Nvidia eclipses US$2.5trn market cap on jaw dropping earnings

Good morning. Here's what happened overnight and what you need to know today.

1.

Mega megacap: Wall Street stocks hit record highs as Nvidia soared past a market value of USD2.5 trillion ($3.79 trillion) for the first time on Thursday. Shares in Nvidia jumped 11% after the chipmaker announced stronger than expected earnings, a 10-1 stock split and bullish forward guidance. The company reported that revenues had increased 262% in the past quarter, and raised its quarterly cash dividend by 150%. The results pushed Nvidia’s market cap by USD220 billion to aUS$2.5 trillion high on Thursday, making it larger than megacaps Amazon and Tesla combined. The S&P 500 rose 0.3% to 5,320.44 in early afternoon in New York, while the tech-dominated Nasdaq Composite added as much as 0.9%, also hitting a record high, before paring gains. The gains came despite the release of the Fed’s May FOMC meeting minutes, which revealed that Fed officials aren’t opposed to raising interest rates if inflation begins to inch higher once more. (Financial Times)

2.

Antitrust action: The US Justice Department (DoJ) filed an antitrust lawsuit on Thursday to break up the Live Nation-Ticketmaster ‘monopoly’ over alleged anti-competitive conduct in the live entertainment industry. According to the DoJ, Live Nation generates over USD22 billion globally in annual revenue from three business segments: concerts, ticketing, and sponsorship and advertising. The suit alleges that Live Nation-Ticketmaster illegally monopolised the live events industry through a range of anticompetitive activities. In a press release on the lawsuit, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said that Live Nation relies on unlawful, anticompetitive conduct to exercise its monopolistic control over the live events industry in the US at the cost of fans, artists, smaller promoters, and venue operators. The tactics that the DoJ alleges Live Nation-Ticketmaster has been engaging in include: retaliating against potential new entrants, threatening and retaliating against venues that work with rivals, and using exclusionary contracts to lock out competition, among other accusations. (DoJ press release)(DoJ complaint)(Bloomberg)