The world of news and information is rapidly evolving, and the Financial Times (FT) is at the forefront of innovation with its AI-powered question-and-answer tool, Ask FT. This exclusive service for FT subscribers demonstrates how the renowned publication is harnessing artificial intelligence to deliver deeper insights and a more personalized experience for its readers.
Understanding Ask FT
At its core, Ask FT is a sophisticated AI tool trained on the extensive archives of the Financial Times. This means it has access to decades of high-quality reporting, analysis, and expert commentary on business, finance, economics, and global affairs. Subscribers can pose questions about current events, historical trends, or complex financial concepts, and Ask FT will generate concise, informative answers.
The technology behind Ask FT leverages a form of artificial intelligence called a large language model (LLM). This model, known as Claude, excels at understanding natural language, processing complex queries, and synthesizing relevant information from vast data sources.
How Ask FT Benefits FT Subscribers
Ask FT presents several key advantages to Financial Times subscribers:
Personalized Research Assistant: The tool acts as a dedicated research assistant, saving subscribers precious time. Instead of sifting through countless articles, users can directly ask focused questions and get precise answers tailored to their needs.
Deeper Understanding: Ask FT helps subscribers delve deeper into complex topics. It can break down intricate financial jargon, explain the implications of economic events, and provide historical context for current trends.
Uncovering Connections: The AI can identify patterns and connections that might be difficult for an individual to see. This can lead to valuable insights about market dynamics, investment opportunities, and geopolitical risks.
Staying Informed in a Fast-Paced World: The news cycle moves at lightning speed, making it difficult to keep track of every development. Ask FT allows subscribers to quickly get up-to-date on specific topics and understand their wider significance.
The Evolution of News Consumption
The launch of Ask FT reflects a broader shift in how people consume news and information. Readers are no longer content to be passive recipients; they desire a more interactive and personalized experience. Tools like Ask FT cater to this trend by empowering users to actively seek the specific knowledge they need.
This shift has significant implications for journalism. Publications like the Financial Times must move beyond simply reporting the news to providing the tools and context that help readers understand its complexities. AI is an essential component of this evolution, enabling news organizations to deliver insights more efficiently and effectively.
Example Scenarios
To illustrate how Ask FT works in practice, let's consider some example questions:
Investor: "What are the potential risks and opportunities associated with investing in artificial intelligence companies?"
Business Executive: "How is the ongoing semiconductor shortage affecting global supply chains?"
Student: "Can you explain the economic principles behind inflation and how central banks try to control it?"
In each case, Ask FT would process the query, identify the key concepts, and search through the FT archives to find the most relevant material. It would then synthesize this information into a clear, informative answer, potentially even including links to specific articles for further reading.
The Future of AI-Powered News Tools
Ask FT is still in its early stages, but it has the potential to become even more powerful and versatile in the future. Here are some possible directions for development:
Enhanced Personalization: Ask FT could learn about a subscriber's interests and tailor its answers accordingly. For example, an investor focused on tech stocks would receive more specific information about that sector.
Proactive Insights: Instead of just responding to questions, the AI could proactively suggest articles and analysis based on a subscriber's reading history and current market events.
Multimedia Integration: Ask FT could incorporate graphs, charts, and videos into its answers, providing a richer and more engaging user experience.
Voice Interface: Allowing subscribers to ask questions verbally would further enhance the tool's accessibility and convenience.
We’ll have to see how clients and subscribers end up using Ask FT and whether it has started a trend in custom AI chatbots set to serve the financial world.
https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png00Douglas Davenporthttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDouglas Davenport2024-03-25 17:11:242024-03-25 17:11:24Ask FT: The Financial Times Leverages AI to Power Subscriber Insights
When John identifies a strategic exit point, he will send you an alert with specific trade information as to what security to sell, when to sell it, and at what price. Most often, it will be to TAKE PROFITS, but, on rare occasions, it will be to exercise a STOP LOSS at a predetermined price to adhere to strict risk management discipline.Read more
The Magnificent 7 are still by and far great companies who print money.
They dominate in a way that was unfathomable just a generation ago.
Trillion-dollar companies are now commonplace in tech and we have pushed into valuations of over 2 and pushing towards $3 trillion.
Success like this easily could make them easy targets and that is what has become of them in Europe as Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOGL), and Meta (META) are in the firing line under the sweeping new Digital Markets Act tech legislation.
Apple has already been slapped on the wrist quite hard with a $2 billion fee after the European Commission said it found that Apple had applied restrictions on app developers that prevented them from informing iOS users about alternative and cheaper music subscription services available outside of the app.
In a third inquiry, the commission said it is investigating whether Apple has complied with its DMA obligations to ensure that users can easily uninstall apps on iOS and change default settings. The probe also focuses on whether Apple is actively prompting users with choices to allow them to change default services on iOS, such as for the web browser or search engine.
The fourth probe targets Alphabet, as the European Commission looks into whether the firm’s display of Google search results to choosing its own products over other services.
The fifth and final investigation focuses on Meta and its so-called pay and consent model. Last year, Meta introduced an ad-free subscription model for Facebook and Instagram in Europe. The commission is looking into whether offering the subscription model without ads or making users consent to terms and conditions for the free service is in violation of the DMA.
If any company is found to have infringed the DMA, the commission can impose fines of up to 10% of the tech firms’ total worldwide turnover. These penalties can increase to 20% in case of repeated infringement.
Preferring one’s own product from companies like Apple, Amazon, and Google is not a shocking phenomenon. Business can be a dirty game and self-selecting ones products because they own the platform they are sold on is almost common knowledge to the average consumers.
Organizational bodies like the European Commission have an incentive to fine American tech companies that do business in Europe.
Europe has no alternative apps and aren’t competitive in the tech space.
The desperate reach of European bureaucracy has decided to just steal the money in the form of tech fines instead.
One big takeaway that sticks out like a sore thumb is the clear trend to the low-hanging fruit being plucked.
The incremental dollar will be harder to earn for big tech as regulatory commissions around the world zone in on their anti-competitive practices.
I doubt that fines will get so big to the point that these tech firms will go bankrupt, but this could set the stage for a slew of earnings misses which could knock down the share prices.
I still believe these stocks are buys, but only after they are beaten down and repriced.
I wouldn’t go chasing here with regulatory issues rearing its ugly head and revenue forecasts disappointing.
If I had to choose one to avoid then it would be Apple.
“Great achievers are driven, not so much by the pursuit of success, but by the fear of failure.” – Said Co-Founder of Oracle Larry Ellison
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/larry-ellisoon.png584374april@madhedgefundtrader.comhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngapril@madhedgefundtrader.com2024-03-25 14:00:282024-03-25 16:47:19March 25, 2024 - Quote of the Day
Yes, the Fed might get inflation down to close to 2%, but I believe they will struggle to keep it there.
Let’s check out the reasons why here.
First, demographics.
The U.S. and other Western industrial countries – even China – are facing declining populations that will result in a persistent shortage of labour.Tight labour markets in turn will keep upward pressure on wages as businesses compete for workers.
AND THESE ARE THE TOP 50 COUNTRIES WITH THE LARGEST POPULATION IN 2050.
And then there is the era of global free trade, which is taking a backseat to security concerns in the wake of the Russian war on Ukraine and Western tensions with China after the pandemic.Any tensions between the U.S. and China tend to be costly.
The growing government deficit – does anyone really think about this and its consequences? – is also fuel for inflation.The U.S. has been running trillion-dollar deficits since the pandemic and the national debt is expected to continue to grow by leaps and bounds.
The importance of greening the economy is a concept we all appear to accept. But this is another potential inflation accelerator.And what about the implications here?The U.S. would need to spend trillions of dollars to modernize its electric grid and feed the insatiable appetite of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.Lots of older, valuable assets such as coal-or gas-fired could also get stranded.
2% inflation has gone by the wayside for the long term?We’re probably looking at a 3% inflation world.
The only way to get to 2% long term would be to drive up unemployment and collapse the economy.Hands up who thinks the Fed is going to do that?
When John identifies a strategic exit point, he will send you an alert with specific trade information as to what security to sell, when to sell it, and at what price. Most often, it will be to TAKE PROFITS, but, on rare occasions, it will be to exercise a STOP LOSS at a predetermined price to adhere to strict risk management discipline.Read more
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Alert-e1457452190575.jpg135150Mad Hedge Fund Traderhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngMad Hedge Fund Trader2024-03-25 11:34:262024-03-25 11:34:26Trade Alert - (FCX) March 25, 2024 - BUY
(MARKET OUTLOOK FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, or THE BEST WEEK OF THE YEAR),
(PANW), (NVDA), (LNG), (UNG), (FCX), (TLT), (XOM), (AAPL), (GOOG), (MSTR), (BA), (FXY)
You need to have a sense of humor and a strong dose of humility to work in this market. After predicting last week that the market would NOT crash but grind sideways, it then posted the next week of the year. Stocks are actually accelerating their move to the upside.
Of course, we got a big assist from Fed Governor Jay Powell who practically wrote in his own blood a promise that interest rates would be cut at least three times by the end of the year. That is quite a gesture, and all risk assets loved it, even the ones that have been asleep for a year, like gold (GLD) and silver (SLV).
Miraculously, this does happen and there has been a big one over the last two years that nobody knows about.
Cheniere Energy (LNG) shipped 640 tankers full of natural gas (UNG) to Europe last year and 630 in 2022. One tanker provides enough gas to heat one million homes for a month. You can do the math. In total, it has sent out 3,400 tankers since 2016, mostly to China.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Europe was totally dependent on Vladimir Putin for gas. Any doubt about the Russian supply was ended when the Nordstream undersea pipeline was mysteriously blown up. A total cut-off would have been an economic disaster and caused the collapse of NATO.
Two years ago, it was believed that even if we could get the gas to Europe, there were no facilities to liquefy natural gas as it is shipped back into natural gas. Then 16 floating de-liquefaction plants showed up out of nowhere.
Natural gas demand has been soaring in the US as well. Over the past 20 years, coal has dropped from generating 50% of the US electric power supply to only 19% (the unused American share of the coal was sold to China). That has eliminated 500 million tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.
If you noticed that the skies over American cities are getting clearer, this is the reason.
Much has been made over Biden’s “pause” of permitting for new natural gas facilities. The reality is that it will take four years to build the 16 new gas export facilities that have already been approved. By then, we’ll have a new president. All Biden did was throw a bone at the environmental wing of his party. Such are the ways of Washington.
By the way, the Republican Party now has an environmental wing too. Who knew? It’s all proof that if you live long enough, you see everything.
One of the reasons I have been in love with cybersecurity stocks like Palo Alto Networks (PANW) for the past decade is that hacking is the ultimate growth industry. It never goes out of style, is recession-proof, and is growing at an exponential rate.
It is also getting more sophisticated. The big hackers are franchising their business models, inviting in criminals with minimal computer knowledge, vastly increasing their numbers. They are attacking small vendors to large companies to get access to the big ones. They are also picking targets too poor to afford the big cybersecurity companies. The City of Oakland is a classic example, which was prevented from paying its teachers for six months. And now they have AI.
Spending on cybersecurity is expected to grow from $188 billion in 2023 to $215 billion this year, a gain of 14.36%. The number of data breaches has rocketed by 78% over the past two years. Buy (PANW) on dips, which we are seeing right now.
“We’re going to need a bigger GPU” to borrow a famous line from Stephen Spielberg’s blockbuster Jaws.
If you want a peak at the future, both of our own and NVIDIA stock, check out the company’s latest entry into the chip wars, the $50,000 Blackwell GPU, available in a few months. In layman’s terms, it offers four times the computing ability but requires only one-quarter of the electric power, which is increasingly becoming an AI issue. It also uses deep learning to write its own software.
The chip was introduced by CEO Jensen Huang at the Developers conference in San Jose, which I attended in a venue normally occupied by rock stars. Huang started the conference by warning he was not there to sing. But perform he did, accompanied by a group of dancing robots powered by AI.
And while NVIDIA’s sales have tripled over the past year, you ain’t seen anything yet. When I recommended (NVDA) for the millionth time at $400 a share last October, my long-term target was $1,000. It recently hit $975, now stands at $943, and shows no sign of abating. NVIDIA could well keep powering on until the actual release of the Blackwell chip.
As in Jaws, I sense a feeding frenzy coming and (NVDA) shorts are the bait.
In February we closed up +7.42%. So far in March, we are up +3.53%. My 2024 year-to-date performance is at +6.67%.The S&P 500 (SPY) is up +9.22%so far in 2024. My trailing one-year return reached +56.98%versus +52% for the S&P 500. That brings my 16-year total return to +683.30%.My average annualized return has recovered to +51.57%.
Some 63 of my 70 round trips were profitable in 2023. Some 11 of 19 trades have been profitable so far in 2024.
I miniated no new longs last week, content to let my existing longs run in Freeport McMoRan (FCX), bonds (TLT), and ExxonMobile (XOM). I am 70% in cash given the elevated state of the market and am looking for new commodity and energy plays to pile into.
Fed Chair Jay Powell Promises Three Interest Rate Cuts of 25 basis points each, at his press conference on Wednesday. Powell said he did not see "cracks" in the labor market, which he described as "in good shape," noting that "the extreme imbalances that we saw in the early parts of the pandemic recovery have mostly been resolved." These are very pro-risk statements. Buy the dips in everything.
Fed to Dial Back Quantitative Tightening, or QT from the current $120 billion a month. It’s a huge plus for risk assets and explains why the most liquidity-driven ones like gold and silver had such a great day. Buy (GLD) and (SLV) on dips. The Dept of Justice Goes After Apple on Antitrust, on its 61.3% share of the US smartphone market. It accused the iPhone maker of blocking rivals from accessing hardware and software features on its popular devices. Google’s (GOOG) Android actually has a bigger global market share at 70.3% with Apple at only 24%. This is another waste of time that will last ten years and go nowhere.
Bank of Japan to Cut Interest Rates as Early as April, bringing to an end a 34-year stimulus program that was a dismal failure. The Japanese yen (FXY) should rocket, but Japanese stocks not so much.
MicroStrategy (MSTR) Dives 18%, the largest owner of Bitcoin, on a crypto correction. MicroStrategy is the largest corporate owner of Bitcoin. (MSTR) just completed a massive borrowing to buy more crypto at the top. After SEC approval of ETFs and the imminent halving, what is left to drive crypto? Avoid (MSTR) which was blindsided by the last 90% crypto correction.
Existing Homes Sales Soar 9.7% in February to 4.38 million units, on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis. Inventory rose 5.9% year over year to 1.07 million homes for sale at the end of February. That represents a still low 2.9-month supply at the current sales pace. Higher demand continued to push the median price higher, up 5.7% from the year before to $384,500.
Home Prices Have Risen by 2.4 Times the Inflation Rate Since 1960. The cost of a typical house in the U.S. is nearly half a million dollars: the median price for a home in the U.S. is $412,778, according to Redfin data. That’s what successful demographic tailwinds leading to a chronic housing shortage get you.
Boeing is Leasing 36 Airbuses, to meet its own unfilled orders caused by production delays. Another panel fell off an airborne plane last week in Medford, OR. Looking for missing parts has become a regular part of every Boeing landing. This is an act of desperation. Avoid (BA)
My Ten-Year View
When we come out the other side of the recession, we will be perfectly poised to launch into my new American Golden Age or the next Roaring Twenties. The economy decarbonizing and technology hyper accelerating, creating enormous investment opportunities. The Dow Average will rise by 800% to 240,000 or more in the coming decade. The new America will be far more efficient and profitable than the old.
Dow 240,000 here we come!
On Monday, March 25, at 7:00 AM EDT, the US Building Permits are announced.
On Tuesday, March 26 at 8:30 AM, S&P Case Shiller for Februaryis released.
On Wednesday, March 27 at 11:00 AM, the MBA Mortgage Data is published
On Thursday, March 28 at 8:30 AM, the Weekly Jobless Claims are announced. The final read of the Q2 US GDP is also out.
On Friday, March 29 at 2:00 PM, Personal Income and Spending is out. The Baker Hughes Rig Count is printed.
As for me, as I am about to take off for Cuba to visit Finca Vigia (Lookout Farm), the home of Earnest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn I thought I’d review my long history with this storied family. This is where he finished For Whom the Bells Toll, his epic novel about the Spanish Civil War.
My grandfather drove for the Italian Red Cross on the Alpine front during WWI, where Hemingway got his start, so we had a connection right there going back over 100 years.
Since I read Hemingway’s books in my mid-teens, I decided I wanted to be him and became a war correspondent. In those days, you traveled by ship a lot, leaving ample time to finish off his complete work.
I visited his homes in Key West and Ketchum Idaho. In 2023, he stayed at his Hotel Poste room in Cortina, Italy where he lived for five months during the 1950s. His Cuban residence was high on my list, now that Castro is gone.
I used to stay in the Hemingway Suite at the Ritz Hotel on Place Vendome in Paris where he lived during WWII. I had drinks at the Hemingway Bar downstairs where war correspondent Ernest shot a German colonel in the face at point-blank range. I still have the ashtrays.
Harry’s Bar in Venice, a Hemingway favorite, was a regular stopping-off point for me. I have those ashtrays too.
I even dated his granddaughter from his first wife, Hadley, the movie star Mariel Hemingway, before she got married, and when she was still being pursued by Robert de Niro and Woody Allen. Some genes skip generations and she was a dead ringer for her grandfather. She was the only Playboy centerfold I ever went out with. We still keep in touch.
So, I’ll spend the weekend watching Farewell to Arms….again, after I finish this newsletter.
Oh, and if you visit the Ritz Hotel today, you’ll find the ashtrays are now glued to the tables.
Hemingway in 1917
At Work on Hemingway’s Typewriter
Good Luck and Good Trading,
John Thomas
CEO & Publisher
The Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader
https://www.madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/old-photo-1.png584438april@madhedgefundtrader.comhttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngapril@madhedgefundtrader.com2024-03-25 09:02:322024-03-25 12:50:25The Market Outlook for the Week Ahead, or The Best Week of the Year
Just the other day, a line of eager folks snaked around the Nvidia Corp.’s (NVDA) tech conference like it’s Black Friday and the last PS5 is on the line. And let me tell you, the excitement is palpable.
After all, this isn’t just any tech talk. This is a “rock band reunion” of sorts of the masterminds behind the 2017 research paper that sparked the AI revolution we're experiencing today.
Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, sporting his signature black leather jacket, takes the stage to moderate a panel featuring seven out of the eight authors of "Attention Is All You Need."
This groundbreaking paper, written while they all worked at Google (GOOGL), introduced the concept of transformers – the very technology that powers OpenAI's GPT-4 and Nvidia's booming chip sales.
As Huang playfully chided the stragglers finding their seats ("C'mon you guys, hurry up, I'm going to start!"), the anticipation in the room was electric. The panelists – Ashish Vaswani, Noam Shazeer, Aidan Gomez, Lukasz Kaiser, Illia Polosukhin, Jakob Uszkoreit, and Llion Jones – shared fascinating insights into the origins and impact of their work.
Polosukhin, now co-founder of NEAR Protocol, explained that the paper stemmed from efforts to improve machine-aided answering of users' questions. Google needed lightning-fast answers, and existing models simply couldn't keep up.
Jones, co-founder and CTO at Sakana AI, revealed that while they aimed to create technology that could generalize across a wide range of tasks, even they were surprised by how well it performed.
Interestingly, most of these brilliant minds left Google to start their own AI ventures. They realized that to truly harness the potential of their groundbreaking technology, they needed to step outside the confines of the lab.
As Vaswani, co-founder of Essential AI, put it, "You couldn't make these models smarter in the vacuum of a lab."
The interactions between Huang and the panel made one thing crystal clear: while Huang expressed gratitude for their technological contributions, these researchers-turned-entrepreneurs need him as much as he needs them.
Shazeer, co-founder and CEO at Character.ai, even joked, "Thank God for giving us this incredible technology, and thank Jensen." He might have been exaggerating, but then again, maybe not.
The sheer number of people lining up for this tech talk underscores the potential of AI.
Remember when "the cloud" first entered the tech lexicon? It was a game-changer, driving massive growth for companies like Microsoft (MSFT) and Amazon (AMZN).
But now, with the explosive demand for AI, it looks like the cloud might just be a warm-up act. Some even say it will be as transformative as the internet itself.
The numbers speak for themselves. The AI market is projected to skyrocket from $300 billion this year to over $1.8 trillion by 2030. That's a sixfold increase. Aside from the obvious names like Nvidia, there are a handful of companies positioned to ride this wave of growth.
First, we have Palantir (PLTR), a popular stock that's earning its hype. Their platforms for the private sector and governments leverage AI to optimize decision-making.
With their newest product, Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP), they're making waves in both defense and commercial sectors.
Palantir's commercial revenue grew an impressive 32% year-over-year in Q4 2023, and they've been GAAP profitable for five straight quarters – no small feat for a high-growth tech company.
Next, let's talk about UiPath (PATH) and the magic of robotic process automation (RPA). Imagine automating all those tedious, time-consuming tasks that eat up your day.
That's what UiPath does for its 10,800+ customers, freeing them up to focus on higher-level tasks.
With $1.4 billion in annual recurring revenue and a rock-solid balance sheet, UiPath is poised for success in this fragmented but promising industry.
As for the more adventurous investors out there, Evolv Technologies (EVLV) is worth a look.
Their AI-powered detectors are shaking up security at venues like stadiums and schools. No more emptying pockets and waiting in long lines – Evolv's technology can screen multiple people at once, identifying potential threats with impressive accuracy.
With a reasonable valuation and explosive growth, Evolv could be a game-changer.
And of course, we can't forget about Amazon. While they're known for their online marketplace, their AWS cloud division is the world's leading cloud service provider.
As AI software requires massive amounts of data processing, much of which will happen in the cloud, Amazon is perfectly positioned to benefit from the AI boom.
The potential of AI is truly staggering. Just as the cloud transformed the tech landscape, AI is set to do the same – but on an even grander scale. From healthcare and finance to transportation and entertainment, no sector will be left untouched by the power of artificial intelligence.
I suggest you add the companies above to your watchlist. This AI revolution is picking up steam, and you want to be in the game, not watching from the bleachers.
https://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.png00Douglas Davenporthttps://madhedgefundtrader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-mad-hedge-logo-transparent-192x192_f9578834168ba24df3eb53916a12c882.pngDouglas Davenport2024-03-22 17:19:002024-03-22 17:21:16GEEKING OUT WITH AI GIANTS
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