The world’s largest contract electronics maker, Foxconn, said Monday it has built its own large language model with reasoning capabilities, developed in-house and trained in just four weeks.
Initially designed for internal use within the company, the artificial intelligence model, called FoxBrain, can serve functions including data analysis, mathematics, reasoning and code generation, the company said. Foxconn revealed Nvidia provided support through its Taiwan-based supercomputer and technical consulting, enabling successful model training. The company confirmed it intends to open-source the model for collaborations with industry partners. It envisions FoxBrain driving advancements in manufacturing and supply chain management. The model “prioritized optimized training strategies over simply throwing computing power” at the problem, said Yung-Hui Li, director of Foxconn’s artificial intelligence research center. Using 120 Nvidia H100 graphics processing units, Li’s team finished training FoxBrain in about four weeks, the company said.
Foxconn, best known for assembling Apple’s iPhones, has released some parameters of FoxBrain. The company said further information would be revealed at Nvidia’s annual technology event in mid-March. Based on Meta’s Llama 3.1 structure, the company said FoxBrain was Taiwan’s first large language model with advanced reasoning, designed and optimized for traditional Chinese, the form of the language used in Taiwan and some overseas Chinese communities. The company stated its model’s performance was slightly behind some models of China’s DeepSeek but was approaching world-class levels. Foxconn, facing challenges in its core electronics manufacturing business due to industry shifts and declining profitability, has been diversifying into areas such as AI and electric vehicles.

The SMI posted another moderate gain on the last trading day of the week. The SMI improved by 0.4 per cent to 13,077 points. At the end of the week, stocks from the luxury goods sector were under pressure to sell off. This was due to figures from Ferragamo. The sector is heavily dependent on the Chinese market, while the US market has also recently gained in importance. Richemont shares fell by 5.4 per cent and Swatch dropped by 2.9 per cent. However, the reporting season also continued to provide impetus. Mikron shares rose by 8.1 per cent following the figures for the 2024 financial year. SFS Group, on the other hand, lost 2.5 per cent after announcing its annual results.

European indices were lower Friday at the end of a turbulent week marked by deep uncertainty over U.S. tariff s and a plan for one of the biggest shifts in European economic policy since the Second World War. The Stoxx Europe 600 index slipped 0.5% to 553.4 points. In Paris, the CAC 40 and the SBF 120 each gave up 0.9%. The DAX 40 lost 1.8% in Frankfurt, while the FTSE 100 finished close to balance in London. Over the week as a whole, the Stoxx Europe 600 retreated by 0.7%. Luxury stocks were among the worst performers, with Salvatore Ferragamo shares plunging 15.9 per cent on the Milan stock exchange despite figures that were in line with expectations. LVMH, the industry leader, declined by 2.8 per cent. The recently booming defence stocks were quieter. The analysts at Kepler downgraded Hensoldt to ‘Reduce’ after the recently raised price target was clearly exceeded. As a result, Hensoldt fell by 13.2 per cent. Rheinmetall closed down 7.0 per cent and Leonardo lost 6.4 per cent in Milan. About You (unvv.) was little moved by the fact that Zalando now owns over 90 per cent of About You shares and the minority shareholders are now to be forced out. Zalando dropped 0.8 per cent.

An ugly week on Wall Street ended with tumultuous trading Friday as major stock indexes seesawed before finishing slightly higher. The S&P 500 index dropped 3.1% for the week, its biggest one-week decline since Sept. 6. Investors turned defensive out of concern about the Trump administration’s unpredictable tariff policies and how they would affect economic growth. That fuelled sharp declines in technology and financial stocks, which had pushed indexes to record highs earlier this year. U.S. stocks fell initially on Friday when the monthly jobs report showed hiring picked up a touch in February, with 151,000 jobs added, but slightly under expectations. The unemployment rate crept up to 4.1%, while it had been forecast to hold steady. Indexes rebounded back to positive territory after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell delivered remarks about taking a wait-and-see approach to interest rates. But indexes still finished the week significantly lower. Nvidia, a big beneficiary of artificial-intelligence euphoria, lost about $1 trillion of market capitalisation since its stock peaked at the start of the year. Stock prices for Goldman Sachs, which recently reported a doubling of profits, sank about 17% over the same period. Tesla shares lost all of their post-election gains for the first time on Friday. The bearish pivot pushed indexes down below thresholds that many traders use as signals to reduce risk exposure. The Dow Jones Industrial dipped below its 200-day moving average on Friday for the first time since November 2023, before rebounding and closing above the threshold. Stock traders are rotating out of tech and financial investments that were popular just weeks ago because they tend to outperform in periods of strong economic growth. Instead they are turning to perceived havens of safety. In the U.S., McDonald’s stock gained about 4.2% for the week. The fast-food restaurant chain is viewed as a strong performer in times of economic contraction when budget-conscious consumers turn away from more expensive options.

Asian stocks were mixed at the start of the week. While there was a slight recovery in Tokyo (+0.2%) from Friday's significant losses, the Chinese stock exchanges plummeted after weaker-than-expected inflation data for February. The Shanghai Composite lost 0.6 per cent after initial slight gains and the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong plunged 2.1 per cent. Technology and semiconductor stocks in particular are under downward pressure. The White House is apparently considering measures to restrict Deepseek in the United States, according to reports on Friday.

U.S. government debt sold off on Friday, pushing 2- through 30-year yields higher, after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank can wait for clarity on the economic outlook and signaled no need to rush before making an interest-rate move. The 10-year Treasury note yield edged up 3 basis points (0.03 percentage points) to 4.3%. The 2-year Treasury note yield gained 3 basis points to 4%. Bearish sentiment crept into credit markets as the yield premium, or spread, that investors demanded to own corporate bonds rather than U.S. Treasuries rose from nearly record lows in February.

Vontobel raises Alcon target to CHF 90 (84) - Hold
UBS lifts Belimo target to CHF 445 (405) – Sell
Berenberg upgrades Bucher target to CHF 458 (444) - Buy

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