
Nintendo forecasts sales of 15 million Switch 2 consoles as it gears up for launch
Attendees walk past an advertising board during the Nintendo Switch 2 Experience at the ExCeL London international exhibition and convention centre in London, Britain, April 11, 2025.
Nintendo said Thursday that it expects to sell 15 million units of its new Switch 2 console in the fiscal year ending March 2026.
It is the first forecast for sales from the Japanese gaming giant since it announced the successor to its successful Switch device.
Earlier this year Nintendo slashed its forecast for sales of the Switch to 11 million units for the year ended Mar. 31. Nintendo on Thursday said it sold 10.8 million units of the Switch in the year, just shy of its own forecast and down 31% year-on-year.
Investors are now focused on how the successor to the console, the Switch 2, will perform when it goes on sale in June. The Switch 2 will start at $449.99 in the U.S. and has improved features compared with its predecessor.
Nintendo first launched the original Switch in 2017 and it has become the Japanese gaming giant's second-best-selling console ever. The firm managed to extend the life of the hardware thanks to hit games involving characters like Super Mario, franchises such as Pokemon and the expansion of its intellectual property into films.
Investors are hopeful the company can continue to ride its wave of popularity with shares up 33% this year.
However, the Japanese gaming giant in April delayed pre-orders for the Switch 2 in the U.S. after President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs on countries around the world. Nintendo's consoles are manufactured in Vietnam.
This is a breaking news story. Please refresh for updates.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


CNBC
29 minutes ago
- CNBC
Bank of America bets on ‘outsized price movements' in Australia's bond market as investors rotate away from the U.S.
As international investors pivot out of the U.S., another part of the world — and its bond market in particular — is gaining attention, according to Bank of America. The analysts pointed to Australia's bond market as potential beneficiary of the dollar losing its safe haven status. Dedollarization Market volatility under U.S. President Donald Trump's presidency has led some investors to diversify to other markets in 2025. Trump's controversial trade policies sparked a "Sell America" trade earlier this year that raised questions about dedollarization as investors cashed out of U.S. Treasurys, Wall Street stocks and the greenback. The U.S. dollar index , which measures the greenback against a basket of major rivals, is down 9% so far this year. .DXY YTD mountain Price of the U.S. dollar index so far this year. In a note on Wednesday, FX strategists at Bank of America forecast significant price moves ahead for Australian sovereign debt, in part because of the dedollarization trend. They suggested the country's fixed income market could see an inflow of capital as U.S.-focused positions were reassessed — but noted that even a modest rotation out of U.S. dollar-denominated assets had the potential to "overwhelm AUD fixed-income and [lead to] outsized price movements." In its most recent Global Fund Managers Survey, published last week, Bank of America found that fund managers were the most underweight on the U.S. dollar then they have ever been in 20 years. One in five of the 222 fund managers — who collectively manage assets worth $587 billion — polled this month said they saw a short U.S. dollar position as the most crowded trade. "High-frequency data" suggests foreign and official demand for the Australian dollar may be "intensifying," BofA's Oliver Levingston, Adarsh Sinha and Janice Xue said in a Wednesday note. 'Major impact' on pricing "For small fixed-income markets like Australia's, a modest rotation out of USD assets could have a major impact on market pricing," they added. "Dedollarization was a major theme on our trip to the United States and Canada, and we continue to highlight the significant impact small shifts in global fund managers' asset allocations could have on the demand profile for AUD fixed income." So far this year, the yield on Australia's benchmark 10-year government bond has cooled slightly to around 4.24%. On Friday, the yield gained 1 basis point. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions, and 1 basis equals 0.01%. Comparatively, the yield on the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury was last trading at around 4.43% — giving the two assets a spread of 19 basis points. AU10Y US10Y YTD line The chart shows the yield on the Australian 10 year government bond versus the U.S. 10 year Treasury. Bank of America's strategists said they expected that spread to widen further in the coming years, as demand for Australian sovereign debt surged. Noting that the bonds were "highly sensitive to shifts in global reserve manager demand," they forecast that demand would exceed supply by 2027/28. "We recommend going long spreads and see AU 10y bonds trading 75bps rich vs USTs … by end-'26," they wrote. A wider spread of 75 basis points would imply stronger Australian bond prices relative to U.S. Treasurys. 'Peripheral dollar bloc assets' Part of the appeal, according to Levingston, Sinha and Xue, is rising demand for what they referred to as "peripheral dollar bloc assets." Over the past decade, the share of official reserves — that is, assets held by central banks — denominated in Australian dollars has doubled, they said. Another 1-percentage-point gain in global reserve demand would translate to 185% of net supply of Australian sovereign bonds in the current fiscal year, they added. Conversely, demand for U.S. Treasurys — historically seen as a safe investment in times of macroeconomic or geopolitical turmoil — has been shaky this year. In the aftermath of Trump's so-called "liberation day" tariffs announcement, U.S. Treasurys sold off , pushing yields — representative of government borrowing costs — higher, and prices of the bonds lower. "Coupled with tailwinds from Australian superannuation [pension] funds' rapidly growing footprint in AUD fixed-income markets and potential bank deregulation, the demand profile for AUD fixed income looks robust," BofA's Levingston, Sinha and Xue said in their note. "In our view, AUD bonds' high sensitivity to small shifts in global reserve demand for AUD assets has not been priced. On a comparative international basis, AUD term premium looks excessively high."
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Which AI Stocks Are Set to Soar in the Second Half?
Artificial intelligence is an area of enormous potential for companies and investors. After a few difficult months, AI stocks could resume their 2024 momentum and soar in the second half. Three in particular could lead the way. 10 stocks we like better than Nvidia › Artificial intelligence (AI) stocks skyrocketed in 2024 amid excitement about this technology that could revolutionize businesses, saving time and money and leading to important discoveries. These players faced a few difficult months recently due to concerns about a potential economic slowdown. However, some of the uncertainty has passed, suggesting better days may be ahead for AI stocks. Against this backdrop, Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) are set to soar in the second half. Here's why. President Donald Trump's plan to impose tariffs on imports weighed on technology stocks, including AI chip giant Nvidia, several weeks ago. This pushed Nvidia down nearly 30% from the start of the year through early April. Though the president initially exempted electronics products, this exemption was temporary, suggesting chips and other items would face tariffs at some point in the near future. But Nvidia has since rebounded, thanks to optimism that tariffs won't be as steep as originally expected and as the company showed the strength of its earnings through the first quarter of the year. Nvidia's revenue surged 69% to $44 billion, demand remained strong, and customer comments indicate that their spending plans for the year remain intact. This bodes well for ongoing growth for Nvidia. On top of this, the chip giant is making investments in U.S. manufacturing to limit any eventual tariff impact and sticks to its plan to update chips on an annual basis -- a move that should keep it ahead of rivals. Today, Nvidia trades for only 33 times forward earnings estimates, down from about 50 times just a few months ago, and this level offers the stock plenty of room to run in the second half. Among all the top tech stocks, Apple may be the one that has suffered the most amid the recent tariff turbulence. Trump, displeased that Apple has generally produced most iPhones abroad, even threatened to impose a 25% tariff on Apple's imported iPhones. Meanwhile, Apple has made efforts to diversify its manufacturing, with a plan to move much of it from China to India. Uncertainty remains as the president wants Apple to bring iPhone production to the U.S., but doing this could result in a drastically higher price for the smartphone. All of this has hurt Apple stock, which is down about 20% since the start of the year. I view this as a buying opportunity because I don't think the U.S. aims to destroy Apple's growth. It's possible that both parties will reach a reasonable agreement. Meanwhile, any positive news on the subject could result in Apple stock bouncing back in the coming months. It's important to remember that Apple has built a very profitable smartphone empire with a tremendous moat, or competitive advantage, and these elements should support growth over the long term. All of this means that buying Apple now may result in gains in the coming months, but even better, set you up for a long-term win. Amazon's performance has been sluggish in recent times, with a 3% decline for the year, amid concerns that tariffs could hurt its e-commerce business and cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS). But as mentioned above, the worst-case tariff scenario has been avoided, and the U.S. is making progress on trade agreements. So, I wouldn't expect to see a major impact from the tariffs on Amazon's growth. A key point is that Amazon has revamped its cost structure in recent years after facing pressure from rising inflation. This helped the company return to growth in just one year, and the efforts have positioned it well to maximize profit during future challenging times. So, these cost structure moves should help Amazon manage any potential tariff situation moving forward. And events such as Prime Day, which take place in the second half of the year, could help boost revenue. AWS has also been seeing tremendous growth from its AI efforts, which have helped it reach a $117 billion annual revenue run rate. We're still early in the AI story, so I would expect to see ongoing growth in this area, particularly since AWS is the world's No. 1 cloud service provider. Today, Amazon shares trade for 34 times forward earnings estimates, a reasonable level that could prompt investors to buy -- and help the stock take off in the second half. Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Nvidia wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $664,089!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $881,731!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 994% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 172% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025 John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Adria Cimino has positions in Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Apple, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Which AI Stocks Are Set to Soar in the Second Half? was originally published by The Motley Fool


CNBC
an hour ago
- CNBC
Bitcoin sinks below $99,000 as U.S. strikes on Iran trigger crypto market sell-off
Bitcoin fell to its lowest level since May over the weekend, as rising tensions in the Middle East and renewed inflation fears triggered a sharp selloff across digital assets. Bitcoin dropped below the $99,000 mark on Sunday — its lowest point in more than a month — as the crypto market became the first to react to escalating geopolitical risk. Bitcoin is trading around $99,380, down more than 2% over the past 24 hours, while ether has dropped 5% to below $2,200. Solana, XRP, and dogecoin also posted sharp losses, dragging the entire crypto complex deep into the red. The selloff appears to be a combination of geopolitical shock and macroeconomic concern. Iran has reportedly threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz — a vital shipping lane that handles about 20% of global oil supply. JPMorgan warns that a full closure could drive oil prices as high as $130 per barrel. One prominent macro research firm notes that such a spike could send U.S. inflation back toward 5% — a level not seen since March 2023, when the Fed was still actively raising rates. That outlook has traders reassessing the path of interest rates — and rotating out of speculative assets like crypto. While bitcoin is often pitched as an inflation hedge, it's currently behaving more like a high-beta tech stock. According to crypto data provider Kaiko, bitcoin's correlation with the tech-heavy Nasdaq has climbed sharply in recent weeks, after hitting a multi-month low earlier this year — a period that coincided with surging inflows into spot bitcoin ETFs. Institutional positioning also appears to have shifted. More than $1.04 billion flowed into spot bitcoin ETFs from Monday through Wednesday last week, according to data from CoinGlass. But those inflows collapsed heading into the weekend, with zero net movement Thursday and just $6.4 million on Friday — coinciding with President Donald Trump's early G7 departure and the announcement of a two-week review of U.S. options on Iran. The technical breakdown added fuel to the selloff. CoinGlass research shows bitcoin's drop below $99,000 triggered forced selling across offshore derivatives platforms like Binance and Bybit. At its peak on Sunday, more than $1 billion in crypto positions were liquidated during a 24-hour span — with over 95% coming from long bets, underscoring just how overexposed the market was heading into the weekend.