TechCheck

Shares of Apple are up fractionally today despite a rare downgrade from KeyBanc - laying out an alternative view from what most analyst have been saying going into Apple's most important quarter of the year. The analyst joined Tech Check, describing his concerns including rich valuations nearing all-time-highs, U.S. iPhone sales softening, and international growth under pressure.

Nvidia’s new strategy to dominate the future of AI might lie in the cloud. A report from The Information says Nvidia talked to at least one data center owner about leasing space to power its own cloud service - requiring major investment but could also be a big source of new revenue. Plus, Microsoft will soon try to generate meaningful sales directly from AI with the launch of its new AI assistant Co-Pilot for business customers. It costs nearly $30 per user per month, but some customers testing an early version say they’re seeing a big boost to productivity.

After a big September selloff, megacap tech stocks might be cheap again. P/E ratios have fallen steeply and are at their biggest discount since Jan. 2017 as analysts continue to boost their earnings estimates for the next fiscal year, according to Goldman Sachs. Plus, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella today took the stand in the DOJ’s antitrust trial against Google, and explained why it’s so hard to compete against the tech giant’s search engine dominance.

President Biden signaled an aggressive new agenda to curb the power of companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta when he appointed Lina Khan, Jonathan Kanter, and Tim Wu – a trio of the toughest antitrust regulators to hold them accountable. Instead, two years in, big tech is bigger and more powerful than ever. This week on Tech Check, we dive into the toothless regulators and their upcoming showdowns that could be make-or-break for them, and for the dominance of big tech.

As Q3 inches to a close, tech stocks have had a rough end to the summer and a rough ride lower in September. But Apple is really the culprit, because of its oversized weighting in broader. Plus, though China has been a key overhang for the market, there are signs beneath the headlines that American companies are still making inroads, as Nike reports tailwinds from Chinese consumers, and Chinese internet regulators propose relaxing rules on data flows abroad.

The FTC is now targeting Amazon in a new antitrust suit, alleging it’s running an illegal monopoly, with Lina Khan saying the e-commerce giant’s tactics deprive rivals of the ability to gain customers. But Amazon might actually now be facing more competition than ever - including from upstarts like Shopify, which just announced an investment in wholesale platform Faire, further entrenching Shopify as an Amazon alternative for sellers.

The FTC and 17 states filed a antitrust suit today alleging Amazon inflates online prices and overcharges sellers. The agency and FTC chair Lina Khan’s credibility are at stake in this massive case. Khan badly needs a win -- she made her name in law school by targeting the tech giant, but during her tenure, she’s only allowed the Prime ecosystem to get stronger and more entrenched.

Amazon is investing up to $4 billion in startup Anthropic as it looks to stake a claim in the AI arms race. Both stand to benefit: Amazon, with a buzzy customer for its custom AI chips and a minority stake in one of the early applications of generative AI, while Anthropic gets a big backer and AWS’ compute power. This isn’t, however, the exclusive partnership with Microsoft and OpenAI inked earlier this year, since Anthropic already received a partnership and investment from Google in May.

Some of the biggest, most highly-anticipated IPOs of the last few years have fallen short, burning investors who thought they were buying a technology stock. Peloton, WeWork, Blue Apron, and StitchFix all might have called themselves tech companies, but their growth ended up being hugely restricted by real-world limitations. So as a new wave of IPOs begin, investors might be struggling to determine where Instacart falls. This week on Tech Check, we dive into the grocery delivery app and ask, is Instacart really a tech company?

Microsoft looks to be closing in on its acquisition of Activision, after regulators in the United Kingdom signaled approval. The deal might be an example of how companies can ride out the stricter regulatory scrutiny under the Biden administration, adding to a string of blows that could leave corporate America feeling emboldened to pursue more deals. Plus, Apple’s newest iPhone went on sale around the world today, with Tim Cook opening an Apple store in New York City as part of the festivities. After three straight quarters of declining revenue and a fourth expected, the pressure is on for this launch.

Cisco’s $28 billion acquisition of Splunk signals where the company wants to go: a legacy tech hardware company trying to pivot to software and services, in a bid to help topline growth and give it heft in two of the buzziest tech subsectors, cybersecurity and AI.

CNBC's Dierdre Bosa spoke with Instacart CEO, Fidji Simo, to discuss why now was the time to finally go public and how the company arrived at the decision to price where they have.

As more grocers begin looking to build their own delivery networks, what does that mean for Instacart’s competitive moat? The world’s largest grocery delivery platform opened trading today on the Nasdaq at $42 a share, and Instacart CEO Fidji Simo discussed why grocers choose to stay on their marketplace, and how she expects the company to continue to grow after seeing the benefits of grocery delivery during the pandemic.

With Arm’s successful listing and Instacart’s debut on deck, the blockbuster IPO is back. But retail investors might want to proceed with caution before buying in. Those that jumped into some of the largest recent IPOs on the first day of trading have all lost money, according to our analysis, and would’ve seen dramatically better returns just buying the S&P. And even the connected, institutional investors that bought coveted shares at the IPO price have seen huge losses, as rising interest rates reprices valuations across the board. This week on Tech Check, our deep dive into why investors should beware the blockbuster IPO.

Instacart today raised the price range for its upcoming IPO after Arm’s successful debut yesterday, boosting the valuation to around $10 billion dollars. But that might be little comfort to the investors who bought in at Instacart’s peak valuation of $39 billion two years ago. We break down the winners and losers of the debut, including the VCs who got in early and the big institutional investors that are getting put under the water.

Softbank-backed chip designer Arm's successful listing today could open the IPO floodgates, according to Lux Capital’s Shahin Farshchi. He says the offering could generate more interest in new chip players, drive capital into private semi names, and encourage private companies to consider public market financing. The IPO might also be a much-needed win Masayoshi Son. Even though the Softbank founder has hung his entire legacy on being central to the AI shift, he’s had a number of big misses, including selling his stakes in Nvidia and perhaps self-driving startup Cruise too early.

The DOJ's landmark tech monopoly trial against Alphabet kicked off today – with the government grilling its first witness Google Chief Economist Hal Varian about his advice to the company on antitrust issues. It’s reminiscent of the DOJ’s big tech trial of 20 years ago against Microsoft, when Bill Gates was the big personality. This time around though, all eyes are on Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai -- and though he's often been called "soft-spoken" and a "nice guy," his track record so far suggests he may be the wartime CEO that Alphabet needs.

Instacart's new valuation of up to $9.3 billion is a massive down round from the $39 billion of a few years ago. Bill Gurley, a VC and early Uber investor, says that’s a healthy reset: "I've lived through 3 different bubbles and bursts in this industry and unfortunately it's highly cyclical. It tends to go up slowly and crash immediately." He also talked startups in the IPO pipeline, whether there’s an AI bubble, and more.

We all lived through the SPAC boom of 2021 – when the blank check mergers accounted for 61% of all U.S. public listings that year… and the subsequent bust, with at least a dozen going bankrupt since then and more than a hundred now running low on cash. But even though many stopped paying attention to them, SPACs continued to live on. Now, two years later, there are signs of a resurgence, and some investors are seeing new opportunities. This week on Tech Check, zombie SPACs – back from the dead.

Calculating who is set to lose the most in the showdown between Disney and Charter is complex. Disney could lose contract fees for Charter’s 15 million subscribers, but the dispute is also driving a huge jump in Hulu + Live TV subs. Disney owns 67% of Hulu, but will also soon renegotiate ownership with Comcast. Plus, AI is increasingly playing a role in sports, most recently in this year’s U.S. Open. The USTA has been using IBM’s Watson AI to provide commentary, working to translate it into every possible language, and has even correctly forecast who’s most likely to win a match.