Highlights for the morning: government investment in Intel, Buffett's buyout and the early sale of Circle

Donald Trump's administration is considering buying a stake in Intel to fund factories in Ohio. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway bought 5 million shares of UnitedHealth, whose quotes have fallen 46% since the beginning of the year. Stablecoin issuer Circle, just two months after its IPO, announced the sale of $1.4 billion worth of shares, taking advantage of their 349% growth. On these and other topics - in the review of key events by the morning of August 15.

Intel shares rose 7% in main trading and another 4.5% in extended trading after Bloomberg reported that Donald Trump's administration is considering acquiring a stake in the company. The funds are planned to be used to build factories in Ohio. Intel is the only U.S. company capable of producing the fastest chips on U.S. soil, while rivals TSMC and Samsung only have separate fabs in the country.

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan met at the White House this week with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has called for him to resign over alleged ties to China. The company said Tan is committed to protecting U.S. national and economic interests.

Earlier, Intel froze projects in Germany and Poland and slowed development in Ohio, as its foundry business has yet to attract major customers. The Trump administration's actions reflect a trend toward government intervention in strategic industries, Bloomberg points out. Last week, the administration agreed to give the U.S. government 15% of some Nvidia and AMD chip sales to China, and in recent months it has also acquired a stake in MP Materials and gained a "golden share" in U.S. Steel.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has acquired 5 million shares in UnitedHealth Group, causing the insurer's stock price to rise 7% in an extended session, Reuters reports. Buffett already held a stake in the company between 2006 and 2009, but exited it completely in 2010 as part of a reduction in investments in the medical sector.

The deal came amid rising medical costs, federal investigations, the fallout from the murder of a top executive and last year's cyberattack. UnitedHealth recently lowered its earnings forecast, expecting billions of dollars in additional costs in coming quarters.

The stock is down 46% since the beginning of the year.

The second quarter of 2025 marked the return of the largest US hedge funds to investing in Big Tech amid the artificial intelligence boom, Reuters reports. Bridgewater Associates increased stakes in Nvidia, Alphabet and Microsoft, as well as Broadcom and Palo Alto Networks, betting on the growth of the AI sector. Discovery Capital doubled its position in Meta, opened a new one in CoreWeave (Nvidia is among its investors) and increased its stake in UnitedHealth.

Tiger Global Management strengthened its positions in Amazon, Alphabet, Nvidia, Microsoft and Meta, and invested in hardware manufacturer Lam Research. Coatue Management opened large positions in Arm Holdings and Oracle and increased its stake in CoreWeave to $2.9 billion. Lone Pine Capital entered UnitedHealth for $528 million.

At the same time, funds were reducing investments in lagging sectors, including defense, consumer and retail segments. The recovery in quotations of technology giants helped the S&P 500 to add 10% since the beginning of the year, with the largest IT companies forming almost a third of the index's capitalization.

Stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group and its shareholders, including CEO Jeremy Allaire, announced the sale of 10 million shares for about $1.4 billion, taking advantage of a 349% rise in the stock price since its June IPO, Bloomberg reports. The deal comes just two months after going public: a lockup prohibiting stock transactions is still in effect, but JPMorgan, which became the lead organizer of the IPO, authorized the sale.

Analysts say the move is "opportunistic" and reflects a desire to lock in profits amid strong demand: the offering has been oversubscribed and should be offered at a discount to the market price. Even at the current share price, half its June peak of $298.99, the offering will exceed the fees of the IPO itself.

Such deals shortly after the offering were popular in the dot-com era. In 2025, Karman Holdings, Viking Holdings, UL Solutions and StandardAero had already taken this route. For Circle, however, such an early re-offering was a record-breaking one, but investors took it calmly due to high interest in the securities and steady trading activity.

The UK division of online retailer Shein saw sales increase 32.3% to £2.05 billion ($2.77 billion) in 2024, with pre-tax profits rising from £24.43 million to £38.25 million, CNBC writes. Among the highlights of the year, the company noted the opening of offices in London (King's Cross) and Manchester, a pop-up store in Liverpool and a 12-city Christmas bus tour.

Shein cited a number of risks: delays in the supply chain, rising costs due to currency fluctuations and freight, IT system failures, and changes in UK regulation that could force the change or withdrawal of goods from sale. Additional pressure could come from weak consumer confidence amid high inflation and rising living costs.

Earlier this year, the company confidentially filed for an IPO in Hong Kong in a bid to speed up the listing after a drawn-out process in London, where Shein had previously had difficulty getting regulatory approval.

- Japan's broad Topix index was up 1.5 percent.

- The benchmark Nikkei 225 was up 1.7%.

- In South Korea, the stock exchanges are closed.

- Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.7 percent.

- Futures on the S&P 500 were up 0.25 percent, the Nasdaq 100 was up 0.06 percent and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up nearly 0.8 percent.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor