It’s night. I’m at a lake near Oregon’s Mount Hood, sitting on the beach. Jazz music is playing as I write. I’m not in the real world.

Well, I sort of am. 

I’m wearing Apple’s new Vision Pro headset, which looks like a fancy pair of glowing ski goggles.

Apple’s long-awaited headset, which starts at $3,500, launches in the U.S. on Friday. It’s the company’s first major new gadget to hit the market since the Apple Watch debuted in April 2015. I’ve been testing it for nearly a week. While it has some shortcomings, it’s easily the most fun new product I’ve tried out in years.

Analysts don’t expect the Vision Pro to drive massive amounts of revenue initially. UBS anticipates Apple will ship about 400,000 headsets, leading to a “relatively immaterial” $1.4 billion in revenue this year. However, I’m convinced that if Apple eventually sells cheaper versions, we’ll see millions of people using them in the coming years.

The Vision Pro offers a new kind of experience that Apple calls “spatial computing.” You sit in your world while looking at a digital one, and then plop different apps around you. You can work, play games, watch movies or surf the web.

Thanks to very sharp displays, and a full M2 processor that’s usually found in Macs, the Vision Pro has the power to do a lot of what you’d expect from an Apple device. There’s a dedicated App Store for Vision Pro apps, but you can also install more than a million iPhone or iPad apps. Or pair it with your Mac and work while looking at a 4K display inside the goggles.

I’m only scratching the surface of the capabilities, but here’s the gist: This is an entirely new type of computing, providing a whole new world of experiences. It feels like the future.

Here’s what you need to know:

I was skeptical when I first met with Apple to see the Vision Pro. Companies have been trying to do virtual reality and augmented reality and mixed reality or gobbledygook reality for years.

Sometimes it’s cool, but most of the time I’m done after an hour or so.

With the Vision Pro, there are three key parts that come into play. It has super sharp and colorful screens, it allows you to see the world around you by default using “passthrough” technology, and it has a fast processor.

The displays help remove the “screendoor” effect that’s common in lower-cost headsets like the Meta Quest 3. That’s where you can see the pixels as you look through a headset. You can easily read text on a website or a book on the Vision Pro. And I was able to watch movies, including in 3D, on screens bigger and nicer than any TV in my house.

The Quest 3 and other headsets also have passthrough. But Apple’s works better. It’s clearer and sharper, enough so that I can comfortably see the room around me in full color and without any lag, though I still can’t read my phone. And I love how you can turn the small digital crown, just like on the Apple Watch or AirPods Max, to adjust the volume or transport yourself into a fully 3D landscape.

Virtual travel is a nice touch. You can work or watch movies in Hawaii, by a lake, in White Sands or at Joshua Tree. They’re all relaxing environments with calming sounds and slow animations – like clouds moving across the sky — that help you feel like you’re almost there.

Navigation is easy once you get the hang of it. This reminds me a bit of the iPhone moment, when Apple launched its multitouch display that changed how we interact with phones that had largely been navigated with a stylus, touchpad or keyboard. There aren’t any controllers here. The headset uses sensors to track your eyes (and even verify when you’re making purchases online or in the App Store.) Apple has a quick setup process that aligns the headset to your eyes and then has you look at a series of dots, pinching your fingers as you go so you can calibrate. If you wear glasses, Apple also sells inserts that pop into the headset.

It’s incredibly accurate. You just look where you want to go and then tap your thumb and index finger to select a button or app. There’s a white bar at the bottom of every app, for example, that you can grab to pull and push around. You can adjust the size of any app by looking at the corner and then dragging it out or in at a diagonal angle. And you can swipe through photos or scroll websites by holding your index finger and thumb together while pulling up or down.

Likewise, you zoom in and out by holding those fingers on both hands and pulling outward or inward. You don’t have to flail your hands in front of you. The headset’s external cameras can detect your fingers down in your lap. You can be subtle.

It packs a punch.

I launched more than a dozen apps around me. There’s no point in doing more, because you can’t see it all. I loved setting it up with a browser in front of me, music next to me and a TV screen above it all. But the world is yours to customize. You can open mail and a browser or leave Slack open next to a Word document with your calendar on the other side. Put your text messages on the ceiling if you want. It’s a completely new way to multitask.

A note: My screenshots show apps askew. But, in the headset, they’re all perfectly level.

I didn’t run into any slowdowns during my time with the Vision Pro. Part of that is due to how Apple renders content. It’s technically only sharpening the areas of the screen where you’re focusing, leaving the other areas blurry. That’s why some of the screenshots here look out of focus around the sides. Inside the headset, it’s all super crisp. It’s called foveated rendering, and it allows for optimized processing.

I loved watching movies with the headset. I lounged on my couch and put up a huge screen across the wall of my living room and watched an hour of “Barbie,” and the two first episodes of “Masters of the Air” before the battery was at about 5%. Another night I watched “Greyhound.” I used the NBA app, which was updated to work on the Vision Pro, to stream four games at once, with the main game in the middle and others pinned to the sides. It’s wild.

Apple also has some specially recorded content that’s so sharp you feel like you’re standing right there next to a rendered dinosaur or a video of a rhinoceros. There’s a slightly terrifying clip with a woman walking on a tightrope between cliffs. Don’t watch if you’re afraid of heights. The clips show the type of content third parties will eventually be able record and publish to the headset. I imagine sports highlights or even sitting courtside at a live game.  

The Disney+ app is fun. You can watch movies in one of about four different 3D landscapes. I sat in a racer on Tatooine and watched a bit of a Star Wars movie, but then switched over to watch “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse” in 3D. Unlike 3D TVs and movies, which generally flopped, the effects work well in the headset. It’s neat, but I still prefer watching movies in 2D. It feels more natural to me.

FaceTime works well. You see a clear video of the person you’re calling on a screen in front of you. But they don’t see you. Or, not the real you. They see a 3D-rendered version of you called a digital Persona. It’s still in beta, and mine looked like a much older version of me. My colleague thought I looked like an 80-year-old man. My wife laughed.

You create a Persona by selecting an option in the settings menu and then removing the headset and following screens on the external display. It asks you to look up, look down, look left, look right, smile, smile with teeth, and close your eyes. Then, in seconds, it creates a 3D Persona.

It looks more human than cartoony like with other headsets. I spoke with people over FaceTime also using Personas, and it’s much easier to hold a conversation without feeling like you’re two goofy avatars trying to talk. You can hold a real meeting if necessary in your pajamas while your Persona is in work attire. Personas also carry over to other apps like WebEx.

Your Persona’s eyes can appear on the outside display. Someone will see glowing effects on the outside of the headset if you have screens up in front of you. If they begin talking to you and you’re in an immersive view – like one of the landscapes I mentioned earlier – they’ll start to fade into focus so you can see them. As you look at them, the eyes of your digital Persona become visible on the outside of the headset. It looks like you’re wearing a snorkeling mask.

In real life, I just removed the headset face when my wife came in to chat.

The built-in speakers are great. They get nice and loud and support spatial audio, so if you turn your head away from the movie in front of you, the sound stays in the same place, much like if you were watching a real TV. Music and movies sounded fantastic, with full surround sound. People can hear the audio coming out of the headset, though, so you’ll want to use AirPods in public.

I love the “spatial photos” you can capture using the cameras on the outside of the Vision Pro or with the latest iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. The camera creates a 3D version of a photo or video. I filmed my 4-month-old daughter eating and my dog’s 9th birthday, for example, in hopes that I’ll be able to come back and relive some of those moments. I wish I had recorded some of these videos when my stepfather was alive because it’d feel like he was in the room with me. Some people might see it as a gimmick, but I found it moving.

Lastly, the build quality is superb. Apple used top-of-the-line glass, screens and metals. It feels like a premium headset and it’s comfortable to wear. My only complaint is that I had to be deliberate to hold it by the metal frame. The padded inserts pop off their magnets if you try to grab them. Those could be stronger, but they were designed to be easily removed so people could share the headset by popping in their own inserts.

Apple’s apps work well. You’ll find Notes, Music, Safari, Podcasts, Photos, Apple TV+, Maps and more. Other apps include SkyGuide and Disney+ and there are Apple Arcade games. Many more are coming, as most apps haven’t yet been built specifically for Vision Pro.

The Vision Pro supports more than a million iPhone and iPad apps. But you need to search for each app individually and some of them aren’t available. Netflix and Spotify haven’t been shy about not supporting the Vision Pro, though you can easily access either using the browser. Still, there are lots of others that I couldn’t find: 1Password isn’t there, which made logging into some apps a bit of a pain. You won’t find Uber, DoorDash (but there’s GrubHub!) or Amazon. None of Google’s apps are here, including YouTube TV, though it works fine in the browser.

Popular games like Diablo Immortal and Genshin Impact aren’t available. Facebook’s apps aren’t here, so no Instagram. These are just a few I noticed.

Some work well, though. I didn’t have any issues with the X iPad app, for example. CNBC’s app worked fine. Others, like Amazon Prime Video, exist but weren’t great during initial tests. A bug showed a big box in the middle of the screen when I was watching a movie. That bug has since been fixed.

For some apps that aren’t yet available, developers are working to optimize them and eliminate bugs.

Apple Keychain was sometimes buggy in iPad apps. This is Apple’s version of 1Password, and I rely on it to enter my username and passwords. It generally works fine. But if you have two usernames for apps, like my wife and I do for Amazon Prime Video or Peacock, the app locks up when you try to select a different login. I informed Apple of the bug.

The floating keyboard is useful for search or typing quick messages, but you won’t be able to type very fast at first. You look at each letter on a digital keyboard and select it, or reach out and tap the digital keyboard. I got faster during my time with the Vision Pro, but nowhere near as quick as I am on my iPhone or a real keyboard. You can just use Siri voice-to-text to respond to iMessages or enter URLs in the browser (and launch apps). Still, you’re going to want to use a keyboard if you have to do a lot of typing.

There’s also the battery pack that plugs into the headset with a proprietary plug that you twist in. I don’t mind it. I thought the pack worked fine, but it would be a lot easier if it was just embedded into the headset, though that would add weight.

I’d buy the Vision Pro right now if I had an extra $3,500. I’d even consider trading in my iPad Pro and MacBook Pro to offset the cost since the headset gives me a lot of the same capabilities. But that’s not an option.

You’ll definitely love it for movies. I think a lot of people will also really enjoy being able to read the news and browse the web while having a huge TV screen open and lounging on their couch. Some may find they can work in it. I did. It’s fun.

Apple’s real opportunity will materialize when it finds a way to mass produce the Vision Pro at closer to $2,000, or less. Until then, it may be a niche product. But the experience blows everything else out of the water. It’s Apple’s most exciting product in years and it’s the best example yet that this will become a new way of computing.

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The world’s five richest men have more than doubled their vast wealth since 2020, according to an Oxfam report, as the charity calls for curbs on “corporate power.”

The report found that the combined fortune of the world’s wealthiest people — Tesla CEO Elon Musk, LVMH boss Bernard Arnault and family, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, and veteran investor Warren Buffett — has jumped from $405 billion in March 2020 to $869 billion in November 2023. Oxfam used data from Forbes and Wealth X which has not been independently verified by CNBC.

Oxfam’s report was published Monday to coincide with the start of the latest World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, which sees the so-called global elite of top business and political leaders meet in Davos, Switzerland, although the five billionaires named in the report are not due to attend.

Seven of the world’s ten biggest companies have a billionaire as their CEO or main shareholder, the report found. Meanwhile, the world’s richest 1% of people own 43% of global financial assets, according to the research, such as publicly listed instruments like stocks and bonds, along with stakes in privately-held businesses.

“If current trends continue, the world will have its first trillionaire within a decade but poverty won’t be eradicated for another 229 years,” Oxfam said.

The charity also highlighted that net profit among 148 of the world’s biggest companies jumped 52% in the year to June 2023, versus their average profits between 2018 and 2021.

“Extreme poverty in the poorest countries is still higher than it was pre-pandemic, yet a small number of super-rich men are racing to become the world’s first trillionaire within the next ten years,” Aleema Shivji, Oxfam’s interim chief executive, said.

The charity called on governments to reduce the gap between the ultra-rich and the rest of society by “reining in corporate power,” including by breaking up monopolies, capping CEO pay and adding new taxes on permanent wealth and excess profits.

CNBC attempted to approach the individuals named for comment.

Training of elite athletes dates as far back as the Ancient Olympic Games, when so-called gymnastes advised runners, chariot racers, wrestlers and boxers on technique, nutrition and strength conditioning.

Fast forward to today’s Olympians prepping for next summer’s Paris Games. Their trainers and coaches adhere to the same Olympic motto — faster, higher, stronger — yet have the added benefit of millennia of ever-advancing technology, which now has been super-charged with artificial intelligence.

Trainers and coaches at U.S. Soccer, one of the 47 National Governing Bodies overseen by the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, are using AI technology to instantaneously identify and track player movements and ball positions. A suite of software tools allows them to study a variety of human performance metrics, such as body position, velocity, speed and timing in real time on the field of play.

“Utilizing advances in AI and computer vision, we’ve been able to track and study personalized analytics from a variety of sports to determine the strengths and deficiencies in an athlete’s movement and help them make data-informed training and competition plans that can help them improve their performance, as well as their own health,” said Mike Levine, director of performance innovation business operations at the USOPC, based in Colorado Springs, also the home of a high-tech Olympic training center.

While the USOPC and NGBs employ in-house experts in bleeding-edge technology development, data analytics and sports sciences and medicine, big tech companies lend their AI know-how as well. USA Surfing staff, for instance, has teamed up with Microsoft engineers to figure out how best to ride waves. They take digital videos of surfers in action and use AI to analyze data on body movement, surfboards and waves to determine what they did well and what could be improved.

“This work saves coaches and staff hundreds of hours of video tagging, facilitates the accumulation of more and higher-quality data and affords analysts and coaches significantly more time to analyze the data and implement learnings into real-life training and performance,” Levine said.

Creating 3-D models of athletes’ bodies with Intel technology

These are manifestations of computer vision systems, which use AI technology to replicate the capabilities of the human brain responsible for object recognition and classification. A commercial application, called 3D Athlete Tracking (3DAT), was developed by Intel‘s Olympic Technology Group a few years ago and is now being utilized by trainers in numerous sports. 3DAT incorporates sensor-less motion capture and digital video to create three-dimensional models of an athlete’s entire body, from head to toes, which trainers use to tweak and improve performance.

“We’re able to see ways athletes move and detect things not possible with just the human eye,” said Jonathan Lee, who as senior director of sports technology at Intel helped develop 3DAT and is now chief product officer at London-based sports tech company ai.io, which recently acquired the system from Intel.

3DAT has been adopted by Exos, a coaching company in Scottsdale, Arizona, that trains college football players for the National Football League’s annual scouting combine, an evaluation ahead of the league’s yearly draft. “Exos uses 3DAT to analyze the 40-yard dash and help players get faster,” Lee said. Digital video cameras, mounted on timing gates incrementally positioned along the course, capture data on how a runner comes off the line, his acceleration and velocity, and his body’s angle of attack.

The data instantaneously constructs a personalized skeletal model of each player for immediate review. Before a player’s next sprint, a trainer might say, “You need to be more upright or lean forward, and give him tips on how to achieve that,” Lee said.

The NFL-Amazon digital player and concussion-risk tracking

The NFL itself is harnessing AI and computer vision to enhance its Digital Athlete program, developed in partnership with Amazon Web Services beginning in 2019. The Digital Athlete provides a complete view of each NFL players’ experience by analyzing data from his training and game activity, which is captured by sensors and tags in equipment and hours of video from cameras in stadiums. Computer vision and machine learning systems track speed, collisions, blocks and tackles. This data is shared with clubs and allows teams to precisely understand what players need to stay healthy, recover quickly and perform at their best.

“AI and machine learning are the backbone of the program,” said Jennifer Langton, NFL senior vice president of health and safety innovation. “We’re able to analyze a substantial amount of data and automatically generate insights into which players might benefit from altering either training or recovery routines, a process that used to be so manual and cumbersome.”

The AI was taught to identify trauma by repeated exposure to and digestion of digital video images of helmets from all angles, Langton said, and then to cross-reference visual information from statistical data to determine what player was wearing what helmet. “With enough practice, the AI becomes exponentially faster and more reliable than humans at accurately identifying and classifying head collisions throughout a game and the season,” she said, allowing trainers and coaches to see which players are due to reduce their workloads and which have room for a more intensive workout.

The Digital Athlete program was rolled out as a pilot with four NFL teams last year and this season is available to all 32 franchises via a dedicated online portal. “The portal provides teams with a daily training load and risk-mitigation information, as well as league-wide injury trends and benchmarks they hadn’t had before,” Langton said, adding that the NFL will assess the data at the end of the season to evaluate tangible results of the program.

‘The next big thing’: Twin hearts of elite athletes

Another AI-enabled technology that’s making its way into elite athlete training is the digital twin, a virtual replica of a physical object, process or system that can be used to simulate, predict and improve real-world scenarios. Tata Consultancy Services, headquartered in Mumbai, recently announced a partnership with French tech developer Dassault Systèmes to produce a digital twin heart, mimicking the flesh-and-blood one of Des Linden, a two-time Olympic marathoner and winner of the 2018 Boston Marathon (sponsored by TCS, along with the races in New York, Chicago and London).

Linden’s avatar organ — created using AI-analyzed data from CT scans and MRIs — can simulate her heart rate, blood flow and oxygen levels, providing instant feedback that can be interpreted to adjust her training and competition. “We want to understand what is a safe zone for Des’ trainer to put her through,” said Dr. Srinivasan Jayaraman, a principal scientist at TCS. Instead of having her run on a treadmill or outdoors, “We can run simulations using her digital twin heart to vary different cardiovascular parameters and fine-tune her training.”

Linden is no stranger to sports tech, from online message boards back in her high school days for remotely comparing times with other runners to today’s state-of-the-art running shoes that world-class marathoners have broken records wearing. “The digital twin heart is going to be the next big thing,” she said. “Being able to map out [my training] and see the gains and drawbacks ahead of time will allow me to work smarter, not harder.”

That’s what Linden, aided by her digital twin heart, will be doing to train for the 2024 Olympic marathon trials in February. Qualifying for her third Team USA slot “will be a tough task,” said the 40-year-old runner, “but I’ll take a crack at it.”

AI and sports training diets

Although there’s no news yet of a digital twin of the human digestive system, AI is involved in planning Olympic athletes’ diet and nutrition. Alicia Glass, a senior sports dietician for the USOPC, designs meal plans for about 300 athletes with USA Track and Field and USA Swimming, a labor-intensive, hand-written task that’s been simplified with an AI-powered app called Notemeal. “They collected data from 37 dieticians from professional sports teams and organizations and used those data sets to generate individualized meal plans,” she said. “The value-add is that it’s a network of sports dieticians working with the best of the best athletes in the world.”

Glass still relies on her professional skills to understand the events each athlete competes in, their training regimens and goals, as well as their genetics, lean body mass and metabolic rate. Even athletes who train and compete in the same events require totally individualized meal plans, she said. “Notemeal makes that process a lot easier,” she said.

The athletes access Notemeal with a smartphone app. “I hit a toggle on my phone, and they get a text saying a meal has been created for you,” Glass said, adding that the app also applies AI to design personalized shopping lists and recipes.

Glass won’t claim that high-tech dietary planning will win medals next summer in Paris, but “many athletes would admit it helps improve their lifestyle because they’re more aware” of their personal fueling needs.

Linden says there is no turning back from the increasing role of technology in the lives of elite athletes. “Let’s just personalize the heck out of training and make sure we’re getting the maximum gains without setbacks from overworking,” she said.

Shares of iRobot, the maker of Roomba vacuums, closed up about 39% Friday after a report said the European Union is set to approve Amazon’s $1.7 billion acquisition of the company.

Reuters said Thursday morning the deal is set to “win unconditional EU antitrust approval,” citing three sources familiar with the matter. The European Commission is expected to rule on the deal by Feb. 14.

Representatives from the European Commission didn’t immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

The deal is still under review by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority said in June the deal would not result in “a substantial lessening of competition” in the U.K.

Amazon shares were flat.

Amazon announced its intention to acquire iRobot in August 2022 for $61 a share in an all-cash deal.

The acquisition marks Amazon’s fourth-largest deal, behind its $13.7 billion purchase of grocery chain Whole Foods in 2017, its $8.45 billion purchase of film studio MGM in 2021 and its $3.9 billion acquisition of boutique primary-care provider One Medical, announced last July.

— CNBC’s Annie Palmer contributed to this report.

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This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

A fierce winning streakU.S. stocks rose Tuesday to hit fresh winning streaks, their longest in three years. But Asia-Pacific markets were mixed Wednesday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 ticked down 0.1% despite rising confidence among large Japanese manufacturers, according to a Reuters Tankan survey. Meanwhile, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 climbed 0.2% a day after the country’s central bank raised rates by 25 basis points.

Microsoft closes at a highMicrosoft shares climbed 1.12% to hit $360.53, a record high. It’s the eighth consecutive day in which the technology giant’s shares rose, a streak unseen since January 2021. Investors cheered Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s surprise appearance at OpenAI’s event, where he encouraged developers to build with Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure.

‘Absolutely booming’ Chinese sectorChina’s economy hasn’t recovered from its pandemic blues. But in the sectors of “electric vehicles and everything around sustainability and renewable power technology,” China is “absolutely booming,” Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters told CNBC. Relatedly, China’s truck industry is increasingly using vehicles with assisted-driving technology, a critical step toward monetizing the nascent business.

Peak, not pause?The U.S. Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and the Bank of England all paused interest rate hikes in recent weeks. This breather comes after dramatic hikes over the last 18 months as central banks grappled with unruly inflation. Some market watchers, in fact, think this lull in hikes isn’t so much a pause but the peak in rates — and are turning their attention to when central banks will start cutting.

[PRO] Buy BYDOver the past 18 months, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has sold more than half its stake in Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD, according to stock filings. Despite that, analysts still think BYD’s a stock worth buying — and some even raised their price targets for the firm.

Last month’s sudden surge in Treasury yields and oil prices — both of which tend to suppress investors’ appetite for stocks — looks to be ending. No, scratch that — the increases aren’t just ending, they’re ebbing.  

Look at oil: Contracts for both West Texas Intermediate and Brent futures fell around $3. WTI’s now at $77.01 a barrel while Brent’s $81.44, their lowest since July. That’s almost $10 per barrel less compared with a month ago, when prices jumped on fears triggered by the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury yield fell around 10 basis points to 4.569% and the 2-year yield slipped 3 basis points to 4.915%. As Treasury yields serve as the benchmark for interest rates on loans and cash investments, sinking yields generally benefit rate-sensitive companies more. In other words: the Magnificent Seven Big Tech. Amazon led the pack, shooting up 2.13% yesterday.

That explains why the Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.9%, more than the S&P 500’s 0.28% gain and the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s 0.17% increase. Still, that’s not downplaying the movements. The S&P and Dow are enjoying their seventh consecutive session of gains, while the Nasdaq’s basking in its eighth.

If the U.S. Federal Reserve does indeed steer the economy to a soft landing, in which inflation is contained below 2% without the economy contracting, then there could be a further rally in stocks, said HSBC. Within periods of soft landings, the S&P has jumped, on average, 22% in the space between a pause and six months after rate cuts begin, noted HSBC’s global equity strategist Alastair Pinder.

And that immaculate disinflation isn’t just a dream. Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee told CNBC, “Because of some of the strangeness of this moment, there is the possibility of the golden path … that we got inflation down without a recession.”

Both the economy and markets have truly acted in strange, unprecedented ways ever since the pandemic. From one of the worst years for stocks and bonds in 2022, to a widely heralded bull rally in the S&P — and then a correction — in 2023. And I haven’t even started on the U.S. labor market and inflation numbers. Strange may be new and unsettling, but it isn’t necessarily bad.

This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

Spooky OctoberMajor U.S. indexes inched up Tuesday, but ended October in the red — giving them a three-month losing streak. Asia-Pacific markets mostly rose Wednesday, with Japan’s Nikkei jumping around 2.2% a day after the Bank of Japan relaxed its yield curve control policy. South Korea’s Kospi climbed about 1% as the country’s October exports rose 5.1% year on year, its first rise in 13 months.

Watch Janet alongside JeromeThere’s virtually zero chance the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates at the conclusion of its meeting later today. But Chair Jerome Powell’s comments may still have the force to move markets. And market watchers might want to pay more attention to the U.S. Treasury Department’s announcement of the size, and the duration mix, of its upcoming Treasury auction.

China’s high-level meetingsChina concluded a high-level financial meeting Tuesday, where the country signaled support for property developers and resolving local government debt problems. The twice-a-decade financial conference tends to sketch out long-term policy. Separately, U.S. President Joe Biden will meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in the U.S., announced the White House.

Next year will be betterAMD reported third-quarter earnings and revenue that beat expectations. But the chipmaker’s fourth-quarter sales forecast came in at $6.1 billion, below the $6.37 billion analysts were looking for. Nonetheless, AMD thinks 2024 will prove a better year for its artificial intelligence chip business — the firm’s one of the few chipmakers capable of manufacturing the high-end chips that generative AI relies on.

[PRO] A 117-year-old AI companyThere’s an old technology company that was founded in 1906, and which has become a household name. But traders should “rethink” their preconceptions of it, according to one investor. The 117-year-old company is “becoming an AI company. They’re becoming a cloud company,” he said.

The last day of October was sweet for markets, but it was more trick than treat for the rest of the month.

Major indexes managed to finish the day in the green. The S&P 500 rose 0.65% — pulling it out of correction territory, the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.38% and the Nasdaq Composite was 0.48% higher.

But this final sprint couldn’t help stocks outrun a dismal October, which was haunted by the 10-year Treasury yield breaching the 5% level for the first time in 16 years. On a monthly basis, the S&P fell 2.2%, the Dow 1.4% and the Nasdaq 2.8%. All three indexes declined for three consecutive months — the first time for the S&P and Dow since March 2020.

In fact, this is just the ninth time since 1928 the S&P has fallen consecutively from August to October, according to Bespoke Investment Group. But history presents a silver lining: The last two times the S&P fell during those months, it rallied 3.42% and 5.99% in the following November, the group said.

The Federal Reserve’s decision on interest rates, expected Wednesday, might give stocks another boost. “If the Fed comes out and says they’re probably done for the year, gives hints that they’re feeling more dovish, that could be one thing that really helps,” said Ross Mayfield, investment strategy analyst at Baird.

And stocks certainly do need help. Even the Magnificent Seven stocks that led most — if not all — the gains in the S&P this year have been struggling in October. Tesla, most significantly, is down 20.5% for the month, while Nvidia has dropped more than 7% and Alphabet’s 5.8% lower. Only Microsoft and Amazon have advanced for the month.

But nothing lasts forever: Even cold November rain may wash away the bitter taste of the past three months.

MUNICH — You’d be forgiven for thinking that the IAA, one of the world’s biggest motor shows, is actually a technology conference, after tech giants like Amazon, Qualcomm and Samsung all showed up for this year’s event.

Their presence underscores demand for traditional automakers to boost the technology in their vehicles, from software to hardware, as they look to catch up with Tesla in the electric car future. Ramping up technology features is also essential to meet buyer expectations in China.

“Tesla and the Chinese start-ups. This is the two-way force they [traditional automakers] are experiencing, driving them to have more user experience in the car,” Mohit Sharma, automotive research analyst at CCS Insight, told CNBC.

They can’t do it alone. Carmakers are looking at tech firms for help, while also trying to work on items like software in house.

Part of Tesla’s global success has come down to its technology in a number of areas, from batteries to Autopilot — its advanced driver assistance system (ADAS), which uses semi-autonomous driving features. The screen within Tesla cars is also akin to that of a smartphone.

Those features are what rival automakers are trying to build and get ahead on.

There are two major operating systems in the smartphone sphere — Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. That’s not the case in the car world, when it comes to the ever popular infotainment systems and screens.

Auto firms are now focusing on developing their own operating systems, so that using car screens more closely resembles working with the apps of a smartphone.

To that end, Mercedes-Benz revealed further details at the IAA about its self-developed operating system called MB.OS, which will help power various features from the giant screen across the dashboard to the voice assistant in its upcoming EVs.

Swedish EV player Polestar this year created a joint venture with Xingji Meizu — a smartphone maker owned by Chinese auto giant Geely — and plans to launch its own smartphone in December, when the Polestar 4 car begins delivery to customers. Meizu is making an operating system for Polestar cars based on its own product, called FlyMe. The idea is that users would be able to have a seamless experience between the smartphone and Polestar’s operating system in the company’s cars.

U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm was also in attendance at IAA. The company is making a big push into the automotive space, where its chips can be used to help power artificial intelligence applications within vehicles. One example it showed was a car assistant that could find a recipe for chicken enchiladas and add the ingredients to a shopping list. 

It’s not just about the screen — automakers are also looking into using all parts of the car to display information. BMW said the Neue Klasse EV models it unveiled on Saturday will have what it calls Panoramic Vision, a heads-up display which projects information on the windscreen at the driver’s eyeline.

To make the drive as comfortable as possible, U.S. EV maker Lucid showed off the massage feature of the seats in its Air Midnight Dream Edition car.

A big part of the focus of Tesla technology has surrounded its Autopilot ADAS. No car can operate autonomously — at least from a legal perspective — but automakers are ramping up the driverless features and capabilities.

Tesla is perhaps one of the furthest ahead with its ADAS features, followed by young Chinese players like Xpeng and Nio.

Many automakers aspire to become major players in the world’s biggest and highly competitive electric vehicle market, China. In a bid to differentiate themselves from rivals, Chinese firms have talked up the tech features of their vehicles, from software to ADAS capabilities — and Chinese customers expect the latest tech perks.

“It’s not just good enough to bring a great European design to China, you have to be very, very special about what you offer to the market when it comes to software,” Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath, told CNBC in an interview Tuesday.

Heeding that sentiment, foreign companies from BMW to Mercedes are looking to invest heavily in tech development, as they aim to boost EV sales in China.

Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume on Wednesday said that the company is ramping up its number of software engineers in China.

“We want to operate with China speed in China,” Blume said at the IAA conference.

SoftBank reported a surprise loss in the first quarter covering April-June, despite an investment gain from its massive tech-focused Vision Fund.

Last quarter, SoftBank recorded a $32 billion loss at its Vision Fund investment arm, which has backed some of the largest names in technology today from Uber to South Korean e-commerce titan Coupang.

The company at the time said that, despite having exited its remaining stake in Uber, it still logged losses from investments such as SenseTime, a Chinese artificial intelligence company, and GoTo, an Indonesian ride-hailing and e-commerce firm.

The tech conglomerate, which engages in venture capital investing through its Vision Fund, has had its fair share of ups and downs. It halted new investments and offloaded its holdings of ride-hailing giant Uber, and trimmed its stake in Alibaba.

Investors will be looking for clues on how SoftBank has benefited from the rise in technology stocks these past few months. Major technology names such as Alphabet and Amazon have seen their share prices climb since the start of the year, as investors bet on an end to a relentless rise in interest rates.

Also in focus will be whether SoftBank has benefited from swelling demand for artificial intelligence following the rise of ChatGPT, a popular AI chatbot owned by Silicon Valley startup OpenAI. SoftBank has shied away from making new investments amid a grim market environment. But the company has made no secret of its desire to capitalize on the “AI revolution.”

In a shareholder meeting in June, CEO Masayoshi Son said that SoftBank plans to shift from “defense mode” to “offense mode.”

“In the past few years, we focused on being [on] ‘defense.’ Three years ago, we didn’t have a lot of cash on hand. But because we have been in defense mode, we have built our cash on hand to five trillion yen ($35.3 billion),” Son said. “We are ready to shift to offense mode. I am excited about that.”

Meanwhile, market players are keenly watching for any commentary from SoftBank on the initial public offering of Arm, the chip design company it acquired in 2016 for $32 billion.

SoftBank was originally meant to sell Arm, whose chip architectures can be found in 99% of all smartphones, to Nvidia for $39 billion, but it called off the deal after facing intense backlash from regulators, who flagged concerns over competition and national security.

During last quarter’s earnings call, the firm’s Chief Financial Officer Yoshimitsu Goto said that SoftBank has a number of companies ready to go public, which are valued at a combined $37 billion. He did not name these companies.

The brainchild of founder Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s Vision Fund comprises Vision Fund 1 and Vision Fund 2 and invests in high growth stocks. Both portfolios have faced headwinds from rising interest rates globally causing investors to sell out of riskier equities such as tech.

Last year, faced with mounting losses, Son’s key ally and top SoftBank executive Rajeev Misra stepped back from some of his roles at the company. Misra was instrumental in the early days of the Vision Fund, which was launched in 2017.

SoftBank has a chequered track record with its investments into technology over the years.

The company notoriously backed U.S. office rental startup WeWork, which at one point was worth as much as $47 billion before SoftBank leapt to rescue the firm in a deal that sharply devalued it. It also took a stake in crypto exchange FTX, which last year collapsed owing investors billions after facing U.S. charges of fraud.

— CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal and Sheila Chang contributed to this report.

This is a breaking new story. Come back for more updates.