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• Markets: Stocks were headed for a great Tuesday before investors pulled out their Uno reverse card, sending indexes back down and leaving the Dow largely unchanged. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s social media company, Truth Social, surged 16% on its first day of trading, just as the former president must pay $175 million as part of his civil fraud trial.

Market Analysis - Last 7 days

Over the last 7 days, the market has risen 1.3%, driven by gains of 1.9% in the Information Technology sector. As for the past 12 months, the market is up 30%. As for the next few years, earnings are expected to grow by 13% per annum.

The stock market kicked off its short trading week with a whimper as some investors questioned the enthusiasm around the Fed’s recent assurances that it’s still planning three rate cuts this year. But one stock that roared was Digital World Acquisition Corp., the shell company that’s merging with Donald Trump’s Truth Social and will begin trading under its new ticker, DJT, today. It popped after Trump got good news from a New York appeals court.

^{Source - https://www.simplywall.st/markets/us}

Market Trends and Economy

Nvidia Flexes AI Leadership With New Chips, Supercomputer, 'Microservices'

Late on Monday, Nvidia teased its next-generation artificial intelligence computing platform, Blackwell, and highlighted how it is helping to infuse AI technology into industries spanning health care, manufacturing, and more. Nvidia stock rose ahead of this news.

During the two-hour keynote presentation at the Nvidia GTC 2024 conference in San Jose, Calif., Chief Executive Officer of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, touted the enhanced capabilities of the Blackwell platform.

Ten Companies Create Huge Windfall Buying Back Heaps Of Stock

According to recently released data from the S&P Dow Jones Indices, ten S&P 500 companies, including Alphabet (GOOGL), RTX (RTX), and Meta Platforms (META), bought back $91 billion of their own shares in the fourth quarter. As a result of the buybacks, the shares of these top 10 companies are experiencing a bump. On average, they are up 10.4% this year, beating the S&P 500's 7.9% increase.

Despite companies being hit with a one percent tax by Congress, the popularity of buybacks didn’t slow down in 2023. "Fourth quarter 2023 share repurchases were $219.1 billion, up 18% from third quarter 2023's $185.6 billion expenditure, and up 3.7% from fourth quarter 2022's $211.1 billion," said Howard Silverblatt of S&P Dow Jones.

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Communities - Let’s Grow Together🌱

SoundHound

SoundHound uses innovative AI technologies to allow developers and business owners to maintain control over their brand image from anywhere using voice-enabled AI. The startup offers several products, including Houndify, an AI platform boasting the world’s fastest speech recognition, and a voice search and assistant app, Hound, that incorporates their trademarked “Speech-to-Meaning” and “Deep Meaning Understanding” technologies.

People.ai

People.ai leverages the power of AI technology to create an enterprise revenue platform that helps sales, marketing, and customer service teams provide the best customer experience by analyzing revenue opportunities. By documenting customer contacts, activity, and engagement, People.ai provides companies with actionable and effective insights.

Emerging Technology Review

New algorithm unlocks high-resolution insights for computer vision

Imagine glancing at a busy street for a few moments, then trying to sketch the scene from memory. Most people can draw the rough positions of major objects like cars, people, and crosswalks, but almost no one can draw every detail with pixel-perfect accuracy. The same is true for most modern computer vision algorithms; they are fantastic at capturing high-level details of a scene, but they lose fine-grained details as they process information.

Now, MIT researchers have created a system called “FeatUp” that lets algorithms capture all of the high- and low-level details of a scene at the same time — almost like Lasik eye surgery for computer vision.

Hospitals using AI to diagnose prostate cancer

Two hospitals are using artificial intelligence (AI) to help speed up diagnosing prostate cancer. Somerset NHS Foundation Trust said it is the first in the UK to introduce its AI tool, called Pi, to work alongside its team of radiologists. The Trust has joined forces with Cambridge-based company, Lucida Medical, to begin using the technology. It is now being used at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton and at Yeovil District Hospital.

Space Out

Astrobotic readies next lunar lander following failed Peregrine moon mission

Despite the failure of the first U.S. commercial lunar lander to ever operate in space, Astrobotic Technology is pressing forward on its next moon mission, which is still expected to launch before the year's end.

The build-up of hardware for the Astrobotic Griffin Mission One lander is now on view at the Pittsburgh-based private firm and can be seen from the adjoining Moonshot Museum. The upcoming moon lander, Griffin, is the largest lunar lander since the Apollo lunar module.

Euclid 'dark universe' telescope gets de-iced from a million miles away

De-icing should restore and preserve Euclid's ability to collect light from these ancient galaxies, but it's the first time this procedure will be done.

Just like drivers scrape ice from car windshields during the winter, scientists with the European Space Agency's (ESA) Euclid observatory are trying to "de-ice" the telescope — from a million miles away.

Ice layers, about as wide as a single strand of DNA, have accumulated on Euclid's mirrors. Although small, the ice appears to have caused "a small but progressive decrease" in the amount of starlight the telescope is capturing, according to a statement from the agency on March 19th. The telescope continues its scientific observations for now, while scientists begin the de-icing process by heating low-risk optical parts of the spacecraft. These low-risk areas correspond to sections on the telescope where released water is unlikely to impair other instruments, the agency said.

The Crypto State

Crypto and lobbying groups file briefs supporting Coinbase's push for the SEC to write rules

The Crypto Council for Innovation, crypto investment firm Paradigm, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and others are expressing their support of Coinbase’s call for the Securities and Exchange Commission to write rules for the crypto industry.

In amicus briefs filed on Monday in the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, groups said the SEC has been unclear in how it regulates crypto, that current securities laws don't fit, and warned that more firms could move their business elsewhere because of the U.S. regulatory environment. 

Smart contracts platform Soroban finally arrives on the Stellar network

The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) rolled out Soroban, a smart contracts platform on the payment-focused network, marking one of the most significant upgrades in the project’s ten-year history.

After a two-year testing phase, Soroban's mainnet phase 2 went live today, allowing the creation of user-ready decentralized applications.

Startup Spotlight

Forecastr.co is an AI-driven forecasting tool that leverages machine learning algorithms to analyze vast amounts of data in real time. It enables users to gain valuable insights into market trends, customer behavior, and potential growth opportunities. By utilizing advanced predictive analytics, Forecastr.co empowers its users to make data-driven decisions with confidence.

That’s a Wrap Slice

What is VedasLabs.io again?

VedasLabs.io is a Web 3.0 funding and networking platform that incentivizes an active, global community comprising founders, mentors, and investors. Our vision is to create a world where investment, the exchange of knowledge, and collaboration among investors, issuers, and industry experts are secure, instantaneous, and without friction.