Wall Street Lunch: Dan Ives Teams Up With Yorkville Securities To Launch Merchant Bank

Tech analyst Dan Ives, known for his bullish calls on stocks like Apple (AAPL) and AI names announced that he has teamed up with Yorkville Securities to form a new kind of merchant bank.

Listen below or on the go on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Yorkville Ives to focus on AI revolution. (0:12) Wholesale inflation cools. (1:41)

CoreWeave explores hedging memory-chip prices. (2:37) This is an abridged transcript of the podcast: Our top story so far, tech analyst Dan Ives, known for his bullish calls on stocks like Apple (AAPL) and AI names announced that he has teamed up with Yorkville Securities to form a new kind of merchant bank.

Yorkville Ives – which should be the name of a “Trading Places” character – will combine Yorkville Securities' buy-side experience and 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.”

“The firms that will define the next decade won't simply advise clients, they'll invest alongside them,” Yorkville Ives CEO Roger Briggs added. “Companies need a strategic partner that can help shape opportunities, structure transactions, provide capital, and stay engaged long after a deal closes.” Among active stocks, ASML (ASML) rose after the chip equipment maker raised its full-year sales forecast for the second time this year and said it plans to expand capacity after strong AI demand helped second-quarter results beat expectations.

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) got a good, but not good enough, reaction after beating second-quarter earnings estimates and raising its EPS and revenue guidance. Seeking Alpha analyst Edmund Ingham said the year-over-year decline in EPS "appears to have displeased Wall Street," though he noted performance in the company's innovative medicine business was "especially strong." And BlackRock (BLK) gained after the asset manager beat second-quarter earnings expectations.

The company attracted $868B in net inflows over the past 12 months, reflecting 10% organic base fee growth. Looking to the economy, more encouraging inflation data arrived, this time on the wholesale side. The Producer Price Index fell 0.3% month over month, versus expectations for a 0.1% decline.

The prior month's increase was revised to 0.6% from 1.1%. That brought the annual rate down to 5.5%, well below the 6.2% consensus. Core PPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.2% for the month, below expectations for a 0.4% increase.

The annual core rate slowed to 4.7%, compared with expectations for 5.2%. The odds of another Fed rate hike this year have fallen to 75% from 85% a week ago, with both PPI and CPI pointing to easing price pressures. But Schwab strategist Kevin Gordon said the PPI components that feed into the Fed's preferred PCE inflation measure suggest "a firmer print for June than what we got with CPI yesterday ...

only hospital outpatient care declined month over month." In other news of note, memory swaps, anyone? CoreWeave (CRWV) is reportedly exploring the use of financial derivatives to hedge against a future decline in memory and storage chip prices.

The unusual move underscores how deeply the AI boom has tied cloud providers to the volatile chip market. To lock in supply amid soaring demand, cloud operators have signed long-term agreements with memory and storage suppliers such as Micron (MU) and SanDisk (SNDK), Reuters reported. Many of those agreements guarantee suppliers a minimum price for DRAM and storage chips.

That protects chipmakers from a downturn but leaves cloud companies exposed if prices fall. As a result, CoreWeave executives have discussed ways to hedge that risk, including using put options. And in the Wall Street Research Corner, Long Global Semiconductors (SMH) is now the most crowded trade, according to Bank of America's latest Global Fund Manager Survey.

Some 82% of July respondents said long chip positions are now overcrowded, up from 80% in June and 73% in May. The Long Magnificent 7 (MAGS) trade has slipped to a distant second at just 7%. Other positions barely registered.

Long U.S. Dollar (UUP) ranked third at 4%, followed by Short Europe Equities and Long Oil (USO) (BNO). Editor's Note: This article discusses one or more securities that do not trade on a major U.S. exchange. Please be aware of the risks associated with these stocks.