Wall Street Lunch: Boeing 787 Flight Experiences ‘Technical Event’
Contributor since 2023 / 1785 Followers
Summary:
- Latam Airlines Boeing 787 experienced a “technical event” during a flight from Sydney to Auckland, resulting in about 50 passenger injuries.
- Bitcoin surpasses $71,000 for the first time, driven by growing institutional interest and acceptance.
- Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI plans to open source its generative AI chatbot Grok, while Wedbush analyst Dan Ives dismisses concerns of a bubble in AI stocks.
gk-6mt
Listen below or on the go on Apple Podcasts and Spotify
A Latam Airlines Boeing 787 to Auckland experienced a ‘technical event.’ (0:15) Bitcoin rallies past $71,000. (1:20) EQT to buy Equitrans in $35 billion natgas deal. (3:40)
Our top story so far
About 50 passengers were injured when a Boeing (NYSE:BA) 787 Dreamliner flown by Latam Airlines (OTCPK:LTMAY) from Sydney to Auckland experienced what the carrier described as a “technical event.”
The airline in a statement said the incident “caused a strong movement” on the plane and that it “deeply regrets any inconvenience and discomfort this situation may have caused its passengers.”
Boeing’s (BA) stock fell as much as 4% before cutting some of those losses.
The plane landed at Auckland International Airport and 12 patients were taken to hospital, according to news reports. In an interview with Radio New Zealand a passenger said the flight was smooth until the plane “just dropped,” adding people screamed as he felt “the plane take a nosedive” before flattening out seconds later.
Boeing said in a statement: “We are working to gather more information about the flight and will provide any support needed by our customers.”
In today’s trading
Stocks are moving lower, with the major averages down about -0.5%. Industrials (XLI) is the weakest S&P sector. Near-term Treasury yields are up ahead of Tuesday’s CPI figures. The 2-year yield (US2Y) is back above 4.52%.
Meanwhile the crypto rally continues. Bitcoin (BTC-USD) surged past $71,000 for the first time. The cryptocurrency’s price has been steadily climbing, driven by growing institutional interest and broader acceptance.
This latest milestone comes as more companies and investors are starting to view bitcoin as a legitimate asset class.
In the AI sphere
Elon Musk said his artificial intelligence startup xAI intends to open source its generative AI chatbot Grok this week.
Grok is available to X Premium Plus users, or those who pay $16 a month, or $22 in app. The generative AI chatbot has real-time access to information through the X platform.
The move to open source Grok, which was unveiled in November, comes just days after Musk sued another company he co-founded — OpenAI. He has alleged that OpenAI is putting profit ahead of benefiting humanity.
In the suit, Musk said OpenAI’s original mission of creating open-source technology that is not subject to corporate priorities has been undermined with Microsoft (MSFT) being the largest investor in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, a rival to Grok.
Meanwhile, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives says Nvidia’s (NVDA) selloff on Friday is not an indication of a bubble in artificial intelligence stocks, but rather part of a digestion period as Wall Street is underestimating the power of AI.
Ives says: “Lets be clear: we have covered tech on the Street since the late ‘90s and this is not a bubble but instead the start of a 4th Industrial Revolution now on the doorstep that will have major growth ramifications for the tech sector led by the software/use case phase in motion.”
And three authors have filed a lawsuit against Nvidia alleging that the company used their copyrighted books without permission to train its platform NeMo. That’s according to Reuters .
The authors said that their works were part of a dataset of around 196,640 books that helped train NeMo to simulate ordinary written language, before being taken down in October “due to reported copyright infringement.”
Among active stocks
Bluebird bio (BLUE) rallied after it announced its first Medicaid outcomes-based agreement for a sickle cell gene therapy in the state of Michigan. Lyfgenia is a one-time gene therapy approved for sickle cell disease patients aged 12 years or older. Bluebird is in ongoing discussions with more than 15 Medicaid agencies representing 80% of Medicaid-insured individuals in the U.S.
Top U.S. natural gas producer EQT (EQT) agreed to acquire Equitrans Midstream (ETRN) in an all-stock deal with a combined company enterprise value more than $35 billion. Each outstanding Equitrans common share will be exchanged for 0.3504 shares of EQT common stock, representing an implied value of $12.50 a share for Equitrans.
The companies said the deal will create “America’s first large-scale, integrated natural gas producer with an unrivaled low-cost structure that provides investors with the best risk-adjusted exposure to natural gas prices.”
And casino company Bally’s (BALY) jumped sharply after hedge fund Standard General made a takeover offer for the remainder of the company it doesn’t already own for $15 a share. Standard General currently has a 23% stake in Bally’s.
In other news of note
Reddit (RDDT) said in a filing it is looking to raise up to $748 million in its upcoming IPO
The company, and some of its current shareholders, plan to sell 22 million shares between a range of $31 to $34 per share. The filing confirmed numbers reported Sunday based on sources. The company plans to trade under the symbol RDDT.
And in the Wall Street Research Corner
Goldman Sachs is out with a stock pick list with a difference – go long or go short depending on your view.
Consumer and tech offer the best opportunities for stock picking on the long or short side when looking at dispersion, the equity team says. Dispersion looks at the range of potential returns for a group of stocks, with high dispersion away from the benchmark creating a more favorable environment for generating alpha.
Strategist David Kostin says: “For mutual funds, the healthy stock-picking environment has led to solid returns, with 46% of large-cap mutual funds beating their respective benchmark year to date, greater than the typical 38% hit rate of outperformance.”
Goldman calculated “a ‘dispersion score’ for each S&P 500 stock to identify the best stock-picking opportunities going forward.”
Kostin stressed that “Dispersion scores reflect alpha opportunity, but not in a direction. Stocks with high dispersion scores are as likely to generate large alpha through underperformance as through outperformance.”
So, do your homework first.
Among stocks getting the highest dispersion scores are Monster Beverage (MNST), Akamai Technologies (AKAM), Netflix (FLX), Take-Two Interactive (TTWO and United Airlines (UAL).