Bitcoin's price held steady in its first week post-halving despite record exchange-traded fund (ETF) outflows.
Meanwhile, a piece of stablecoin legislation could advance to a vote before this year's election in the US, and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) faced a new investigation days after releasing its much-anticipated quarterly report.
Stay informed on the latest developments in the tech world with the Investing News Network's round-up.
1. Tesla, Meta, Alphabet and Microsoft release earnings
All eyes were on major tech players this week as they reported their latest quarterly results.
- Elon Musk's Tesla shared its results on Tuesday (April 23). Although the company missed Wall Street earnings per share expectations by 11.11 percent, shares ended the week up nearly 20 percent, partially on news that the company will go forward with the production of an affordable electric vehicle model.
- On Wednesday (April 24), Meta (NASDAQ:META) announced a 27 percent annual revenue increase for Q1. The company expects its 2024 capital expenditures to fall in an increased range of US$35 billion to US$40 billion, which CFO Susan Li said will support infrastructure investments for Meta’s artificial intelligence (AI) strategy; however, higher expenditures and slower-than-anticipated sales growth sent shares down 14.74 percent on Friday (April 26) morning, the steepest fall since October 2022.
- Alphabet’s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Q1 results, which came out on Thursday (April 25) exceeded analyst' expectations, with sales reaching US$67.6 billion and net income coming in at US$1.89 per share. Along with its results, the company announced its first dividend and a US$70 billion stock buyback, resulting in a 12 percent share price jump and a US$2 trillion market cap%20%2D%20Alphabet,a%20%2470%20billion%20stock%20buyback.), its highest valuation since November 2021.
- Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) also achieved strong financial results for the quarter, reporting a 17 percent year-on-year revenue increase and 20 percent growth in both operating income and diluted earnings per share. Cloud revenue from Azure rose 31 percent with 7 percent due to AI contributions. Shares rose to US$412.40 on Friday morning, a 3.35 percent increase from Thursday’s close.
2. Bitcoin price stabilizes in first week after halving
On April 19 at approximately 8:10 p.m. EDT, the much-anticipated Bitcoin halving occurred, reducing the reward rate from 6.25 Bitcoins to 3.125. Bitcoin remained stable over the weekend, staying within the US$63,000 to US$65,000 range.
Bitcoin opened this week with a slight uptick to US$64,936 on Monday (April 22) and closed the day at US$66,842. However, by midweek it had fallen below the US$65,000 mark, with factors such as weak corporate earnings, geopolitical tensions and global macroeconomic conditions possibly contributing to the decline.
Bitcoin ETFs, which have taken in nearly US$54 billion since their approval in the US in January, faced challenges this week as investors withdrew nearly US$218 million on Thursday.
The Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (BATS:FBTC) experienced its first significant decline in value on Thursday with a US$23 million drawdown. Similarly, BlackRock’s (NYSE:BLK) iShares Bitcoin Trust (NASDAQ:IBIT) saw its 71 day streak come to an end on Wednesday when daily inflows effectively hit zero.
Bitcoin was holding steady in the US$63,000 range heading into the weekend.
3. Amazon debuts new generative AI tools
On Tuesday, Amazon Bedrock, part of Amazon Web Services, announced a series of new features and updates designed to build more robust and secure AI applications, expand the platform’s capabilities and ensure the responsible use of AI technology. Among the key enhancements is the ability to import custom AI models, which will allow users to tailor applications to their specific needs. Aside from that, Amazon Bedrock has introduced new Amazon Titan models that are pre-trained for diverse AI tasks, providing advanced performance and versatility.
Amazon Titan Text Embeddings V2 enhances the existing model for creating embeddings, which are numerical representations crucial for generating accurate responses in various AI applications. This updated version improves accuracy and reduces the computational resources and storage requirements needed for text processing, allowing developers to create more efficient and sophisticated AI applications that understand language more effectively.
The Amazon Titan Image Generator has also been made generally available on Amazon Bedrock, along with Meta’s Llama 3. Cohere’s Command R and Command R+ are “coming soon,” according to a press release. Amazon Bedrock is also rolling out Guardrails, a built-in safeguard against harmful content.
4. Tesla faces renewed probe
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Friday that is conducting a renewed probe into Tesla’s Autopilot system. This investigation comes on the back of concerns over the effectiveness of a recent software update in preventing misuse, particularly regarding driver-monitoring safeguards. The NHTSA is seeking to determine if the update sufficiently addresses the safety concerns that prompted an initial recall of Tesla vehicles.
In December 2023, Tesla was forced to recall 2.03 million vehicles after an NHTSA investigation found that the company’s Autopilot contained defects that “created unreasonable risk to motor vehicle safety.” According to the inquiry, the most recent probe into the company’s remedy comes after reports of at least 20 crashes involving vehicles that received Tesla’s software update, which requires owners to opt in but can easily be reversed.
The probe was announced just days after Tesla reported its Q1 results. During an earnings call, Musk reaffirmed his commitment to the previously announced unveiling of an autonomous robotaxi on August 8.
5. Stablecoin bill could advance to House of Representatives "soon"
A stablecoin bill may "soon" be ready to be sent to the US House of Representatives, according to Maxine Waters, the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee.
The news has strengthened hopes that such a bill could be signed into law ahead of the election.
"We are on our way to getting a stablecoin bill in the short run,” she told Bloomberg on Wednesday, adding that the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department and the White House have all contributed to crafting it.
A new bill was originally presented by Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) on April 17. It would require tokens to be fully backed by reserve assets and proposes a ban on algorithmic stablecoins like Terra, the essentially defunct stablecoin that was designed to maintain a 1:1 peg with the US dollar through an algorithmic mechanism that involved minting and burning Terra's native cryptocurrency, LUNA.
Discussions among lawmakers have involved the possibility of pairing the stablecoin legislation with the SAFER Banking Act and attaching both to the Federal Aviation Administration spending bill, which must be passed by May 10. This pairing could potentially increase the chances of both bills being passed in Congress.
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Securities Disclosure: I, Meagen Seatter, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.