Microsoft

Sam Altman just faced his Steve Jobs moment when the OpenAI board fired him on Friday. The balance between too much governance and not enough innovation was the challenge OpenAI faced. This was a very immature board with members who had never built companies, never moved from ideology to commercialization, nor had any pragmatic board experience.

Three Factors Drive Growth In MATANA Stocks 1. AI Powers Valuation Growth, But Earnings Growth Keeps Momentum Going, 2. Ads Are Back For The Remaining Digital Giants, 3. Cloudy Times Ahead (For Now).

The Q1 Tech Earnings Breathe Life Among The Digital Giants. With just Apple left to report in the tech earnings season, three major trends have emerged

The $450 Billion Ad Tech Market Is About To Be Shaken Up By AI When Google was officially launched in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, it was the 21st search engine to enter the market. In 2022 Google generated over $200 billion in revenue off of search advertising and other digital advertising. MIcrosoft launched the Bing search engine in 2009, built from the assets of Live Search which was released in 2006. By all accounts, Microsoft Bing was the laggard among Google and Yahoo in the space. Round 1 of the search engine wars was one by Google which has dominate for almost two decades.

Big Tech and Market Reset Bring Optimism To Markets While many in the market are still psyching others into a recession, the fears are subsiding and the NASDAQ appears to be where the optimists are. Five factors have led to the mini rebound in this market of lowered expectations as watchers await the fed rate decision.:

Microsoft Faces Its Biggest Challenge Despite Its "Social" Standing Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella’s and Vice Chair and President Brad Smith face their toughest challenge. There was always that belief that so long Microsoft acted like a“good citizen” on social issues they would be immune to anti-trust. That myth has been burst. The FTC has filed a lawsuit and a judge must decide if the case is strong enough to block the $69B deal. The FTC fears Microsoft will not provide titles for other platforms. Other headwinds include 16 countries that will have to approve the mega deal. China will probably block the deal to protect TenCent's position. Tencent also owns 5% of Activision.

The NASDAQ Composite closed out the week with its biggest two-day rally since 2008. CPI numbers hinted that inflation was subsiding and hope sprung that the Fed would take a less severe stance. Should the Fed hiking slow down from 75 basis points to 50 basis points, market watchers remain hopeful and some took advantage of the early signals of slowing inflation.

All Eyes On Digital Giant Earnings With recession headwinds driving lower valuations and earnings uncertainty in high gear, the level of fear remains high. However, in the past week, NASDAQ was up 5.2%. So the big question,will these digital giants hold their gains ahead of earnings season?

Not All Big Tech Companies Are Equally Created The MATANA stocks continue to do well despite a confluence of crises. MIcrosoft, Apple, Tesla, Alphabet, Nvidia, and Amazon, collectively showed that big tech, digital giants who:

Goodbye FAANG, Hello MATANA. The FAANG stocks (i.e. Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google) have had a great run as the large cap digital giant leaders. However, with Facebook and Netflix facing massive declines in year over year subscriber growth, their valuations have taken a hit along with the macro conditions of rising interest rates and global instability.