00:00 Speaker A
Now time for some of today’s trending tickers. Chris Versace and Julie Hyman with me to break down some of the top movers here. We’re checking in on shares of Circle and AMD. First up, Circle. Shares sinking today as Wall Street shifted its focus to the rising risk competition in the digital token space. Compass Point and analyst Ed Angle initiate coverage with a neutral rating. Says that they believe stable coins can disrupt the financial system as blockchains disintermediate banks and payments networks. Uh, this one was interesting. I mean Circle obviously, listen, so I know it’s sinking a bit today, but this one has had a tremendous run. They, Compass does go to neutral. So they’re on the sidelines here. They talk about competition, they talk about margins specifically, but what a run. Folks have been very excited about about stable coin. I think this one is one way to play it, Julie.
01:41 Julie Hyman
Yeah, it’s one way to play it and it’s the purest way to play it in the public markets right now, right? So that’s really what all this enthusiasm is about. I mean, the run that you were talking about, the stock’s up like 700% over its IPO price where it was just on June 5th was the IPO. So obviously it’s been a huge surge in a very short period of time. All of this because of the passage of the Genius Act as it was called, which provides sort of a framework for stable coin. And what I have found really fascinating in the days since then is all the talk about everybody else maybe exploring stable coin businesses of some kind, right, or adjacent businesses, or partnering with Circle in some cases. Everybody from Coinbase to JP Morgan to Fiserv yesterday. There was reporting that Walmart and Amazon might be exploring stable coins. So everybody seems to be jumping in on this, but stable coin, uh, Circle, I should say, is that sort of pure play. But one of the things that that compass point analysts pointed out is that eventually there could be more competition in this market, but the other thing all of this is hinging on, Josh, is adoption. Like we see this explosion. Is it pushing something that people are going to eventually pull? Do people really want this product? Are we going to really see it integrated into our financial system? And we don’t know yet is the short answer.
03:38 Speaker A
Kathy Woods also Arc also playing a role there, Julie in the slump today. Seems like she was booking some profit.
04:05 Julie Hyman
Yeah, she, you know, Kathy does a lot of trading, right, of Arc Invest in her benchmark funds. Just looking at the numbers here, it looks like that she’s continued to sell. She sold about one and a quarter million circle shares last week. Um, and then she sold more on Monday. This according to sources including Coin Telegraph, which tracks the industry. Um, it’s hard to read too much into this necessarily. She does, she is a trader. There is a lot of, um, positioning that she does, but that is, to be clear, something that could likely also be putting pressure on the shares.
04:54 Speaker A
I’ll bring Chris back here as well. Your thoughts on Circle, Chris, the blistering run, what do you make of it?
05:03 Chris Versace
Uh, talk about a rocket ship ride for the new new thing. I mean, it’s pretty, it’s pretty stellar, I have to say. I, I, I think the question you have to ask yourself though is if you’re just coming to the Circle story now, are you willing to put money to work in the shares after everything that we have seen, especially, as Julie pointed out, with the passage of, of the Genius Act. You know, what, what is the next new catalyst to vault these shares higher? So I’m not surprised that in such a short span of time, you might be seeing, uh, some traders, short-term investors, if you will, kind of taking some profits. I, I think they’ve got to come out and start announcing partnerships, agreements, joint ventures, call them what you will, with some of the folks that Julie announced. So they kind of shore up their market position in what could be a very big market down the road.
06:06 Speaker A
Our second other ticker here is AMD. Those shares, they’re jumping today. It’s after a CFRA upgrade that chip maker from buy to strong buy. Angelo Zino says they see an AMD closing the gap to Nvidia in 2026. He also raised his price target from 125 to 165. So not just a buy at CFRA, they say, no, this one is a strong buy. I also would mention you did have a Melius upgrade as well. They took this one to buy. Their target went to 175. Uh, their point being, and I think here’s your money line. Investors are about to envision even bigger GPU figures in 2026 and 2008, given a sustainable surge in inferencing, where investing in AMD’s platform seems to be more attractive for hyperscalers and sovereigns. They go on to tell their clients, if we’re right, that stock has a lot more to go. Julie, what do you make of it?
07:35 Julie Hyman
I mean, we, you know, we love our sort of head-to-head narratives in the chip industry, right? First, it was sort of AMD versus Intel, and AMD seemed to win that battle. Now, it’s sort of AMD versus Nvidia. Um, and AMD thus far has not necessarily been gaining share in this particular area in which, uh, in, in which Nvidia is dominant. But, you know, one of the things that Angelo says sort of speaks to this, he says, we see an expanding customer base for AMD’s accelerator, while the company is also making progress with its open source AI software stack. In other words, yes, you’re going to have companies that, that capture a lot of market share as Nvidia has. But if indeed the market is growing, the end market is growing, there is going to be room for multiple competitors to do well potentially here. That seems to be also one of the points that Angelo is making.
08:53 Speaker A
Chris, bring you back as well. I mean, Nvidia, listen, it’s the face of AI, right? That’s the place to be. But CFRA is saying, you know what? Lisa Su and her team in AMD, they’re going to close that gap.
09:13 Chris Versace
Well, I think you have to go back to my comments from a few minutes ago, Josh, that, you know, this is a rising tide that is going to lift multiple boats. And you know, could you buy Nvidia? Sure, you can. Could you buy AMD? Could you buy Marvell like I was talking about earlier, like we have in the pro portfolio? 100%, you can. Um, I think just past a certain point, as the AI adoption matures, we go from early innings to mid to late innings, which won’t be for a few years, then you have to be a little more, uh, discriminating in terms of which ones you might want to own. So I, I’m not surprised. My only question is given the run in AMD that we’ve seen, uh, why strong buy now? Why weren’t they there sooner?
10:08 Speaker A
How much of the good news is priced in?
10:11 Chris Versace
Fair question.