U.S. stocks closed higher, technology and financial sectors were leading

The US stock market closed higher, with the technology and financial sectors leading the gains. This week, the Dow fell 0.46%, the S&P 500 fell 0.13%, and the Nasdaq fell 0.25%. As of the close, the Dow rose by 227.59 points, or 0.67%, to close at 34,043.49 points; the S&P 500 index rose 45.19 points, or 1.09%, to close at 4180.17 points; the Nasdaq rose 198.39 points, or 1.44%, to close at 14016.81. point.

Canaan Technology announced last night that it has reached a cooperation agreement with Cathay Tri-Tech to launch an AI face recognition module using its Kanzhi K210 chip in the Japanese market.

Since the cooperation with Cathay Tri-Tech, Canaan Technology has opened up markets in the United States, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Israel, and other countries.

The main application scenario of Canaan’s AI module is facing recognition and detection. Compared with most face recognition modules on the market, this module is smart in size and has a rated power consumption of only 0.35 watts.

In terms of performance, Canaan’s products support face recognition at the level of 100 milliseconds, with a recognition accuracy rate of over 99.6%, and are equipped with a face recognition model wearing a mask and a live detection model. Thanks to its smart size and low power consumption, this AI face recognition module can be deployed in different equipment terminals such as vending machines, smart access control, smart door locks, and elevator control systems.

The joint venture of Baidu and Geely plans to invest 50 billion yuan in the development of smart car technology in the next 5 years and recruit 2500-3000 employees for this project in the next 2-3 years, including about 500 software engineers.

According to Jiddu CEO Xia Yiping, Jiddu plans to launch its first model within three years, which looks like a robot and attracts young customers. Jiddu plans to launch a new model every year or every 18 months.

Baidu has been investing in autonomous driving technology for many years. In January, it announced cooperation with Geely, which pushed its stock price to rise sharply.

According to Bloomberg’s industry research, Baidu’s autonomous driving platform Apollo will enable Geely to gain the technological advantage that Geely needs in developing smart electric vehicles, and cooperation with Geely will help Baidu expand its ecosystem in competition with giants such as Tencent and Alibaba.

Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya released an investment report, maintaining Intel’s stock’s “under-market” rating and $62 target stock price.

Aya said that competition from companies such as AMD is “harming” Intel and gave three reasons why investors should consider other stocks. Sales growth is sluggish. In 2020, PC sales and cloud services will increase by 14%-15%, but Intel’s sales have failed to grow or even declined. A large part of the reason is AMD’s competition.

The gross profit margin continued to decline. Intel’s gross profit margin in the first quarter fell from 60.6% in the same period last year to 55.2%, the lowest level since 2009, and it may fall further in the second half of this year.

Aya said that Intel’s involvement in the chip foundry business is extremely costly and may be unprofitable.

Aya pointed out that they believe AMD is more worthy of investment in the next few years.

Analysts predict that the 5G upgrade cycle will increase iPhone sales, home office and distance learning will increase Mac and iPad sales, and the adjustment of the capital return plan will add icing on the cake to Apple’s stock price.

Wall Street predicts that Apple’s revenue in the March quarter will reach 77.1 billion U.S. dollars and earnings per share will reach 98 cents, which means that profits and revenue will grow by 53% and 32%, respectively.

Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty said Apple will be “slightly more aggressive” in its capital return program this year. She expects Apple to expand its share repurchase program by $60 billion and increase its annual dividend by 10%. Last year, Apple expanded its stock repurchase program by US$50 billion and increased its annual dividend by 6.5%.

In today’s regular trading, Apple’s stock price rose by 2.38 US dollars, or 1.8%, to close at 134.32 US dollars, which was a high of 135.12 US dollars during the session.

|VIA|