Grab your favorite brew as we navigate through the tumultuous yet intriguing world of market dynamics.

In Canada, the markets are embodying an aura of watchful waiting, disturbed by declining oil and gold prices. Investors are on high alert, eager for the release of domestic trade balance figures that will provide a pulse check on the national economy. This anticipation is heightened by the shaky performance of U.S. stock index futures and the slip in European shares, notably in the energy sector. Over in Japan, the Nikkei index succumbed to these global market vibrations, ending the day in the red.

The labor scene in Canada is witnessing a harmonious development as Unifor members approve a new contract with Stellantis N.V. (NYSE: STLA), Chrysler’s parent company. This accord is a shining example of the progress that can be made when unions and corporations strike a chord of cooperation, even amid economic uncertainties.

In an unexpected twist, Canada’s telecom regulator has introduced an interim measure compelling major phone companies in Ontario and Quebec to offer access to their infrastructure. This move is designed to stir up competition and potentially reduce internet service prices, setting a new tempo in the telecom sector’s melody.

Globally, markets are enacting a complex dance, with European indicators like the Euro STOXX 50, FTSE, and German DAX futures all reflecting subdued activity in early trading. Asian markets, after a recent uplift, have adjusted to a mix of Chinese trade data and the cautious optimism of an end to the surge in global interest rates.

Alphabet Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOGL) is bracing for a significant legal confrontation as “Fortnite” creator Epic Games challenges the tech giant’s control over the Play Store, a battle that could redefine the landscape of app distribution and pricing.

Amazon.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) is facing labor dissonance in the UK, where workers at an English warehouse are contesting pay, potentially leading to disruptions on the critical shopping day of Black Friday. Despite this, Amazon’s overall wage structure in the UK is expected to improve incrementally over the coming year.

Celanese Corporation (NYSE: CE) has orchestrated a successful strategy through cost-reduction efforts, culminating in profits that have outperformed expectations, alongside the announcement of Chuck Kyrish as the new CFO.

Coterra Energy Inc. (NYSE: CTRA) has exceeded profit forecasts, thanks to a combination of increased production and strong pricing, striking a chord with investors.

Diamondback Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ: FANG) has revealed itself as a predator rather than prey in the shale sector, signaling ambitious growth plans and an uptick in its production outlook.

On the other hand, D.R. Horton, Inc. (NYSE: DHI) has encountered a minor setback with a dip in quarterly profits, as the crescendo of mortgage rates and housing prices creates a dissonant tune for the housing market’s affordability.

FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) is currently under legal scrutiny as a federal appeal investigates a substantial jury verdict regarding allegations of discriminatory practices, which may reset the balance in corporate responsibility.

The automotive industry is facing its own challenges, with recent safety tests uncovering potential vulnerabilities for rear-seat passengers in several major pickup trucks, introducing a disharmonious note to manufacturers’ safety records.

On the corporate life cycle stage, General Dynamics (NYSE: GD) and Stellantis have both seen new agreements with the UAW, indicating a period of labor harmony.

General Electric’s (NYSE: GE) aerospace division has agreed to a significant settlement over claims related to subpar inspections and part standards, a discordant note in its government contract performance.

General Motors (NYSE: GM) has taken a strategic pause in its autonomous vehicle production, possibly a thoughtful intermission in its long-term transport strategy.

Lastly, Kinder Morgan, Inc. (NYSE: KMI) has orchestrated a significant move with its acquisition of assets from NextEra Energy Partners, LP (NYSE: NEP) in a deal worth $1.82 billion, a strategic high note in its expansionary score.

As the markets continue to play their symphonies, we’ll be here to interpret the scores and guide you through the crescendos and diminuendos of the economic concerto. Thank you for tuning in to InvestorCoffee for your market insights.

Fears of artificial intelligence in androids, massive computer facilities, and other devices taking over the world are not stopping investors from searching for ways to make prudent investments.

From AI and automation to robotics, nearly every industry is undergoing disruption. Over the past few months, the world has witnessed significant advancements in AI technology, such as the release of chatbots and image, art, and music generators for public use.

Generative Artificial Intelligence

Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) is a branch of artificial intelligence that uses machine learning algorithms to create new and original content, such as computer code, images, music, speech, or text. It works by using a training algorithm and ‘learning’ on a large dataset of examples, then using that training to generate new content that is similar to the original examples.

Most recently, the chatter around Gen AI has been brought to the forefront by the web-based Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, or as it is more widely known, ChatGPT, from OpenAI, L.L.C. OpenAI is a privately-held company with investors including Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT), Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator, and Guangzhou Cornerstone Asset Management Co.

It has many applications and benefits for various industries, such as entertainment, education, finance, health care, marketing, media, pharmaceuticals, and security.

Some of the leading public companies by market cap that operate in the broader AI and Gen AI industry are:

Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT) – Market Cap US$2.20 Trillion

Microsoft offers cloud computing, software, and hardware products and services, such as Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Cognitive Services. Microsoft’s Azure AI is a collection of AI services that offers developers and data scientists the ability to build and deploy their own AI solutions using high-quality vision, speech, language, and decision-making AI models through simple API calls, and create their own machine learning models using familiar tools and open-source frameworks

Alphabet Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOGL) – Market Cap US$1.32 Trillion

Alphabet, best known for its Google search engine, provides internet-related products and services, such as Google Cloud and Google AI. Google Cloud recently announced generative AI offerings that let developers tap into Google’s foundation models, search expertise, and conversational AI technologies to create enterprise-grade generative AI applications. Google also offers its own Bard chatbot.

Amazon.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) – Market Cap US$1.08 Trillion

Amazon operates e-commerce, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence platforms, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Amazon Alexa, and offers pre-trained AI Services to integrate into customer applications and workflows.  

NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) – Market Cap US$664.7 Billion

NVIDIA produces graphics processing units (GPUs) and artificial intelligence platforms, such as NVIDIA Omniverse and NVIDIA Clara. According to a report by research firm TrendForce, ChatGPT will require as many as 30,000 NVIDIA GPUs to operate, which costs between $10,000 and $15,000 for each GPU. As AI becomes more mainstream, NVIDIA looks to benefit from the GPU demand.

Meta Platforms, Inc. (Nasdaq: META) – Market Cap US$537.2 Billion

Meta operates social media platforms and applications, such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It also develops artificial intelligence products and services, such as Facebook AI Research and Facebook Reality Labs.

Adobe Inc. (Nasdaq: ADBE) – Market Cap US$116.5 Billion

Adobe provides software products and services for digital media creation and marketing, such as Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe Sensei. Adobe Sensei is an artificial intelligence and machine learning technology developed by Adobe that powers its Creative Cloud suite of applications and uses AI and machine learning to automate tasks such as organizing, editing, and producing content.

International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM) – Market Cap US$114.3 Billion

IBM provides IT solutions and services, such as IBM Cloud and IBM Watson. It also develops artificial intelligence products and services, such as IBM Project Debater and IBM AutoAI. In 2011, IBM’s supercomputer Watson beat competitors on the popular game show Jeopardy!   

Final thoughts

The AI field is growing rapidly and has numerous applications in various industries. Major players offer a range of AI products and services, from cloud computing to chatbots and image, art, and music generators. NVIDIA, in particular, is poised to benefit from the increasing demand for GPUs as AI becomes more mainstream. Despite concerns about AI taking over the world, investors are eagerly searching for ways to invest in this space.

In a recent InvestorIntel interview Peter Clausi speaks with Brendon Grunewald, Co-Founder and CEO of Moovly Media Inc. (TSXV: MVY) about recent advances in Moovly’s video content publishing platform.

“One silver lining to the pandemic is people having to discover new ways of learning and working, and video is becoming an essential part of that,” Brendon said. “I believe that’s not just related to Covid, but that is part of a long-term trend.”

Moovly has also taken advantage of the lockdown by adding new features to their already robust and feature-rich online video content creation platform. “Many of these new features are client-driven,” Brendon said, “particularly clients in the corporate enterprise space and education.”

The ability of users to create templates and upload and publish videos instantly “is a feature particularly appreciated by bigger organizations because they may have graphics specialists in their headquarters, but not everyone is a graphics specialist,” he continued. This allows a company to create a template “and then anyone in the field who can drive a mouse and a keyboard can actually adapt and customize it and make themselves look like content geniuses.”

One of the new features is the ability to transform PowerPoint presentations into video, adding music and other video elements from Moovly’s extensive royalty-free library. “A lot of companies have amassed a sizeable number of PowerPoint presentations,” Brendon said, “and what they are looking to do is make them more engaging, particularly to the younger generation.” Brendon explains how the Moovly tool takes all the elements of each PowerPoint slide, including graphics and transitions, and automatically converts them to video. It automates the process and “saves a lot of time, which is its primary value.”

Last month Moovly also announced that it had integrated Google Translate into its platform, allowing for instant sub-titles for videos into more than 100 languages. Brendon told Peter that this is particularly valuable to multinational companies that need to have content translated and localized for multiple markets.

With over 3 million users, Brendon said that “our key value proposition is that we are trying to democratize the ability for everyone to really make high-end content.” And whether you are a big or small business, an individual, or an educator, Moovly, he continued, “really gives the tools to people to really make content with the click of a button.”

To watch the full interview, click here.

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Disclaimer: Moovly Media Inc., Inc. is an advertorial member of InvestorIntel Corp.

“That kind of surveillance is basically the business model of most of the tech giants. That Wall Street Journal story is interesting because it shows how Facebook is actively cultivating relationships with traditional banks and hoping to get its hands on your financial information. There are a couple of goals that they have there. Of course, they are not alone; Google and Amazon are trying to get into that business as well, which is first and foremost to use financial information that has been revealed to them to target ads.” States James Slaby, Senior Manager, Product Marketing at Acronis, in an interview with InvestorIntel Corp. CEO Tracy Weslosky.

Tracy Weslosky: Your publicist wrote me a note with; The Wall Street Journal is reporting that there has been a bigger battle between Facebook and financial firms, bigger than the public ever knew. Okay, let us start with that James. What is the big thing that we should all be worried about? 

James Slaby: As you all know companies like Facebook and Google are in the business of harvesting information about you that you, kind of, willingly give up in return for the services, like search and the ability to share information with your social networking friends. They take that information about you and sell it to their advertisers who use it to cleverly target ads at you to get you to buy stuff or influence your political views and so forth.

Tracy Weslosky: You know we work in the stock market. There is a lot of websites where I tell people all the time, do not go to information sites where you provide your username and password because they are creating algorithms and what you are in to and what shares you want to buy, what stocks you are interested in. We are big advocates for personal privacy. Can you tell me if I am correct or am I just creating fear where there should not be any? 

James Slaby: No, you are absolutely correct. That kind of surveillance is basically the business model of most of the tech giants. That Wall Street Journal story is interesting because it shows how Facebook is actively cultivating relationships with traditional banks and hoping to get its hands on your financial information. There are a couple of goals that they have there. Of course, they are not alone; Google and Amazon are trying to get into that business as well, which is first and foremost to use financial information that has been revealed to them to target ads. Increasingly also they want to get into the traditional banking business and effectively go after things like the payment system, lending, providing financial information to you, fraud alerts, and so forth.

Tracy Weslosky: I will tell you, what you do is fascinating. We could literally have you on once a month. Because I want to jump to one of the rumors we had here at InvestorIntel a couple of months back was, Tracy do not run any stories with cryptocurrency in the title or put any emails to your friends with that you are going to have an audit with your taxes at the end of the year. This is the type of fearmongering that is happening out there. I know you actually can speak to cryptocurrency as well. Can you comment on this for us?

James Slaby: Certainly. There are a couple of things that are fascinating about cryptocurrency. One is that it is making inroads as an alternative to traditional fiat currencies, but if you are not familiar with it, it is basically an online currency that uses blockchain technology. Think about it as very complicated cryptographic mathematics to be able to verify the financial exchanges…to access the complete interview, click here