted the days to the U.S. presidential election.
The price of bitcoin was last higher by about 3% at $69,925.00, according to Coin Metrics. At about 6:00 p.m. Eastern on Monday, it touched $70,207.02 and has been oscillating since.
Stocks tied to the price of the cryptocurrency were little changed in extended trading. In regular trading on Monday, crypto exchange platform Coinbase gained 5% and bitcoin proxy MicroStrategy jumped nearly 9%.
Bitcoin has struggled to reclaim $70,000 this year
The last time bitcoin touched $70,000 was in June. It has tested that level several times this year, after hitting a record in March of $73,797.68. Earlier forays above $70,000 have been mere blips.
Optimism is building ahead of the U.S. presidential election next week. Bitcoin has been confined to a tight range between $55,000 and $70,000. However, it may be poised for a breakout with stocks hitting new highs this month, Election Day on Nov. 5 and another Federal Reserve rate policy decision on Nov. 7.
Republican nominee and former president Donald Trump has been courting the crypto industry this year and presented himself as the pro-crypto candidate. Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris has been more muted on crypto, and the industry is split on how her potential presidency could affect crypto companies. The outcome is widely viewed as a key catalyst for the price of bitcoin, but investors have watching and waiting as the election approaches. Last week, bitcoin surged toward $70,000, but it ultimately fell short of the threshold.
Elsewhere, investors are watching for earnings from Coinbase and MicroStrategy, both slated for Wednesday. On Monday, MicroStrategy, which trades as a high-beta play on the price of bitcoin, recorded its highest close since March 15, 2000.
MicroStrategy is looking to extend its seven-week win streak, its longest since rally since an 11-week streak that ended in late October 2010.
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Illustration of the China and U.S. flag on a central processing unit.
Blackdovfx | Istock | Getty Images
President-elect Donald Trump is unlikely to roll back the Biden administration’s CHIPS and Science Act, despite his campaign rhetoric on the bill, experts say.
The legislation, which provides incentives for chipmakers to set up manufacturing in the U.S., became a point of contention in the final month of the election cycle.
Still, the key Biden policy, which has massive implications for Asian chips makers like TSMC and Samsung, is likely safe in the near term, according to chip experts.
Despite signaling he’s “not thrilled” about the bill, Trump is probably not going to roll it back, Paul Triolo, senior vice president for China and technology policy lead at Albright Stonebridge, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Thursday.
“There’s support for this kind of onshoring of advanced manufacturing,” he added.
The Biden administration signed the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act in August 2022, committing almost $53 billion to invest in domestic semiconductor manufacturing and research with the aim of boosting U.S. competitiveness with China.
The former president made headlines in October by attacking the legislation as a “bad” deal during a three hour interview with popular podcaster Joe Rogan.
“We put up billions of dollars for rich companies to come in and borrow the money and build chip companies here, and they’re not going to give us the good companies anyway,” he said, arguing instead that his proposal to increase tariffs would attract chip companies for free.
The allocation of the CHIPS Act has been slow, with the lion’s share of the earmarked funds yet to be doled out.
So far, the bill has attracted Asian chip makers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Samsung to build U.S. facilities. The two companies have already been offered $6.6 billion and $6.4 billion, respectively.
The largest CHIPS Act beneficiary has been the American chip maker Intel, which has been awarded $8.5 billion in funding.
While Trump may want to modify and change some of the priorities of the bill and its fund allocation, he’s expected to leave most of it intact.
The Trump administration will probably try to reinterpret the bill “so they can spread the money a little differently than Biden, but I don’t think they’re going to roll it back,” Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Thursday.
Posen said that this would mirror what Biden had done by leaving Trump’s China tariffs in place when he took office, despite pivoting to a more industrial policy focused strategy.
“But I do think there’ll be much more expansion on the tariff front, rather than industrial policy expanding,” he added.
Shares of Adyen lost ground in early Thursday deals, as the company reported a slowdown in the growth of its transaction volumes in the third quarter.
Shares of Adyen initially failed to open Thursday after the company’s third-quarter report, but resumed trade. The stock was down 9.8% at 8:35 a.m. London time, taking it to the bottom of the pan-European Stoxx 600.
Adyen’s sales growth came off the back of a rise in total processed volume (TPV), which climbed 32% year-over-year to 321 billion euros. In the first half, Adyen posted a 45% jump in TPV, after previously reporting 46% year-over-year growth in the first quarter.
Analysts at Citi said in a research note that “weaker” transaction volume was likely to attract most of the focus from investors Thursday, amid concerns over end-market weakness.
“Either way, the take rate on the processed volume is comfortably higher than expected and, if sustainable, should support sales growth acceleration in 2025/26, while the lower run-rate of hiring should support continued margin uplift,” they wrote.
Digital processed volumes grew 29% year-over-year, Adyen said, lower than in the previous quarter due to impacts from a single large-volume customer, Block’s Cash App.
The company otherwise reported a jump in sales in the third quarter as the Dutch payments firm gained wallet share and added new customers, diversifying its merchant mix. Adyen, whose technology allows businesses to accept payments online and in-store, reported third-quarter net revenue of 498.3 million euros ($535.5 million), up 21% year-on-year on a constant currency basis.
The firm observed stronger traction from in-store payments in the third quarter, with its “unified commerce” point-of-sale terminals seeing 33% year-over-year growth, as it installed base of physical payment devices increased by 46,000 to 299,000.
Adyen also said that it expanded hiring slightly, adding 35 new people in the quarter. The firm has been slowing hiring in the past year following concerns over its pace of investment.
Last year, the Dutch payments giant’s shares tanked nearly 40% in a single day on the back of worse-than-expected sales and declining profits in the first half of 2023
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Payments firms saw a boost from an increase in online shopping during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
But in recent years, companies such as Adyen have faced pressure from lower consumer spending.
Adyen, however, has benefited from significant growth from partnerships with its North American clients, such as Cash App in the U.S. and Shopify in Canada.
Adyen kept guidance unchanged Thursday, saying it expects to achieve net revenue growth between the low to high-twenties percent, up to and including 2026.
The firm added it expects to improve its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization to levels above 50% by 2026.
Capital expenditure will remain consistent at a level of up to 5% of net revenues, Adyen said.
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon speaks at the Computex forum in Taipei, Taiwan, June 3, 2024.
Ann Wang | Reuters
Qualcomm reported fourth-quarter earnings on Wednesday that beat Wall Street expectations for earnings and revenue, and the company guided to a strong December quarter.
The shares rose 10% in extended trading at one point before falling to a gain of about 4%.
Here’s how the company did versus Refinitiv consensus expectations for the quarter ending Sept. 29:
Earnings per share: $2.69, adjusted $2.56 expected
Revenue: $10.24 billion versus $9.90 billion expected
Qualcomm said it expects revenue in the current quarter of between $10.5 billion and $11.3 billion, with the midpoint of that range beating LSEG consensus expectations of $10.59 billion.
The company reported $2.92 billion in net income, or $2.59 per share, a sharp jump from last year’s $1.49 billion, or $1.23 per share. Qualcomm reported $33.19 billion in total revenue in its fiscal 2024, a 9% increase from 2023.
Qualcomm’s fortunes have historically been tied to the smartphone industry, where the company provides a range of chips to handset makers, including system-on-a-chip processors, modems, and antennas. The company makes the chip at the heart of most high-end Android devices, and many lower-end phones as well. Qualcomm also sells modems and related chips to Apple for its iPhones, and last year said its contract for 5G chips ran through 2026.
Qualcomm reported a 12% increase in handset chip sales to $6.1 billion, in line with FactSet estimates. Qualcomm introduced its high-end chip for 2025, called Snapdragon 8 Elite, in October.
“In handsets we delivered greater than 20% year-over-year growth in Android revenues,” said Qualcomm CFO Akash Palkhiwala on a call with analysts.
Under CEO Cristiano Amon, the company has diversified away from being a smartphone supplier and has introduced and invested heavily in producing chips for PCs, cars, and industrial machines.
“We will continue to transform Qualcomm from a wireless communications company into a connected computing company for the age of AI,” Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said on the earnings call with analysts.
Qualcomm has also made efforts to brand itself as a leader in AI, having developed smartphone chips with specialized parts for machine learning since 2017. But unlike Nvidia, the company doesn’t produce the kind of graphics processors for data centers that are used for big AI programs like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The automotive business grew 86% on an annual basis to $899 million in sales. Qualcomm says it has billions of dollars in business with automakers currently in its development pipeline, and highlighted it was the fifth consecutive quarter of growth. Qualcomm said that it expected automotive sales in the current quarter to rise 50% on an annual basis.
The company’s “internet of things” business includes both chips for industrial purposes as well as the chips Meta uses in its Quest handsets and Ray-Ban Smart Glasses. It also includes the new business selling chips for laptops running Microsoft Windows. The division reported $1.68 billion in revenue, a 22% increase from a year earlier.
Qualcomm’s chip business, including its handset, automotive, and other chips, which together is reported as QCT, saw sales rise 18% during the quarter to $7.37 billion in total.
The company’s profitable technology licensing business, QTL, reported $1.52 billion in revenue, a 21% increase over the same period last year.
Qualcomm said its board had approved $15 billion in additional buybacks. During the fourth quarter, it repurchased $1.3 billion worth of shares and paid out $947 million in dividends.