Equities Weekly | US Equities – AI's Sustainable Growth Story Amid Market Jitters
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Chief Investment Office4 Sep 2024
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US equities: AI, a sustainable growth story amid market jitters. NVIDIA’s earnings report last Wednesday (28 Aug) once again shattered market expectations, with its 2Q sales reaching an astounding USD30.04bn, marking a 122% y/y increase. This achievement highlights NVIDIA's fifth consecutive quarter of triple-digit annual sales growth, underscoring the sustained demand for its chips. Despite its impressive earnings, markets remain jittery over AI’s future, with many questioning how sustainable this demand truly is. Comparing today’s AI technologies to the adoption of the internet back in the 90s, we observe the following:

  1. Funded by free-cash-flow instead of debt. Unlike the dot-com era of the 1990s, the AI revolution today is being funded by free-cash-flow rather than debt. Tech companies such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta that lead the AI race of today are flushed with cash from their well-established profitable businesses. The projected growth in free-cash-flow of these companies is expected to grow 142% from USD142.8bn in 2020 to USD345bn by 2026.
  2. Sustainable capex. Big Tech companies are allocating around c.40% of their capital expenditures (capex) to EBITDA for AI-related projects. A stable capex to EBITDA ratio suggests disciplined capital management, ensuring that resources are not stretched too thin. This self-sustaining financial model ensures that these companies are not over-leveraged, making the AI trend far more resilient to economic fluctuations.
Equity fund flows: The week ended 28 Aug witnessed net inflows into both Emerging Market (EM) and Developed Market (DM) Equity Funds. US Equity Funds registered inflows of USD 5.8bn as resilient consumer data, along with cooling inflation, raised market optimism. Europe, on the other hand, continued to see outflows of USD0.8bn last week. Within the EM space, China Equity Funds attracted significant inflows of USD6.1bn despite negative revisions from retail sales last week while Japan equities experienced outflows of USD1.2bn for the week.

Figure 1: Projected free-cash-flow of Big Tech companies expected to reach USD345bn by 2026


Source: Bloomberg, DBS


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