TMTB Morning Wrap

Good morning. QQQs +30bps on a fairly slow mid-August morning. NVDA +1% the main story after announcing $500B partnership (more on that below). P +6% after announcing a 2nd hyperscaler customer and getting upgraded at Citi. MDB +2% after Citi added to upside catalyst watch.

Yields down ticking 2bps across the curve while Crude remains flat.

Semis +1.3% catching a bid this morning led by NVDA +1%, semi-cap and neoclouds,

Asia mixed overnight: Hang Seng -1.1%, HSCEI -1.09%, SHCOMP -0.82%, Shenzhen -0.46%, Taiwan TAIEX +0.43%, Korea KOSPI +0.73%. Memory names outperformed with Samsung +4% and SK Hynix +1%

We’ll cover SE results this morning first then move onto the usual. Let’s get to it…

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EARNINGS

SE: Strong 2Q with Shopee the standout. GMV +28.4% YoY came in ~3pts above Street and adj. EBITDA margin reached 0.67% vs 0.59% Street, while Monee also beat. Garena bookings were solid at +15.5% YoY but modestly below expectations; importantly, management raised 2026 Shopee adj. EBITDA guidance to $1B vs $968M Street.

Call ongoing

Key KPIs vs Street

• Revenue: $7.79B, +48% YoY vs ~$7.08B Street

• Shopee GMV: +28.4% YoY vs +25.7% Street

• Shopee revenue: $5.6B, +48% YoY vs ~35.6% Street growth

• Shopee adj. EBITDA: $255M vs $221M Street

• Shopee adj. EBITDA margin: 0.67% vs 0.59% Street

• Monee revenue: $1.4B, +59% YoY vs +49.5% Street

• Garena bookings: +15.5% YoY vs +13.1% Street

• Group adj. EBITDA: $917M vs $918.5M Street

• 2026 Shopee adj. EBITDA guide: $1B vs $968M Street

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TECH RESEARCH/NEWS

We'll start with NVDA…

NVDA: Morgan Stanley Says $500B AI Financing Vehicle Reduces Circularity Concerns and Could Add 10%+ to FY29 EPS

Morgan Stanley reiterates Overweight, Top Pick and a $288 price target, arguing NVDA’s new $500B AI-factory financing structure is a net positive because six sophisticated third-party investors provide most of the capital and underwriting while NVDA retains optionality to co-invest up to roughly 25%. Morgan Stanley says this should reduce circularity concerns—particularly with current partner lease guarantees totaling only about $3.5B—while accelerating sovereign and neocloud deployments. Morgan Stanley also says potential revenue-sharing economics could create a 100%-gross-margin annuity stream and, using its GenAI ROIC framework, drive more than 10% upside to FY29 EPS.

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NVDA: BofA Says $500B Third-Party Financing Platform Shifts Risk Off Balance Sheet and Extends the AI Buildout

BofA reiterates Buy and Top Pick, saying NVDA’s $500B+ financing platform with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR is a cleaner structure than direct vendor financing because third-party investors bear most of the underwriting while NVDA supports asset value through fungible, transferable CUDA GPUs with strong residual economics. BofA says the structure should help labs, neoclouds and sovereigns finance GPUs, power and data centers, extending the runway toward a $1.7T+ CY30 AI systems TAM. BofA sees the key remaining risks as end-customer demand, power/regulatory constraints and financing opacity, but says the setup remains structurally bullish into Vera Rubin.

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Simplifying the news…

TMTB Slack

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Anthropic: Anthropic Tries to Shore Up Investor Confidence Ahead of Blockbuster IPO in Sept or Oct - WSJ

The WSJ says investors are pressing management on cheaper Chinese models, tensions with the Trump administration, data-center opposition and concerns over Anthropic’s growing influence in the AI ecosystem. Anthropic is arguing that frontier-model quality remains the key differentiator and plans to expand further into healthcare and biology to broaden AI’s perceived benefits. The company said in May that run-rate revenue had surpassed $47B, driven in part by the breakout success of Claude Code.

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MDB: Citi Reissues Positive 90-Day Catalyst Watch as Atlas Growth and AI-Native Demand Accelerate