Stocks were mixed after a late-day fade yesterday...and they’re mixed in early trading today. Crude oil is up modestly, while gold, silver, and the dollar are flat. Bitcoin is flirting with $110,000 again.
Turns out “Liquid Glass” isn’t revolutionary enough to excite investors. Or at least, that’s the conclusion you can draw from trading in Apple Inc. (AAPL) yesterday after the firm revealed the new device interface. Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, or WWDC, has long been one of the tech hardware and software company’s signature events. But Apple didn’t have any truly big news in store.
AAPL, META, BRO, BX (YTD % Change)
Data by YCharts
The firm is reportedly planning to share more innovative "Apple Intelligence" AI developments next year. Meanwhile, its shares slipped 1.2% yesterday – and they’re down about 19% year-to-date. Ironically, Bloomberg just reported that Meta Platforms Inc. (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg is frustrated with the pace of AI research at his company. His response? To assemble a “superintelligence” group of leading AI researchers and experts to accelerate META’s efforts.
We have another deal in the insurance industry. Broker Brown & Brown Inc. (BRO) will fork over $9.8 billion for Accession Risk Management, adding a firm that owns the specialty brokerage firm Risk Strategies. Leading players have been bulking up to gain economies of scale in a fragmented space.
Could the next big investment frontier be...Europe? That’s what Blackstone Inc. (BX) CEO Steve Schwarzman just seemed to imply when he announced plans to invest $500 billion in the region over the next 10 years. Europe has long been as a region hamstrung by government regulation and slow growth. But Schwarzman said they are “starting to change their approach here, which we think will result in higher growth rates.”
