>>> What to look at today - 5th of March 2024

Asian equities were mixed Tuesday as investors weighed official announcements from China including an ambitious 5% growth target. Mainland China stocks rose and Japan’s Nikkei 225 index surpassed the 40,000 level it breached Monday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell alongside benchmarks in South Korea and Australia. US equity futures edged lower following a small decline for the S&P 500 on Monday. There’s been a slew of announcements from China’s National People’s Congress, including 5.5% urban unemployment and 3% inflation targets, and steps to support the economy hampered by a property slump and entrenched deflation. The measures got a lukewarm response from investors and strategists in the absence of any big-bang fiscal stimulus. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Tech index fell as much as 4% in a decline that partly reflected a new US government ban on Advanced Micro Devices Inc. selling an artificial intelligence chip tailored for the Chinese market, according to people familiar with the matter. Other measures mentioned by Chinese leaders at the annual parliamentary meetings in Beijing included a 7.2% rise in defense spending, the biggest in five years.  The nation’s premier will defy recent convention by not holding a press briefing for investors to learn more about the policy direction. This may undermine its ability to boost confidence in an economy grappling with a prolonged real estate crisis and headwinds from geopolitical tensions with the US. A Bloomberg Intelligence index of Chinese property developers fell as the country’s property debt crisis showed new signs of trouble with one of the country’s major state-backed developers placed under unprecedented scrutiny by investors. Elsewhere, the yen was steady at around 150 per dollar as price growth in Tokyo surged back above the Bank of Japan’s target in February. The increase supports the case for the central bank’s first interest rate hike since 2007. BOJ Governor Ueda is scheduled to speak later Tuesday. Fed Chair Jerome Powell heads to Capitol Hill for his semiannual testimony before Congress on Wednesday and Thursday and is expected to double down on his message that there’s no rush to cut rates. Fed officials’ most recent quarterly forecast in December was for three quarter-point cuts this year — and the bond market has embraced that view, based on the prices of swap contracts that reference future Fed meeting dates. Nouriel Roubini, the economist known for his bearish outlook ahead of the 2008 global financial crisis, expressed optimism that US growth will remain brisk this year — though that might be a negative for stocks. In commodities, oil prices fell and gold was flat after it surged to near a record high in the previous session. Bitcoin slipped in Asian afternoon trading, declining from near a 2021 record high of around $69,000 to little over $66,800.

Nikkei -0.03% Hang Seng -2.52% CSI +0.37% Shanghai +0.00% Shenzen -0.94%

Eur$ 1.0849 CNH 7.2104 CNY 7.1985 JPY 150.53 GBP 1.2677 CHF 0.8860 RUB 91.4664 TRY 31.6015 WTI$ 78.30 -0.56% Gold 2,117 BTC 67,152 -0.52% ETH 3,715 +3.62%

S&P -0.23% Nasdaq -0.46% EuroStoxx -0.29% FTSE -0.32% Dax -0.39% SMI -0.11%

Macro :
- Citi’s Montagu Says Bullish Momentum in US Stock Futures Eases
- Former Goldman Sachs Partner’s Hedge Fund Plans New York Office
- China to Mobilize Nation as It Fights US for Tech Supremacy
- Biden Says JetBlue-Spirit Deal Cancellation a Win for Consumers
- Bitcoin Bulls May Look Beyond $70,000 to Post-Halving Surges
- Watch Europe Sectors Exposed to China on Ambitious Growth Goal

Keep an eye on :
- AC FP : Hoxton Hotels Owner Ennismore Said to Seek Capital for Expansion
- AIR FP : American Orders 260 Jets in Haul for Boeing, Airbus, Embraer
- ALB US : Albemarle Offers 7%-7.50% Coupon For $1.75B Convertibles: Terms
- BABA US : Alibaba Backs $2.5 Billion AI Startup in Second Major 2024 Deal
- AAPL US : Apple iPhone Sales Plunge 24% in China’s Troubled Mobile Market
- BAYN GY : Bayer 2024 Adjusted Ebitda Forecast Beats Estimates, Provision for Glyphosate Litigation Was $6.3B at Dec. 31
- BAYN GY : Bayer CEO Keeping ‘Open Mind’ on Possible Break-Up, But Not Now
- BLK US : BlackRock Gains as Much as 3.1% Amid Potential Breakout
- BA US : Boeing, Spirit Audit by FAA Finds ‘Multiple’ Quality Lapses
- IAG LN : British Airways Plans to Spend £750 Million on Digital Upgrades
- CLNX SM : Cellnex CEO to Focus on Debt, Higher Returns in Strategy Refresh
- COFA FP : Coface Launches 2024-2027 Strategic Plan, Raises Targets
- DOKA SW : Dormakaba 1H Adjusted Ebitda Beats Estimates
- DIS US : Peltz Publishes Plan to ‘Restore Magic’ at Disney as AGM Looms
- Douglas IPO : Douglas Listing Boosts Hopes of European IPO Revival
- ERA FP : Eramet in Pact to Convert Lossmaking SLN Nickel Unit’s Debt
- FLS DC : FLSmidth Buys Farnell-Thompson Applied Technologies; No Terms
- FORN SW : Forbo FY Ebit Misses Estimates
- GSK LN : Reuters: GSK's new HIV drug formula could support longer dosing intervals https://t.co/5ticLGFbxo https://t.co/Mleswv0jWL
- GRG LN : Greggs FY Pretax Profit Beats Estimates
- HUBN SW : Huber+Suhner FY Ebit Beats Estimates
- IFCN SW : Inficon Sees 2024 Operating Margin About 20%, Est. 20.1%
- KOS US : Kosmos Offers Up to 3.375% Coupon For $300M Convertibles: Terms
- LISN SW : Lindt & Spruengli Sees 2024 Organic Sales +6% to +8%
- MSTR US : MicroStrategy Is Said to Offer 0.5%-1% Coupon For Convertibles
- MITRA BB : Mithra Considers Sale, Enters Bridge Loan Facility
- EGL PL : Mota-Engil FY Net Income EU113M Vs. EU52M Y/y
- NOVOB DC : Eli Lilly in Pacts With National Resilience, BSP Pharma: FT
- PLX FP : Pluxee to Buyback €30m Shares
- RDC GY : Redcare Pharmacy NV Sees 2024 Adjusted Ebitda Margin 2% to 4%
- SHA GY : Schaeffler FY Adjusted Ebit Meets Estimates
- SAX GY : Stroeer FY Adjusted Ebitda Meets Estimates
- SWON SW : SoftwareOne Says Founding Holders Can Vote After Bain Pact Ended
- SCLN SW : Switzerland Sees No Scope to Stop Swisscom Bid For Vodafone Unit
- TSLA US : BANKS STUCK WITH X DEBT HELD REFINANCING TALKS WITH ELON MUSK
- HO FP : Thales FY Ebit Beats Estimates
- TWEKA NA : TKH FY Revenue Matches Estimates
- TTE FP : TotalEnergies Applies to Build LPG Plant in Uganda: New Vision
- 8TRA GY : Traton Sees 2024 Adjusted Operating Margin 8% to 9%, Est. 8.08%
- VACN SW : VAT FY Ebitda Meets Estimates
- VIV FP : Vivendi Boosts MultiChoice Offer, Valuing Shares at $2.9 Billion
- VOD LN : Switzerland Sees No Scope to Stop Swisscom Bid For Vodafone Unit

>>> Europe : Brokers Upgrades & Downgrades - 5th of March 2024

>>> Up
* Covivio SA Raised to Buy From Hold by Jefferies, Target Raised to EUR53.00 From EUR48.00
* Inmobiliaria Colonial Raised to Hold at Jefferies; PT 5 euros
* Intesa Sanpaolo Raised to Overweight at Morgan Stanley
* KBC Raised to Buy at Berenberg
* Marks & Spencer Raised to Buy at Redburn; PT 305 pence
* Nordex Raised to Buy at HSBC; PT 15 euros
* PVA TePla Raised to Buy at Quirin Privatbank AG; PT 22.90 euros
* Vestas Raised to Buy at HSBC; PT 230 kroner

>>> Down
* Alfa Laval Cut to Hold at HSBC; PT 385 kronor
* Bank of Ireland Cut to Equal-Weight at Barclays; PT 10.90 euros
* Deutsche Post AG Cut to Hold at SocGen; PT 46 euros
* EuroAPI Cut to Sell at Deutsche Bank; PT 3 euros
* Fluidra Cut to Hold at Jefferies; PT 23 euros
* Rational Cut to Reduce at HSBC; PT 650 euros
* Schindler Cut to Equal-Weight at Barclays; PT 230 Swiss francs
* Siemens Cut to Reduce at HSBC; PT 150 euros
* SKF Cut to Reduce at HSBC; PT 190 kronor
* UniCredit Cut to Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley; PT 37.70 euros
* Wartsila Cut to Hold at HSBC; PT 14 euros

>>> Initiation
* Antin Rated New Hold at Deutsche Bank; PT 18 euros
* Mediobanca Rated New Overweight at Morgan Stanley
* Nike Reinstated Buy at CTBC Securities; PT $124
* Novo Reinstated Buy at Citi; PT 975 kroner
* SolGold Rated New Speculative Buy at Argonaut Securities
* Tikehau Capital Rated New Buy at Deutsche Bank; PT 28 euros
* Vastned Reinstated Hold at ING; PT 22 euros
* Zealand Pharma Rated New Buy at Berenberg; PT 815 kroner

>>> Call
* Citi’s Montagu Says Bullish Momentum in US Stock Futures Eases
* Covivio Risks Skewed to Upside, Raised to Buy at Jefferies
* Fluidra Cut at Jefferies, Limited Upside to Valuation, Estimates
* Italian Banks’ Fee Recovery Underestimated, Morgan Stanley Says
* KBC Can Outperform Guidance, Upgraded to Buy at Berenberg
* Novo Reinstated Buy at Citi on Continued Obesity Strength

>>> US After Hours Summary: PAY +23.8%, AVAV +17.5% up big on earnings; GTLB -20

After Hours Summary: PAY +23.8%, AVAV +17.5% up big on earnings; GTLB -20.5% tumbling following weak earnings guidance

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: PAY +23.8%, AVAV +17.5%, CRGY +5.3%, AKYA +2.8%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: BWXT +3.5% (awarded $45 bln DoE contract), BIIB +0.6% (new data on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases), CABO +0.1% (appoint new COO), AMD +0.1% (hires Thomas Zacharia to accelerate adoption of AMD tech for sovereign AI deployments)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: GTLB -20.5%, SEMR -9.5%

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: TNDM -7.3% (proposes $250 mln of convertible notes), ALB -7.1% ($1.75 bln public offering), STXS -5% (regulatory submissions made for MAGiC catheter), KOS -5% (offering $300 mln of convertible notes), MSTR -3.1% (offering $600 mln convertible senior notes), ADVM -3% (secondary stock offering), INTA -3% (secondary stock offering), BHLB -1.9% (to sell 10 of its NY branches), BBIO -1.3% ($250 mln public offering), BG -0.2% (approve decision with CVX to build new oilseed facility WTTR -0.1% (appoints new CFO)

>>> US Close Dow -0.25% S&P -0.12% Nasdaq -0.41% Russell -0.10%

Closing Stock Market Summary

It was a lackluster start to the week for stocks. The S&P 500 only moved about 22 points between its intraday high and low, ultimately settling with a 0.1% decline. The muted action was related to a wait-and-see mentality in front of busy week due to the understanding that stocks are trading near all-time highs.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite briefly traded above their prior closing levels, but quickly pulled back to session lows, following the price action in mega cap stocks. Meta Platforms (META 498.19, -4.11% -0.8%), Amazon.com (AMZN 177.58, -0.64, -0.4%), and Microsoft (MSFT 414.92, -0.58, -0.1%), for example, had all been trading higher at their best levels of the session, but rolled over and settled lower.

Some other mega cap stocks traded down through the whole session, also having an outsized impact on index performance. Apple (AAPL 175.10, -4.56, -2.5%) shares declined on news that the EU is fining it more than EUR1.8 billion for "abusing its dominant position on the market for the distribution of music streaming apps to iPhone and iPad users (‘iOS users') through its App Store."

A sharp decline in Tesla (TSLA 188.14, -14.50, -7.2%) was related to a Bloomberg report that shipments from its China factory decline 19% year-over-year.

Still, the broader market held up okay despite the aforementioned losses in heavily-weighted constituents. The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP) eked out a 0.2% gain.

Market participants were hesitant on either side of the tape in front of earnings results from retailers like Target (TGT 150.49, -4.80, -3.1%) and Costco (COST 759.18, +9.74, +1.3%), and earnings from Broadcom (AVGO 1402.26, +3.09, +0.2%) this week. The economic calendar is headlined by the February ISM Non-Manufacturing Index on Tuesday and February Jobs Report on Friday.

Also, Fed Chair Powell will deliver his semiannual monetary policy testimony before Congress on Wednesday and Thursday, but this is not expected to produce any surprises. Mr. Powell is largely expected to reiterate the Fed's view that there is no rush to cut rates.

Atlanta Fed President Bostic (FOMC voter) echoed this narrative in a speech today, saying that inflation has decelerated over the past year, but that price pressures are still widespread in his view.

The communication services sector (-1.5%) had a weak showing, weighed down by losses in Alphabet (GOOG 134.20, -3.88, -2.8%) and Meta Platforms.

It was the worst performing S&P 500 sector, followed by the consumer discretionary sector (-1.3%), which felt the pinch of the sharp decline in Tesla. Weakness in shares of Amazon.com also contributed to the sector's performance. These two sectors comprise nearly 20% of the index.

The energy sector was the only other sector that declined more than 1.0% today, sliding 1.1% as WTI crude oil futures fell 1.3% to $78.70/bbl.

There was no US economic data of note today.

Nasdaq Composite: +8.0% YTD
S&P 500: +7.6% YTD
Dow Jones Industrial Average: +3.5% YTD
S&P Midcap 400: +5.4% YTD
Russell 2000: +2.3% YTD
Looking ahead, Tuesday's economic calendar features:

9:45 ET: Final February S&P Global U.S. Services PMI (prior 52.5)
10:00 ET: January Factory Orders (consensus -2.5%; prior 0.2%) and February ISM Non-Manufacturing Index (consensus 52.7%; prior 53.4%)

>>> Biogen Highlights New Data at the International Conference on Alzheimer’s an

Biogen Highlights New Data at the International Conference on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases (AD/PD™) 2024 Annual Meeting
  • New data advances understanding of new approaches to treating Alzheimer’s disease
  • Research on disease progression could help inform future clinical trials
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 04, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Biogen Inc. (Nasdaq: BIIB) announced it will present new data from its Alzheimer’s disease (AD) portfolio at the upcoming International Conference on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases (AD/PD™ 2024), taking place March 5-9 in Lisbon, Portugal and virtually. The presentations include new data for its oral small molecule inhibitor of tau aggregation (BIIB113), as well as presentations providing insights into the underlying mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease.
“These data reflect our approach of exploring multiple pathologies and modalities in Alzheimer’s disease to create a leading portfolio that can transform the course of Alzheimer’s care,” said Priya Singhal, M.D., M.P.H., Executive Vice President, Head of Development at Biogen. “Our ongoing investments in areas of Alzheimer’s research reinforce our commitment to push the boundaries of innovation and make a real difference in the lives of those affected by this complex disease.”
Biogen presentations will provide new data on brain target engagement and the safety profile in healthy volunteers of an oral small molecule O-GlcNAcase (OGA) enzyme inhibitor intended to reduce tau aggregation (BIIB113). In addition to BIIB113, Biogen is researching the potential of tau reduction in AD with its investigational antisense oligonucleotide targeting the microtubule associated protein tau (MAPT) gene (BIIB080). Other presentations will discuss the long-term efficacy of lecanemab as well as the presence of alpha-synuclein pathology in AD which could inform future research on its role in AD clinical progression.
Key presentations include:
  • Oral presentation: Results of the first in-human, randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled, single- and multiple-ascending dose study of BIIB113 in healthy volunteers. Friday, March 8, 9:55-10:10 AM GMT / 4:55-5:10 AM ET.
  • Oral presentation: Distribution of Alpha-Synuclein co-pathology in MCI, mild Alzheimer’s disease and progressive supranuclear palsy clinical trial cohorts. Friday, March 8, 6:55-7:10 PM GMT / 1:55-2:10 PM ET.
  • Oral presentation: Treatment with lecanemab disrupts tau accumulation across brain regions in early Alzheimer’s disease. Presented by Eisai. Thursday, March 7, 1:50-2:05 PM GMT / 8:50-9:05 AM ET.
  • Oral presentation: Lecanemab for the treatment of early Alzheimer’s disease; the extension of efficacy results from Clarity AD. Presented by Eisai. Saturday, March 9, 9:10-9:25 AM GMT / 4:10-4:25 AM ET.
  • On-demand oral presentation: A Neuro-Dynamic Quantitative Systems Pharmacology (QSP) Model for Alzheimer’s disease Incorporating Amyloid and Tau Pathophysiology, online.
  • Poster presentation: Minimum Inclusion Criteria and Relation to Subsequent Cognitive Decline, P#0250, Wednesday, March 6, 9:00 AM GMT.
  • E-poster presentation: Occupancy of BIIB113, an inhibitor of the enzyme O-GlcNAcase (OGA) in the human brain.
BIIB080 is licensed from Ionis.
About Biogen
Founded in 1978, Biogen is a leading biotechnology company that pioneers innovative science to deliver new medicines to transform patient’s lives and to create value for shareholders and our communities. We apply deep understanding of human biology and leverage different modalities to advance first-in-class treatments or therapies that deliver superior outcomes. Our approach is to take bold risks, balanced with return on investment to deliver long-term growth.
We routinely post information that may be important to investors on our website at www.biogen.com. Follow us on social media - Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube.
Biogen Safe Harbor
This news release contains forward-looking statements, the potential clinical effects of lecenamab, BIIB113 and BIIB080; the potential benefits, safety and efficacy of lecenamab, BIIB113 and BIIB080; the clinical development program for lecenamab, BIIB113 and BIIB080; the identification and treatment of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases; our research and development program for the treatment of ALS; the potential of our commercial business and pipeline programs, including lecenamab, BIIB113 and BIIB080; and risks and uncertainties associated with drug development and commercialization. These forward-looking statements may be accompanied by words such as “aim,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “potential,” “possible,” “will,” “would” and other words and terms of similar meaning. Drug development and commercialization involve a high degree of risk, and only a small number of research and development programs result in commercialization of a product. Results in early-stage clinical trials may not be indicative of full results or results from later stage or larger scale clinical trials and do not ensure regulatory approval. You should not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements.
These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in such statements, including without limitation, uncertainty of success in the development and potential commercialization of lecenamab, BIIB113 and BIIB080; the risk that we may not fully enroll our clinical trials or enrollment will take longer than expected; unexpected concerns may arise from additional data, analysis or results obtained during our clinical trials; regulatory authorities may require additional information or further studies, or may fail or refuse to approve or may delay approval of our drug candidates, including BIIB113 and BIIB080; the occurrence of adverse safety events; the risks of unexpected hurdles, costs or delays; failure to protect and enforce our data, intellectual property and other proprietary rights and uncertainties relating to intellectual property claims and challenges; product liability claims; results of operations and financial condition. The foregoing sets forth many, but not all, of the factors that could cause actual results to differ from our expectations in any forward-looking statement. Investors should consider this cautionary statement, as well as the risk factors identified in our most recent annual or quarterly report and in other reports we have filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. These statements speak only as of the date of this news release.
We do not undertake any obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements.

FT : Re-merger of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems pits quality control against val

Re-merger of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems pits quality control against value creation
Acquisition might please regulators but would strain jet maker’s liquidity and efficiency measures

Why do entrepreneurs form new companies? Nobel Prize-winning economist Ronald Coase contemplated this question in his groundbreaking work. He concluded that assessments on transaction, monitoring and agency costs would compel managers to either produce internally or outsource to another company. Such calculations have changed in recent weeks at Boeing.

On Friday, the struggling jet maker confirmed it was considering reacquiring Spirit AeroSystems. Kansas-based Spirit manufactures jet parts and was a part of Boeing until its 2005 divestiture to private equity. Yet today, 70 per cent of revenue in its largest division comes from Boeing. The 737 Max programme is particularly crucial to Spirit. 

Both Boeing and Spirit have been at the centre of a firestorm after a door plug on a Boeing 737 Max plane blew out mid-flight in January. A reintegration might please regulators, which might in turn please Boeing investors. For Spirit, it would spell the end of a strange, two-decade journey.

Spirit depends on Boeing. Boeing also depends on Spirit. Integration between the two is understandably tight. Spirit’s chief executive told investors recently that visitors to Spirit’s plant would not be able to tell if a particular employee worked at one company or the other. Every few years, the two sides have struck a “memorandum of agreement” that governs their economic relationship. 

Spirit depends on Boeing to be at the top of its production and delivery game. This has not been the case when it comes to the 737 Max and 787 Dreamliner programmes. The most recent deal, struck last autumn, came amid a liquidity crunch. Spirit generated negative free cash flow of almost $1bn in the past two years.

Spirit’s shares, post-deal rumours, have bumped up more than $30 each. However, that level is not far from its 2007 public market debut at $26. The company’s enterprise value is now $7bn, with a net debt balance of $3bn and more than $300mn of annual interest expense.

Boeing sold off what would become Spirit to focus on plane design and final assembly, both higher margin areas that investors would value. Even after a fall in recent years, Boeing shares have far outperformed those of Spirit.

An acquisition would strain Boeing’s liquidity and efficiency measures. Yet for long-term regulatory and political reasons, component manufacturing might be most optimal when performed in-house.

TechCrunch : Anthropic claims its new models beat GPT-4

Anthropic claims its new models beat GPT-4

AI startup Anthropic, backed by hundreds of millions in venture capital (and perhaps soon hundreds of millions more), today announced the latest version of its GenAI tech, Claude. And the company claims that it rivals OpenAI’s GPT-4 in terms of performance.

Claude 3, as Anthropic’s new GenAI is called, is a family of models — Claude 3 Haiku, Claude 3 Sonnet, and Claude 3 Opus, Opus being the most powerful. All show “increased capabilities” in analysis and forecasting, Anthropic claims, as well as enhanced performance on specific benchmarks versus models like GPT-4 (but not GPT-4 Turbo) and Google’s Gemini 1.0 Ultra (but not Gemini 1.5 Pro).

Notably, Claude 3 is Anthropic’s first multimodal GenAI, meaning that it can analyze text as well as images — similar to some flavors of GPT-4 and Gemini. Claude 3 can process photos, charts, graphs and technical diagrams, drawing from PDFs, slideshows and other document types.

In a step one better than some GenAI rivals, Claude 3 can analyze multiple images in a single request (up to a maximum of 20). This allows it to compare and contrast images, notes Anthropic.

But there’s limits to Claude 3’s image processing.

Anthropic has disabled the models from identifying people — no doubt wary of the ethical and legal implications. And the company admits that Claude 3 is prone to making mistakes with “low-quality” images (under 200 pixels) and struggles with tasks involving spatial reasoning (e.g. reading an analog clock face) and object counting (Claude 3 can’t give exact counts of objects in images).

Claude 3 also won’t generate artwork. The models are strictly image-analyzing — at least for now.

Whether fielding text or images, Anthropic says that customers can generally expect Claude 3 to better follow multi-step instructions, produce structured output in formats like JSON and converse in languages other than English compared to its predecessors,. Claude 3 should also refuse to answer questions less often thanks to a “more nuanced understanding of requests,” Anthropic says. And soon, the models will cite the source of their answers to questions so users can verify them.

“Claude 3 tends to generate more expressive and engaging responses,” Anthropic writes in a support article. “[It’s] easier to prompt and steer compared to our legacy models. Users should find that they can achieve the desired results with shorter and more concise prompts.”

Some of those improvements stem from Claude 3’s expanded context.

A model’s context, or context window, refers to input data (e.g. text) that the model considers before generating output. Models with small context windows tend to “forget” the content of even very recent conversations, leading them to veer off topic — often in problematic ways. As an added upside, large-context models can better grasp the narrative flow of data they take in and generate more contextually rich responses (hypothetically, at least).

Anthropic says that Claude 3 will initially support a 200,000-token context window, equivalent to about 150,000 words, with select customers getting up a 1-milion-token context window (~700,000 words). That’s on par with Google’s newest GenAI model, the above-mentioned Gemini 1.5 Pro, which also offers up to a million-token context window.

Now, just because Claude 3 is an upgrade over what came before it doesn’t mean it’s perfect.

In a technical whitepaper, Anthropic admits that Claude 3 isn’t immune from the issues plaguing other GenAI models, namely bias and hallucinations (i.e. making stuff up). Unlike some GenAI models, Claude 3 can’t search the web; the models can only answer questions using data from before August 2023. And while Claude is multilingual, it’s not as fluent in certain “low-resource” languages versus English.

But Anthropic’s promising frequent updates to Claude 3 in the months to come.

“We don’t believe that model intelligence is anywhere near its limits, and we plan to release [enhancements] to the Claude 3 model family over the next few months,” the company writes in a blog post.

Opus and Sonnet are available now on the web and via Anthropic’s dev console and API, Amazon’s Bedrock platform and Google’s Vertex AI. Haiku will follow later this year.

Here’s the pricing breakdown:

  • Opus: $15 per million input tokens, $75 per million output tokens
  • Sonnet: $3 per million input tokens, $15 per million output tokens
  • Haiku: $0.25 per million input tokens, $1.25 per million output tokens
  • So that’s Claude 3. But what’s the 30,000-foot view of all this?

Well, as we’ve reported previously, Anthropic’s ambition is to create a next-gen algorithm for “AI self-teaching.” Such an algorithm could be used to build virtual assistants that can answer emails, perform research and generate art, books and more — some of which we’ve already gotten a taste of with the likes of GPT-4 and other large language models.

Anthropic hints at this in the aforementioned blog post, saying that it plans to add features to Claude 3 that enhance its out-of-the-gate capabilities by allowing Claude to interact with other systems, code “interactively” and deliver “advanced agentic capabilities.”

That last bit calls to mind OpenAI’s reported ambitions to build a software agent to automate complex tasks, like transferring data from a document to a spreadsheet or automatically filling out expense reports and entering them in accounting software. OpenAI already offers an API that allows developers to build “agent-like experiences” into their apps, and Anthropic, it seems, is intent on delivering functionality that’s comparable.

Could we see an image generator from Anthropic next? It’d surprise me, frankly. Image generators are the subject of much controversy these days, mainly for copyright- and bias-related reasons. Google was recently forced to disable its image generator after it injected diversity into pictures with a farcical disregard for historical context. And a number of image generator vendors are in legal battles with artists who accuse them of profiting off of their work by training GenAI on that work without providing compensation or even credit.

I’m curious to see the evolution of Anthropic’s technique for training GenAI, “constitutional AI,” which the company claims makes the behavior of its GenAI easier to understand, more predictable and simpler to adjust as needed. Constitutional AI aims to provide a way to align AI with human intentions, having models respond to questions and perform tasks using a simple set of guiding principles. For example, for Claude 3, Anthropic said that it added a principle — informed by crowdsourced feedback — that instructs the models to be understanding of and accessible to people with disabilities.

Whatever Anthropic’s endgame, it’s in it for the long haul. According to a pitch deck leaked in May of last year, the company aims to raise as much as $5 billion over the next 12 months or so — which might just be the baseline it needs to remain competitive with OpenAI. (Training models isn’t cheap, after all.) It’s well on its way, with $2 billion and $4 billion in committed capital and pledges from Google and Amazon, respectively, and well over a billion combined from other backers.