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Top Midday Stories: Nvidia Chips Said at Center of Smuggling Probe; TCI Slashes Nearly All Its $8 Billion Microsoft Stake
All three major US stock indexes were up in late-morning trading Friday following a better-than-expected jobs report.Nonfarm payrolls rose by 115,000 in April, above the Bloomberg survey consensus estimate of 65,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday. March payrolls were revised up to a 185,000-job gain, while February payrolls were revised down to a 156,000-job decrease, the BLS said. The unemployment rate remained at 4.3% in April, as expected, while the labor force participation rate fell to 61.8% from 61.9% in March, the agency said.In company news, Nvidia (NVDA) chips are at the center of a suspected $2.5 billion smuggling scheme involving Super Micro Computer (SMCI) servers diverted to China through Bangkok-based OBON, Bloomberg reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. Alibaba (BABA) is among the alleged end customers of the scheme, the report said. In a March indictment, US prosecutors outlined how Super Micro worked with a Southeast Asian company identified by sources as OBON to bypass trade restrictions, the report said. Nvidia shares were up 2.1% and Super Micro shares were up 4.5%, while Alibaba shares were marginally down.Hedge fund TCI cut its stake in Microsoft (MSFT) from 10% of its portfolio, or $8 billion, at the end of last year to 1% at the end of March, the Financial Times reported Friday, citing an investor letter it reviewed. Microsoft shares were down 1.1%.CoreWeave (CRWV) reported a Q1 net loss late Thursday of $1.40 per diluted share, narrowing from a loss of $1.49 a year earlier but below the FactSet consensus estimate of a loss of $1.18. First-quarter revenue was $2.08 billion, up from $982 million a year ago and above the FactSet consensus of $1.97 billion. CoreWeave shares were down 13%.Price: $216.03, Change: $+4.53, Percent Change: +2.14%
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