Trending tickers: Nvidia, Microsoft, Tesla, Levi's and Tesco

The latest investor updates on stocks that are trending on Thursday

Vicky McKeever
·Business reporter
5-min read
In this article:

The CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, said in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday that demand for its artificial intelligence (AI) chips was "insane".

Huang said Nvidia's AI Blackwell chips were in "full production", following much speculation about the production of the chips.

Shares were up 1.5% in pre-market trading on Thursday morning.

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Huang was speaking alongside Accenture (ACN) CEO Julie Sweet, with the two businesses having announced details of their expanded partnership on Wednesday.

This included Accenture's formation of an Nvidia Business Group, which the professional services company said was aimed at helping businesses "rapidly scale their AI adoption".

Meanwhile, Nvidia was widely reported to be one of the investors in the $6.6bn (£5bn) new funding raised by Chat-GPT maker OpenAI, which the company said took its valuation up to $157bn.

Microsoft was said to be another investor behind OpenAI's latest fundraiser, having already been a major backer of the AI company.

Microsoft also unveiled PC updates to its Copilot AI platform at a press event on Tuesday.

New features include Copilot Voice, which is designed to let users speak directly to their PC and for it to respond.

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“We think that Copilot Voice is going to be really a big unlock in terms of how you interface with technology,” Microsoft executive vice president and consumer chief marketing officer Yusuf Mehdi told Yahoo Finance.

Another feature that Microsoft is working on is called Copilot Vision, which will allow the platform to see what users are doing on their screen, answer questions and make suggestions based on the content they’re viewing.

Despite this, shares saw little movement on Wednesday, closing less than 1% in the red.

Electric carmaker Tesla closed Wednesday's session 3.5% in the red, after it announced third-quarter deliveries that missed expectations.

Tesla delivered 462,890 vehicles in the three months ending 30 September, which was up 6.4% quarter-over-quarter and did mark the first quarter of delivery growth this year. However, Wall Street had expected the business to deliver a figure closer to 463,900 according to Bloomberg.

"The stock’s been on a booming run of late, so anything short of knockout results was always likely to draw more attention than usual," said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, who does hold Tesla shares.

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"Taking a step back, deliveries returning to growth was the most important thing to come from today’s numbers, especially given the major push on promotions and financing terms to stimulate demand in a tricky auto market," he said.

Attention now turns to Tesla's robotaxi event on 10 October, when EV maker will showcase its fully autonomous taxi.

Britzman said that with the stock "still up around 20% in the last month, there’s a lot of expectation and volatility going into and coming out of the event is pretty much nailed on.”

Levi Strauss & Co (LEVI)

Shares in denim maker Levi Strauss & Co were down nearly 11% in pre-market trading on Thursday morning, after the company trimmed revenue guidance.

In its third-quarter results, the company said it expected net revenues to grow by around 1% for the 2024 fiscal year. This was lower than the guidance given in its second-quarter results, when it expected net revenues for the year to grow between 1% and 3%.

Levi's also said net revenues were flat in the third quarter at $1.5bn.

The company posted an operating margin 2% in the third quarter, which was slightly lower than the 2.3% it recorded for the same period last year, but pointed out that included an impairment charge of $111m relating its acquisition of activewear brand Beyond Yoga.

Levi's said it had also initiated a review into alternatives for the Dockers clothing brand, "which could include a potential sale or other strategic transaction".

“Looking to Q4 and beyond, we will amplify our focus on the Levi’s brand, exemplified by our new campaign with Beyoncé and an innovative product pipeline designed to build momentum with our fans around the world," said Michelle Gass, president and CEO of Levi Strauss & Co.

UK supermarket Tesco raised its guidance on adjusted operating profits for the year to around £2.9bn, up from "at least £2.8bn", on the back of strong first-half results.

Tesco reported group sales were up 3.5% in the first half to £31.5bn, compared with the same period last year, while adjusted operating profits had risen nearly 16% to close to £1.7bn.

Ken Murphy, CEO of Tesco, said the supermarket had been the "cheapest full-line grocer for nearly two years".

That said, the supermarket had seen greater demand for its Finest premium products, with volumes up nearly 15% year-on-year and over 20 million customers shopping the range in the first half of its fiscal year.

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Ahead of the Christmas season, Murphy said the supermarket was in "good shape, with volume growth delivering strong financial performance".

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: "The challenge put forward by the German discounters hasn’t gone away, but Tesco has managed to absorb it in a way which other mid-market groceries outfits like Asda and Morrisons have found more difficult.

"The growing appetite for its Finest range also suggests it may be starting to appeal to shoppers who previously would have frequented higher end rivals.”

Shares were up nearly 3% on Thursday morning following the release of the results.

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