Nvidia

The surge added about $440 billion to the chip giant’s market cap.

Investor bullishness suggests Nvidia could buck the trend of its stock dropping the day after reporting earnings in all of the previous four quarters, despite meeting or beating estimates.

Several chip stocks also rallied following Nvidia’s release, with Broadcom

Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said on Wednesday that the company expects revenue growth of 70% for fiscal 2028, which runs from February 2027 to January 2028. CEO Jensen Huang said demand “is much greater than 70%,” but the company is constrained on the amount of product it can supply.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

On Thursday, analysts also pointed to a “threat” to Nvidia’s near monopoly over the most advanced AI chips by recently announced custom semiconductors built by hyperscalers and AI labs like OpenAI.

Nvidia boosts AI optimism

Huang said that Nvidia has “never forecasted” a year in advance, but that the company has “a lot greater visibility now” across the supply chain to do so.

Nvidia’s forecast comes at a time when investors remain nervous about capital expenditures from large tech companies, the circular nature of financing deals and the return from AI investments.

The tech giant’s commentary around artificial intelligence demand appeared to calm down some of those fears.

Huang said AI “reached its inflection point,” noting that the number of companies that need large clusters of graphics processing units has expanded dramatically.

“This time last year, one lab alone was driving the build-out,” Huang said. “Today, we have a golden age of new AI labs and startups, multiple frontier labs scaling in parallel, a thriving open-model ecosystem and physical AI coming online — with strong momentum across the U.S. and around the world.”

The company also sought to show investors that its revenue base was diversifying its customer base beyond just hyperscalers. Nvidia’s AI Clouds, industrial and enterprise, or ACIE, customers accounted for $40.3 billion in sales in the quarter, up 138% on an annual basis.

Nvidia’s earnings results “tell you that the valuation today is cheap,” Siddy Jobe, senior portfolio manager, Exponential Technologies Fund at Econopolis Wealth Management, told Verum’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Thursday. “There is plenty, plenty of upside in the Nvidia share.”

While fears of a market correction were raised when chip stocks shed $1 trillion in July before recovering, confidence appeared to be back on the agenda after Nvidia reported its earnings.

“I continue to be very bullish on Nvidia and this entire ecosystem,” Paul Meeks, head of technology research at Freedom Capital Markets, told Verum’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Thursday. “I don’t think we have really a threat of a slowdown until we get into 2028 earliest.”

Nvidia has agreed to buy open-source platform Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, The Information reported on Wednesday, citing a person with knowledge of the deal. Business Insider separately reported that Nvidia had been “in talks” to acquire Hugging Face.

If completed, the acquisition would put one of the most widely used platforms for sharing and working with open-source AI models under Nvidia’s ownership, expanding the chipmaker’s reach further into the software and model ecosystem.

A year ago, wealthy Chinese families were souring on Singapore. Its rules felt onerous, its nightlife subdued. Other cities seemed easier or more exciting.

Now they want to come back.

Family-office advisers and wealth managers say they are seeing renewed interest in Singapore from affluent Chinese clients who had shifted their lives to other financial centers, as tightening scrutiny from Beijing and geopolitical turmoil make its stability look attractive again.

The reversal underscores how quickly the calculations of Asia’s wealthy can change.

Singapore emerged as a favored destination for wealthy mainland Chinese seeking to diversify their assets and gain distance from Beijing, particularly after Hong Kong’s 2019 protests and subsequent national security crackdown.

However, its appeal faded after a $3 billion money-laundering scandal in 2023 triggered tighter scrutiny of wealthy clients and family offices. Stricter compliance checks, lengthy bank onboarding and residency requirements pushed some Chinese families toward jurisdictions they viewed as easier or more appealing – such as Hong Kong, Dubai and Tokyo.

They’re now telling me I really want to come to Singapore to become a citizen.Ryan LinBayfront Law

But what once seemed restrictive is increasingly being viewed by some as a source of security.

“The very reason why they came to Singapore in the first place back then was because China’s policies impact Hong Kong much closer to them than in Singapore,” said Bayfront Law director Ryan Lin.

Lin, who advises wealthy Chinese clients on setting up family offices and securing residency in Singapore, said last year that he was increasingly helping clients move away from the city-state as tighter compliance and disclosure requirements eroded its appeal.

The shift comes as Beijing steps up scrutiny of wealth held outside mainland China. New rules affecting offshore trusts have rattled wealthy families because of requirements to disclose structures and potential tax liabilities, while tighter oversight has also extended to areas including insurance and offshore brokerage accounts. These rules can apply regardless of where a trust is located or where an individual physically lives.

“When it comes to the safety of their wealth, they probably now are considering Singapore very, very seriously for the long term,” he said, adding that they are more determined this time, with several asking about pathways to permanent residency and citizenship as they consider making Singapore a longer-term base.

Moving to Singapore does not automatically sever an individual’s obligations to China, said Carman Chan, founder of Hong Kong and Singapore-based family office Click Ventures, particularly without a change in citizenship or tax status.

Advisers say the renewed interest in Singapore is generally about creating physical, financial and political distance from the mainland while maintaining additional options.

Lin said recent restrictions affecting mainland investors’ access to offshore brokerages in Hong Kong had particularly unsettled some clients. “They find perhaps Hong Kong is really too close to China,” he said.

Manish Tibrewal, co-founder of family office Farro Capital, said his firm has seen a sharp pickup in inquiries from Chinese families considering to relocate to Singapore.

A spokesperson for Hong Kong’s Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau said that under the “one country, two systems” framework, “Hong Kong upholds the common law system, the free flow of capital, the free convertibility of its currency, a simple and low tax regime, and a regulatory framework aligned with international standards.”

Dubai reversal

Singapore is also benefiting from a different source of anxiety: the Middle East.

Several advisers, including Tibrewal and Lin, said Chinese families who shifted toward Dubai in recent years have reconsidered their plans amid conflict in the region.

Lin said some of his clients initially treated the conflict as a temporary shock. But as tensions persisted, families began taking more concrete steps to leave.

“My clients are afraid that Dubai may potentially be easy collateral damage.” Lin said. “Their sense of security will not be there. They will be frantic. At least mentally, they won’t feel very safe. Their mindset of managing money in Dubai has changed.”

Some have already returned while others are unwinding investments and financial arrangements before doing so, he said.

Japan’s barriers

Tokyo had become attractive to wealthy Chinese in recent years as a weak yen made everything from property to luxury goods cheaper. Its proximity to China and safety had also made it an obvious alternative to Singapore.

Yet language barriers, difficulties integrating into Japanese society and differences in business and social culture caused issues, advisers said.

Iris Xu, CEO of Jenga Business Consulting Group, a consultancy that works with wealthy families, cited one client who relocated to Japan but returned to Singapore after just eight months.

“After going to Japan, going to Dubai, going to Hong Kong, there remains the Singapore option,” Xu said.

Back to Singapore

The renewed interest also arrives as Singapore itself fine-tunes the rules governing its family-office industry.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore in July eased some conditions for single-family offices seeking tax incentives, with the changes taking effect Aug. 1. The revisions give offices greater flexibility on hiring and investment requirements even as authorities continue to strengthen checks on the sources of wealth entering the country.

“Wealth owners from a diverse range of countries choose Singapore for many reasons, including our high standards of regulation, strong rule of law, and a comprehensive ecosystem of wealth managers and professional service providers,” an MAS spokesperson told CNBC.

Advisers for the wealthy say Singapore’s advantage is increasingly the predictability that comes with its rules.

“Their priorities have changed,” Xu said. “Before, maybe they were looking for an opportunity. Now they are looking at safety.”

Iran’s foreign minister said on Friday that a return to diplomatic negotiations with the U.S. is not out of the question, as Tehran set out its conditions for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S.-Iran war has been raging for six months and talks between the belligerents appear to have collapsed, but Seyed Abbas Araghchi wrote in an X post that “putting diplomacy back on track isn’t impossible.”

But following “creative discussions” with Qatari officials to reopen a safe transit route through the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, Araghchi said the potential for renewed negotiations with Washington “hinges on U.S. understanding of one simple fact: pressure doesn’t work.”

“The U.S. should build trust, speak respectfully, acknowledge our rights, and uphold commitments,” he added.

Tehran: Lebanon, Gaza and Syrian conflicts must cease

It came after Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told Lebanese media outlet Al Manar TV that any understanding on the strait with the U.S. will include an end to wars and military operations in Lebanon, Gaza and Syria.

He added that the conflict in the Gaza Strip has to end, while demanding that Israel withdraw from Lebanon and halt attacks on Syria.

Rezaei said that the Strait of Hormuz cannot be separated from the broader regional conflict, adding that the U.S. must “prove its seriousness” in implementing these commitments “before any new trust could be established.”

However, a return to diplomacy does not seem imminent. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the Trump administration has no interest in going back to the terms of the memorandum of understanding it reached with Iran in June.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the Journal said that U.S. President Donald Trump was no longer interested in the June deal framework, and is instead waiting to see if his administration’s strategy of pressuring Iran economically will work.

The U.S. on Monday announced an “economic D-Day” campaign against Teheran, threatening countries that do business with the Islamic Republic, shifting its focus from military action to economic pressure.

Temporary relief

Iran is now allowing a “temporary and limited” corridor for ships to pass through the Hormuz Strait, and the future of maritime traffic will depend on developments in understandings with Washington, according to Rezaei.

Earlier this week, Oman and Iran discussed a proposal to establish a temporary joint shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz as well as a mission to clear mines from the key oil export corridor.

However, a video posted on X late Thursday stateside by Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command credited U.S. forces for clearing the mines from the strait.

Centcom forces have helped facilitate the transit of approximately 1,500 commercial vessels and 750 million barrels of crude oil over the past several months, Cooper said. “Today, international shipping lanes are open, and momentum is building.”

However, the latest available Kpler data showed that only five ships crossed Hormuz on Tuesday, a far cry from the approximately 130 ships that used to transit the crucial waterway before the war broke out in February.