Dan Ives teams with Yorkville to form Yorkville Ives, an AI-focused merchant bank. Also: PPI cools, CoreWeave hedges chip prices, and long semis is the most crowded trade.
Dan Ives, the tech analyst known for his bullish calls on Apple (AAPL) and AI names, has teamed up with Yorkville Securities to form a new merchant bank. The venture, called Yorkville Ives, will combine Yorkville's buy-side deal-making with Ives' technology research.
"The fourth industrial revolution is here, and it needs a new kind of bank, a modern merchant bank," Ives said. "Research, banking, trading, and capital, all under one hood, all pointed at the biggest transformation the markets have ever seen."
Yorkville Ives CEO Roger Briggs added that the firms defining the next decade won't just advise clients, they'll invest alongside them. "Companies need a strategic partner that can help shape opportunities, structure transactions, provide capital, and stay engaged long after a deal closes," Briggs said.
Apple, which Ives has covered for years, currently carries an Alpha Score of 55 at AlphaScala, rated Mixed. The stock rose 4.24% on the day to $328.21.
In other market news, wholesale inflation data offered fresh relief. The Producer Price Index fell 0.3% month over month, well below the 0.1% decline economists had expected. The prior month was revised sharply lower, to a 0.6% gain from an initial 1.1% reading. The annual rate dropped to 5.5%, undershooting the 6.2% consensus. Core PPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.2% for the month, also below the 0.4% forecast. The annual core rate slowed to 4.7%.
Schwab strategist Kevin Gordon said the PPI components that feed into the Federal Reserve's preferred PCE measure suggest "a firmer print for June than what we got with CPI yesterday." Only hospital outpatient care declined month over month, he noted. The odds of another rate hike this year have fallen to 75% from 85% a week ago, according to CME FedWatch data.
CoreWeave, a cloud provider rated Weak with an Alpha Score of 19, is exploring the use of derivatives to hedge against a decline in memory and storage chip prices, Reuters reported. The move reflects how deeply the AI boom has tied cloud operators to the volatile chip market. To lock in supply, many have signed long-term agreements with suppliers like Micron and SanDisk that guarantee a minimum price for DRAM and storage chips. That protects chipmakers from a downturn but leaves cloud companies exposed if prices fall. CoreWeave executives have discussed using put options to hedge that risk.
Separately, Bank of America's July Global Fund Manager Survey showed that 82% of respondents now consider long semiconductor positions overcrowded, up from 80% in June and 73% in May. The Long Magnificent 7 trade has slipped to a distant second at just 7%. Other trades barely registered: Long U.S. Dollar ranked third at 4%, followed by Short Europe Equities and Long Oil.
ASML rose after the chip equipment maker raised its full-year sales forecast for the second time this year, citing strong AI demand. Johnson & Johnson beat quarterly earnings estimates and raised its guidance, though the stock's reaction was muted. BlackRock gained after the asset manager beat expectations, reporting $868 billion in net inflows over the past 12 months.
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