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More than a year has passed since an announcement on April 26, 2022, by Ford Motor Company (F) CEO Jim Farley, regarding the company’s intent to challenge Tesla, Inc. (T) as the global EV leader.
Since then, the Detroit automaker has made huge strides in the electric mobility space. It has pipped TSLA to the pickup segment by beginning production of its F-150 Lightning and benchmarked the Model Y for its Mustang Mach-E crossover. While TSLA is still the runaway leader, F notched 61,575 fully-electric vehicle sales to emerge as the challenger in the U.S., something the legacy automaker planned to achieve by mid-decade.
Since both rivals are expected to battle it out for a greater share of the electric-mobility pie, it is understandable why an unexpected announcement by the CEO of both companies to join hands to enlarge the pie took the industry and markets by pleasant surprise.
On Thursday, May 25, during a live audio discussion on Twitter Spaces, Jim Farley and Elon Musk announced an agreement on charging initiatives for Ford’s current and future electric vehicles. Under the agreement, current Ford owners will be granted access to more than 12,000 Tesla Superchargers across the U.S. and Canada starting early next year.
Moreover, the next generation of Ford EVs, expected by mid-decade, will include TSLA’s charging plug, enabling owners to charge their vehicles at Tesla Superchargers without an adapter while using Ford’s software.A separate Ford spokesman later added that pricing for charging “will be competitive in the marketplace.” The companies will disclose further details closer to a launch date, anticipated in 2024.
Following this announcement, which makes F among the first automakers to explicitly tie into the TSLA network, the former’s stock rose by 6.2% on May 26, closing at $12.09 per share, while the latter’s shares also climbed by 4.7%, ending the week at $193.17.In this article, we elaborate on why the optimism makes sense.
Firstly, as F is ramping up its production to double its EV capacity this year and looks on course to get to two million in a couple of years, with public charging of electric vehicles being a major concern for potential buyers, charging infrastructure is going to be critical for the company in order to ensure that it delivers a superior after-purchase experience to its customers.
TSLA is the only automaker that has successfully built out its own network of fast chargers, which gives the EV leader an edge over its competitors, whose partnerships with third-party companies have left much room for improvement in reliability and reach.However, with the announcement, F has managed to more than double its existing capacity of 10,000 fast chargers with 12,000 well-located TSLA Superchargers. Moreover, leveraging TSLA’s superior NACS charging technology is F’s attempt to ensure that it is on what Elon Musk has described as “equal footing” in its completion with the incumbent.
Secondly, opening up 12,000 Superchargers in its network of currently 45,000 connectors worldwide at 4,947 Supercharger Stations could benefit TSLA in multiple ways.
White House officials announced in February that TSLA has committed to open up 7,500 of its charging stations by the end of 2024 to non-Tesla EV drivers. The agreement with F would help the company make progress on that front.
By diversifying from being a competitor to doubling up as an infrastructure provider, the EV leader has hedged its bets to benefit from the increasing presence of legacy automakers in the electric mobility space.
While the company is expected to dominate EV sales in the foreseeable future, the revenue from its Supercharging stations, which is included under the “services and other” segment, is also expected to witness remarkable growth due to increased network utilization by non-Tesla EV drivers.
Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, this partnership could be the initiation of the strategic masterstroke that impacts the entire EV ecosystem. As discussed earlier, while TSLA uses NACS charging technology, the rest of the industry has adopted relatively-slower CCS charging.
With two-leading EV manufacturers joining hands and F being ‘totally committed’ to a single U.S. charging protocol that includes the Tesla plug port, EV strategies of other auto manufacturers, such as GM and STLA, could come under increased pressure.
According to Jim Farley, the others “are going to have a big choice to make. Do they want to have fast charging for customers? Or do they want to stick to their standard and have less charging?”
In this context, it wouldn’t be surprising if Musk’s statement, “Working with Ford, and perhaps others, can make it the North American standard, I think that consumers will be all better for it,” turns out to be the beginning of yet another victory lap for the illustrious CEO.

Just before the shares of NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA)got their moonshot post its earnings release on May 24, we discussed how the race to dominate the AI domain is gaining pace. In this article, we will look at another bus to that to which investors are rushing to hop on board: Marvell Technology, Inc. (MRVL).
While NVDA has clearly stolen the thunder over the past week by becoming the first semiconductor company to reach a trillion-dollar valuation, MRVL’s stock also hogged headlines. It surged by 32% after it surpassed top and bottom line estimates in the first quarter of fiscal year 2023, according to its May 25 earnings release.
However, given that the supplier of data infrastructure semiconductor solutions also witnessed 8.7% and 41.1% year-over-year declines in its quarterly revenue and non-GAAP net income to $1.32 billion and $264.2 million, respectively, it was not past performance, but the company’s bullishness regarding its future prospects that got reflected in the stock’s remarkable price action.
While informing analysts that the company had begun to reassess the “tremendous” business potential of AI, MRVL’s CEO Matthew Murphy said, “In the past, we considered AI to be one of many applications within cloud, but its importance and therefore the opportunity has increased dramatically.”MRVL’s favorable position to capitalize on the tailwind of increasing investments in AI originates in two acquisitions, which, in hindsight, have turned out to be key.
The first of them was a 2019 acquisition of Avera Semi, a spinout of Global Foundries, which contributed to MRVL’s custom chip designing and large-scale Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) computing capabilities.
This was followed by a 2020 acquisition of Inphi, which had built a leading high-speed data interconnect platform uniquely suited to meet the insatiable demand for increased bandwidth and low power for both AI Clusters and traditional cloud infrastructure.
However, what was already a growing market share took a quantum leap late last year with the release of ChatGPT, which marked an inflection point for generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs).
With AI, if it isn’t already there, becoming a ubiquitous force majeure that’s touching and shaping every aspect of our modern lives, the traditional ratio of conventional processing through CPUs to accelerated computing through GPUs of 95% to 5% is destined to get inverted with the former component finding greater usage for control than execution.
Moreover, with the ever-increasing adoption of AI, the demand for increased computing power would drive demand for high-speed networking technology and optical productivity, which has been MRVL’s forte.
With triple levers of accelerated computing, data center usage, and high-speed networking to bank on, MRVL was able to quantify its revenue from AI during its recent earnings call. According to a note from Citi’s Atif Malik, “In FY2023, MRVL estimated its AI revenue to be ~ $200 million, representing a strong uptick from FY22. The company expects AI sales to reach ~$400M+ in FY24 before doubling in FY25.”
Bottom Line
According to Bill Gates and a few notable others, we overestimate change in the short term and underestimate it in the long term.The company’s lack of meaningful share repurchases during the previous quarter, despite its clear visibility on stellar growth prospects, makes us wonder if the glowing outlook was a signal to investors or noise to mask top and bottom-line declines.
However, from the perspective of both the current business and the pipeline of opportunities, the substance behind the hype is undeniable.Hence, since we may be at the beginning of a 10-year cycle of AI-driven semiconductor growth, it could be wise for investors to load up on the stock once the current wave of excitement ebbs and there’s more valuation comfort to buy in for the long haul.

Every year, on the last Monday of May, the United States honors its heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice while serving in the United States Armed Forces. And how does a nation celebrate its martyrs who fell defending the core principles of liberty, democracy, and free markets? You guessed it; by exercising the freedom to choose and lead the good life.
Moreover, with the long weekend coinciding with the onset of summer, most Americans look forward to spending time outdoors. And that can only mean one thing: increased consumption. Think camping, cookouts, weekend trips, and home improvement projects.
All that activity translates to increased expenditure for businesses in relevant categories. A few have historically witnessed boosted top-line performance and an uptrend in stock prices at this time of the year.
Moreover, with still enough pent-up demand from the pandemic to go by and a jump of 0.8% in spending in April, with personal consumption expenditure beating estimates to rise 0.4% for the month despite 10 consecutive interest-rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, history seems more than likely to rhyme, if not repeat itself.
Here are a few stocks that could benefit from the holiday tailwind.
Tesla, Inc. (TSLA)
The global e-mobility pioneer’s automotive segment includes the design, development, manufacturing, sales, and leasing of electric vehicles as well as sales of automotive regulatory credits.
Although the company has recently increased the price of the vehicles in the U.S., China, Canada, and Japan, they remain lower than at the start of the year due to several rounds of price cuts worldwide.
In the recent earnings call, TSLA’s maverick CEO Elon Musk signaled that the automaker will be targeting larger volumes of sales versus higher margins but said he expects the company “over time will be able to generate significant profit through autonomy.”
Moreover, since TSLA’s energy generation and storage segment includes the design, manufacture, installation, sales, and leasing of solar energy generation and energy storage products such as the Solar Roof and Powerwall, the stock could also be a home-improvement play this Memorial Day.
In 2022, TSLA’s price return during the fortnight around Memorial Day amounted to 4.3%, compared to 3.4% for the S&P 500.Visa Inc. (V)
Despite a slump in mortgage demand due to rising borrowing costs, total consumer debt hit a fresh new high in the first quarter of 2023, surpassing $17 trillion. Moreover, as consumers remain keen to give their mundane inflation worries a break during the first long summer weekend by splurging now to pay later, that figure is not coming down anytime soon.
The global payments technology company that connects consumers, merchants, financial institutions, businesses, strategic partners, and government entities to electronic payments is well-positioned to benefit from this tailwind.
Lowe’s Companies, Inc (LOW)
With new home purchases softening amid rising mortgage rates, home improvement projects will keep homeowners of an aging U.S. housing stock busier than usual this summer. Hence, with more than two-thirds of sales contributed by non-discretionary purchases, such as new appliances to replace broken ones, the home improvement retailer is best positioned to make a tailwind out of this turbulence.
In 2022, LOW’s price return during the fortnight around Memorial Day amounted to 4.9%, compared to 3.4% for the S&P 500.
Expedia Group, Inc. (EXPE)
With the pandemic firmly in the rear-view mirror and consumers ever keener to redeem their pile of airline miles on other travel rewards on their credit cards through revenge travel, global online travel company EXPE is well-positioned to benefit from this pent-up demand.
In 2022, EXPE’s price return during the fortnight around Memorial Day amounted to 8.3%, compared to 3.4% for the S&P 500.
Camping World Holdings, Inc. (CWH)
For Americans who find the great outdoors and road trips more akin to their idea of freedom and the spirit of adventure, CWH sells recreational vehicles (RVs) and related products and services.
Through its two segments, Good Sam Services and Plans; and RV and Outdoor Retail, CWH offers extended vehicle service contracts; roadside assistance plans; property and casualty insurance programs; travel protection and planning; and RV and outdoor-related consumer shows. Moreover, it produces various monthly and annual RV-focused consumer magazines; and operates the Coast to Coast Club.