Cantor Equity Partners II stock jumps after Citron Research endorsement

Investing.com – Morocco stocks were lower after the close on Thursday, as losses in the Utilities, Banking and Mining sectors led shares lower.

At the close in Casablanca, the Moroccan All Shares declined 0.58%.

The best performers of the session on the Moroccan All Shares were SMI (CSE:SMI), which rose 5.49% or 312.00 points to trade at 6,000.00 at the close. Meanwhile, Miniere Touissit (CSE:CMT) added 5.31% or 111.00 points to end at 2,200.00 and Sanlam Maroc SA (CSE:SAH) was up 2.59% or 59.00 points to 2,339.00 in late trade.

The worst performers of the session were Societe Equipement Domestique et Menager SA (CSE:EQD), which fell 6.22% or 87.00 points to trade at 1,311.00 at the close. Lesieur Cristal (CSE:LES) declined 4.88% or 18.00 points to end at 351.00 and Ste de Travaux de Realisation d’Ouvrages et de Constuction Industielle SA (CSE:STR) was down 4.62% or 12.10 points to 249.90.

Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Casablanca Stock Exchange by 41 to 16 and 3 ended unchanged.

Shares in SMI (CSE:SMI) rose to all time highs; up 5.49% or 312.00 to 6,000.00. Shares in Sanlam Maroc SA (CSE:SAH) rose to all time highs; up 2.59% or 59.00 to 2,339.00.

Crude oil for February delivery was down 4.42% or 2.74 to $59.28 a barrel. Elsewhere in commodities trading, Brent oil for delivery in March fell 4.22% or 2.81 to hit $63.71 a barrel, while the February Gold Futures contract fell 0.49% or 22.85 to trade at $4,612.85 a troy ounce.

EUR/MAD was down 0.08% to 10.72, while USD/MAD rose 0.30% to 9.24.

The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0.29% at 99.19.

Investing.com -- Morgan Stanley upgraded KLA Corp to overweight, saying the company is positioned to outperform as investor focus shifts toward foundry logic spending alongside memory.

The bank said memory remains a key bottleneck for AI, but foundry capacity is emerging as a parallel constraint.

That shift should drive higher foundry capital spending, supporting near-term estimate upgrades for logic equipment that could be as strong as those seen in memory.

Morgan Stanley said it expects KLA to benefit from rising process control intensity at leading-edge foundries.

It models KLA’s share of TSMC capital spending rising by 30 basis points in 2026 and a further 40 basis points in 2027, driven by greater inspection and metrology needs. It also assumes Intel contributes to growth in 2027.

The bank raised its 2026 and 2027 EPS estimates by 7% and 14%, respectively, and now forecasts revenue growth of 16% in 2026 and 19% in 2027, versus Street expectations of 10% and 9%.

It said KLA is set for two years of EPS acceleration, with growth of 17% in 2026 and 24% in 2027. Morgan Stanley’s 2027 EPS estimate is now 16% above consensus.

Most of the upward revisions are tied to foundry logic, where the bank lifted its 2026 and 2027 estimates by 10% and 18%. By contrast, memory estimates rose 4% and 10%.

Morgan Stanley also said KLA’s memory exposure remains underappreciated. It expects KLA’s memory share to rise to 7.2% in 2025–27 from an average of 6.8% in 2022–24, supported by higher process control intensity across DRAM and NAND.

The bank raised its valuation multiple to 33x from 27x, citing structural growth in process control, and set a $1,697 price target, implying 18% upside.

Investing.com -- Verizon is giving customers a $20 account credit following a service disruption that affected its network on Wednesday.

In a statement, the telecommunications company acknowledged it "did not meet the standard of excellence" customers expect. The credit, which Verizon says covers multiple days of service on average, can be redeemed through the myVerizon app.

Business customers will be contacted separately regarding their credits, according to the company.

Verizon admitted the credit "isn’t meant to make up for what happened," adding that "no credit really can." The company described the offer as a way to acknowledge customers’ time and show the matter is important to them.

For users still experiencing connectivity issues, Verizon recommended restarting devices by powering down and back on, calling this "the fastest way to reconnect your phone to the network."

The company apologized for the service problems and pledged to "continue to work hard day and night" to provide the network quality and service customers expect.

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Updates with outlook, management comments, analyst commentary, stock move 

Investing.com - U.S.-listed shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. rose by more than 5% in early trading on Thursday, after the world’s largest contract chipmaker posted stronger-than-expected fourth-quarter net profit thanks to outsized artificial intelligence demand.

But the group set a much higher capital expenditure forecast for 2026, stating that it intended to ramp up production capacity aggressively to meet rising AI demand. 

TSMC expects 2026 capital expenditure to be in a range of $52 billion and $56 billion, compared to $40.90 billion in 2025, CFO Wendell Huang said in a post-earnings call. 

Huang warned that TSMC’s mid-to-long-term margins were also set to weaken as the chipmaker continues to build out its production capacity, especially overseas. CEO C.C. Wei also warned of "significantly higher" capital expenditures and costs in the coming years. 

Net profit at the bellwether for chip demand and the AI trade came in at a record T$505.74 billion ($16 billion) in the three months to December 31, more than Bloomberg estimates of T$467.0 billion and higher than the T$374.68 billion seen a year ago.

TSMC’s quarterly revenue, which it had previously disclosed, rose to T$1.046 trillion ($33 billion) from T$868.46 trillion a year earlier. Huang forecast first-quarter 2026 revenue of $34.6 billion to $35.8 billion. 

The company benefited from soaring demand for its advanced chips, with its 3-nanometer processors accounting for over a quarter of overall revenue from its wafer unit. 

Wei said the "AI megatrend" remained in play and was likely to continue in the coming years, with the company also receiving positive signals from its largest customers.  

While TSMC’s high-performance computing unit remained its biggest earnings driver, revenue contribution from its smartphone chips division grew slightly to 32% in the fourth quarter from 30% a quarter earlier. 

This was potentially due to increased demand from Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), which used new TSMC-made chips in its popular iPhone 17 handset line. 

TSMC is also a key supplier of advanced AI processors to Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) -- a relationship that has helped supercharge TSMC’s earnings and valuation over the past two years. 

The firm has benefited from a rush among the world’s largest technology companies to build out data center infrastructure to support their AI ambitions. Advanced chips are a key component of data centers, given the heavy computing requirements of AI models.

"The phase of high revenue growth and margin expansion should sustain on continued AI investment and favorable pricing outlook from its technology leadership and product mix upgrade," analysts at BofA Securities said in a note.

Last year, TSMC announced a $165-billion investment in the U.S. aimed at building more production capacity. The investment -- a bulk of which is directed at a facility in Arizona -- appeared to be designed to address the Trump administration’s calls for more domestic chip manufacturing. 

TSMC signaled on Thursday that it will push to further increase output in the U.S., with a target of 20% to 30% of overall capacity intended for the Arizona facility. 

Scott Kanowsky contributed reporting.