The Bot Brief

"There is no force on earth more powerful than an idea whose time has come."      Victor Hugo

Bots in the News:

Both the broad market and the Bot Index produced gains in excess of 5% for the week. The Bots came in at about 50 basis points above the S & P 500. The robotic companies were pushed by four stocks who increased by double-digits. The best performance was produced by Tesla whose 17.34% jump came as a result of the return of Elon Musk to the company from his temp job at Doge. His attendance in the Middle East’s technology show, as a part of President Trump’s entourage, as well investors looking beyond the automobile market and into robo-taxis, humanoid robots and space technologies helped to place the company in the forefront of the future.

NVIDIA Corp. jumped 16.07% along with surging technology issues for the week. The company’s 7% holding of CoreWeave has certainly been a boost. CoreWeave has doubled in the past two months since the IPO in March. CoreWeave is one of the largest holders of Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs) and rents its data center capacity to Big Tech firms such as Microsoft (MSFT) and Meta (META) as they scramble to power their AI ambitions.

New member to the Bot Index (replacing the faltering iRobot Company on April 4^th) Zebra Technologies rose 12.71% on its recently reported quarterly earnings. The company’s revenues exceeded analyst’s expectations, and the earning beat was a strong 11%.

The final major gainer for the bots was the 16.34% jump by Taiwan’s Hiwin Technologies. The increasing dialogue regarding the U.S. Administration’s tariffs on Chinese goods, is likely a distraction and diversion from China’s territorial ambitions in the region.

There were only three decliners in the Bot Index. OMRON Corp., a Japanese component fell 2.38% to lead the losers. The defense manufacturers – Lockheed-Martin and Northrup Grumman each experienced minor losses.

Ya Wanna Buy a Car?

A Chinese robot company has developed a humanoid robot designed to specifically serve as a guide and sales greeter in automobile showrooms. The company Chery Automobile introduced its Marnine. The robot can detail vehicle specifications, lead tours throughout the showroom, serve refreshments to potential buyers and speak in a variety of languages. The AI driven robot can recognize gestures, respond to voice inquiries. There is already a prototype operating within the company’s showroom in Kuala Lumpur and is expected to populate its dealerships worldwide (representing 220 units). The Company anticipates, as does the Tesla Humanoid robot Optimus by Elon Musk, that there will be a strong demand for robots in a wide range of human/technology interactions in multiple industries.