Stocks Climb as Banks Step in to Help First Republic; Microsoft Unveiled AI Office Copilot

The stock market rose on Thursday as a consortium of 11 of the biggest U.S. banks said it would inject $30 billion in capital into troubled First Republic Bank amid the industry’s crisis.

Meanwhile, Microsoft unveiled Copilot that would bring Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Office 365.

Overall, S&P jumped 1.8% to 3,960, while NASDAQ accelerated 2.5% to 11,717. Growth stocks were up big as money moved away from banks.

Tweet of the Day

🚨Breaking:

Microsoft just launched 365 Copilot, and it's insane.

It's essentially ChatGPT for:
-Word
-Excel
-Powerpoint
-Outlook
-Teams

Check out the demo👇 pic.twitter.com/ATW0mfPwhC

— Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) March 16, 2023

Chart of the Day

Here is the one-year chart of HubSpot (HUBS) as of March 1, 2023, when the stock was at $383.

HubSpot offers online software that can keep track your business’ customers and potential customers, do online marketing campaigns, trace if people are opening your emails, and even automate customer service team.

HubSpot came through with a fantastic quarter. The company beat both profit and revenue estimates, then guided both profit and estimates higher for the upcoming quarter. Management guided 2023 profit estimates to around $4.29 a share, which is wayy higher than analyst estimates of $2.84. Large deals were the fastest growing part of the business last qtr.

HUBS is part of the Aggressive Growth Portfolio. With a P/E of 89, the stock is expensive on a P/E basis, but at 9x revenue, the stock is reasonable on a price-to-revenue basis.