Good morning! Wall Street analysts and tech enthusiasts have descended upon Las Vegas this week for the Consumer Electronics Show — one of the most popular technology conferences in the world.

It’s so big that the CEO of the world’s most valuable company stopped in to speak with attendees last night.

Today’s letter is brought to you by Bitcoin IRA!

Why smart investors use BitcoinIRA:

• Tax Savings: When you trade in an IRA, you don't have to pay capital gains taxes that can be as high as 37% 

• Top-Level Security: Assets are custodied with a US based custodian and insured up to $250M²

• World Class Customer Service: BitcoinIRA has a team of IRA specialists that will help guide you through every step of the process

Take 3 minutes to open your account & get access to over 75 cryptocurrencies in your IRA.

P.S. As an Opening Bell Daily reader, you can earn up to $500 in rewards* when you add funds to your account.

Nvidia continues to stand alone

Nvidia just reminded the world who rules the stock market.

The chipmaker leap-frogged Apple for the world’s most valuable company by market cap on Monday. Its share price closed at a record high hours ahead of chief executive Jensen Huang’s keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where he announced the new RTX Blackwell chips. 

“The [AI] applications are just completely endless,” Huang told the audience late Monday.

“When you see application after application that are AI-driven, AI-native, at the core of it this fundamental concept is there — machine learning has changed how every application is going to be built.”

Shares of Nvidia traded relatively sideways to close out 2024, but in the first week of the new year the stock is already up 10%.

It rallied Monday as much as 5% before paring those gains to close at a record high $149.43 per share.

Over the last 12 months, the stock has gained roughly 207%.

It was among the five most popular stocks of 2024 alongside Advanced Micro Devices, Microsoft, Amazon, and Palantir, according to Schwab’s Trading Activity Index.

Just a week ago, Microsoft announced plans to spend $80 billion this fiscal year to build AI infrastructure, well above the prior year’s $50 billion.

Other heavy-hitters have made similar lofty forecasts for AI-related spending — which has left Nvidia shareholders salivating. 

“The industry is chasing and racing to scale artificial intelligence,” Huang said, adding that the new Blackwell chips are in “full production.”

At the same time, he said Nvidia-trained AI agents represent a multi-trillion dollar opportunity.

The outlook for Nvidia is indeed overwhelmingly exciting and positive, yet a handful of risks remain, according to strategists at Bank of America:

• Weakness in the consumer-driven gaming market

• Competition with private and public AI and computing companies

• Bigger-than-expected impact from China shipping restrictions

• Unpredictable sales for enterprise and data centers

• Heightened government scrutiny of Nvidia’s dominance in AI chips

That said, Huang — and the investors who can’t get enough of his stock — have expressed little concern. The technologists in the crowd at CES, meanwhile, exuded excitement for Nvidia’s next chapter.  

“Over the last few years we have discussed the AI Revolution non-stop as in our opinion it represents the biggest tech transformation in over 40 years,” Wedbush strategist Dan Ives told clients ahead of Huang’s keynote. “The start of this $2 trillion of AI spending all began with the Godfather of AI Jensen and Nvidia as they are the only game in town with their chips the new gold and oil.”

Comments or feedback? Reply directly to this email or let me know on X @philrosenn.

Elsewhere:

📊 Disney’s doing a deal. The media giant announced it will combine its Hulu + Live TV business with the sports streamer Fubo, marking the first corporate media move of what’s expected to be a big year for mergers and acquisitions. Fubo stock soared double-digits following the news. (Yahoo Finance)

🍎 Dell announced an Apple-esque rebrand. The stock climbed 3.6% Monday after the computer company unveiled simplified product names for its new generation of devices. PCs have endured years of tepid sales — but Dell is hoping its three easy-to-remember tiers will streamline the buying process: Dell, Dell Pro, and Dell Pro Max. (Bloomberg)

🍻 Want more financial news, but after the closing bell? Thousands of readers trust Brew Markets for their end-of-day market analysis. I can handle your morning dispatch, and you can wrap up your afternoons with Brew Markets from Morning Brew — sign up free.

Rapid-fire:

• The US government has sued a unit of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway for allegedly pushing borrowers into unaffordable loans (CNN Business)

• Federal Reserve Vice Chair Michael Barr will resign from his position in February while staying on as a Fed governor (WSJ)

• President-elect Trump denied recent reporting that his tariff policy will be pared back: “That is wrong” (Yahoo Finance)

• MicroStrategy stock climbed after announcing it bought an additional $101 million worth of bitcoin last week (Investopedia)

• “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary said he’s part of a deal to purchase TikTok’s US business that would save the app from being banned (The Wrap)

• OpenAI CEO said the company is currently losing money on its $200-a-month plan for ChatGPT Pro (TechCrunch)

• McDonald’s is set to launch a national McValue campaign as it looks to deliver a better year for shareholders and customers (Yahoo Finance)

• 73% of US mortgage borrowers currently have an interest rate below 5.0% (ResiClub)

• Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he would step down from his position as party leader (Axios)

Last thing:

Interested in advertising in Opening Bell Daily? Email [email protected]