Oppenheimer analyst Jason Helfstein reiterated an Outperform rating on Baidu (BIDU) but cut his price target to $265 from $295 citing valuation, higher near-term investments, as well as the firm's recently-lowered price target for Ctrip (CTRP) and the recent downward movement of iQIYI (IQ) shares. In a research note to investors, Helfstein contends that investors' concern around macro/trade war and the risk of Google's (GOOG, GOOGL) re-entrance into China are "overstated," especially the Google piece, due to increased U.S. government scrutiny.

The promise of AI has already driven a massive market rally. The irony is that Apple (AAPL), the company with more context about our lives than any other, has been left behind, Alex Eule writes in this week's edition of Barron's. Unlike Big Tech rivals Meta (META) and Alphabet (GOOGL), or the start-up OpenAI, it has yet to create its own large-language model. The switch to AI, to be sure, is more complex than making a larger-screen phone. But Apple's dominance hasn't changed. And that puts it at the center of any shift - real or artificial, the author says. Reference Link