Shares Richtech Robotics are surging in premarket trading after the company announced “a hands-on collaboration with Microsoft through the Microsoft AI Co-Innovation Labs to jointly develop and deploy agentic artificial intelligence capabilities in real-world robotic systems.”

Per the press release, the two companies worked together to imbue Richtech’s flagship ADAM robot with “additional layers of context awareness” to “support smoother workflows and more responsive customer interactions in retail environments.”

Apropos of nothing, here’s an ADAM robot serving Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang a margarita:

Richtech was one of many robotics and vaguely robotics companies that caught a massive bid in early December after Politico reported that the Commerce Department was poised to go “all in” to support the industry. To date, there's been no evidence of such a plan, but that hasn’t stopped robotics stocks from having a phenomenal start to 2026. The Themes Humanoid Robotics ETF, which counts Richtech as one of its members, gained nearly 50% year-to-date through Thursday’s close, though it has since come off the boil.

Ahead of earnings Wednesday, a new Tesla note from Wedbush analyst Dan Ives argues the company is on the cusp of a Robotaxi-driven transformation, with Full Self-Driving penetration rising above 50% and autonomy unlocking as much as $1 trillion in value — putting Tesla on a path to a $2–3 trillion market cap over the coming year.

The issue isn’t the optimism; it’s the absence of mechanics. FSD penetration across Tesla’s global fleet currently sits in the low teens. The note doesn’t explain how Tesla bridges that gap — whether through pricing changes, bundling, or a behavioral shift among mass-market buyers. Tesla is ending the option to buy FSD outright in favor of subscriptions, but that alone isn’t going to push adoption from roughly 12% to 50%.

Ives treats Tesla's Robotaxi progress as inevitable rather than conditional. The removal of safety drivers in Austin — which for now is isolated to two or three vehicles and involves using an extra chase car to follow the Robotaxi — is framed as a tipping point. But there’s little discussion of scaling risks, regulation, real-world performance data, or actual demand. Ives only says President Trump will likely issue an executive order on autonomous rules and regulatory hurdles will effectively disappear — with the implication that FSD adoption would accelerate rapidly.

Even near-term fundamentals are stretched to support the narrative. Tesla didn’t beat Q4 delivery expectations, though Ives says it did, having previously cited whisper numbers rather than analyst consensus. That claim is then used to clear the runway for a valuation argument focused almost entirely on future autonomy.

In the end, this is less an earnings preview note than a statement of belief: autonomy works; adoption follows; Tesla wins at scale.

That story may eventually prove right — but for now, it’s an assertion that outstrips the evidence.

Boeing reported its fourth-quarter and full-year earnings before the market opened on Tuesday.

Boeing posted adjusted earnings of $9.92 per share compared to a loss of $0.44 per share expected by Wall Street analysts polled by FactSet. Those earnings, however, aren’t comparable to estimates because they reflect a massive gain from the close of Boeing’s sale of its digital aviation assets, which the company says boosted overall earnings by $11.83 per share.

The plane maker generated $375 million in free cash flow, it’s second straight quarter of positive FCF following six consecutive quarters of negative results. Wall Street expected $207 million.

Boeing last year saw significant recovery from its bleak 2024, improving its commercial deliveries by 72%. The company logged nearly 1,200 plane orders in 2025, outselling European rival Airbus for the first time since 2018. Boeing’s revenue climbed 57% in the fourth quarter to $23.95 billion, beating estimates of $22.6 billion. Its total backlog grew to $682 billion.

In October, US regulators approved an increase to the monthly cap on 737 production from 38 to 42 planes.

American Airlines gave a rosy projection for full-year earnings that has the stock taking to the skies on Tuesday.

For the full year, American forecast adjusted earnings of between $1.70 and $2.70 per share, putting the midpoint of $2.20 significantly higher than analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.97 per share. The carrier also guided for more than $2 billion in free cash flow in 2026, more than double Wall Street’s expectations.

American shares climbed are up around 3.2% in premarket trading as of 7:35 a.m. ET, after the release of its fourth-quarter and full-year earnings report, which included the guidance.

The airline’s earnings for the quarter missed Wall Street’s expectations with adjusted earnings of $0.16 per share. Analysts polled by FactSet expected $0.37 per share.

American, the third of the “Big Four” US airlines to cap off its 2025 fiscal year, said it expects a loss of between $0.10 and $0.50 per share in the first quarter of 2026. Analysts expected a loss of $0.29 per share.

Passenger revenue reached $12.66 billion in Q4, up 2.1% from last year but below estimates of $12.72 billion. American produced an adjusted operating margin of 3.5% in the quarter, compared to 8.4% in the same quarter a year ago.

American also announced a $325 million hit to its revenue from the government shutdown.

And it said the winter storm that has caused widespread cancellations this week will negatively impact revenue by between $150 million and $200 million.

America’s sixth-largest airline, JetBlue, reported its fourth-quarter earnings on Tuesday morning.

For the quarter that ended in December, JetBlue reported an adjusted loss per share of $0.49, a deeper loss than the $0.46 figure expected by Wall Street analysts polled by FactSet. Its passenger revenue dropped 2.2% from the year before to $2.05 billion, beating estimates of $2.02 billion. Still, the airline has now posted year-over-year passenger revenue declines for three years in a row.

JetBlue said it expects its costs per seat mile excluding fuel to rise between 3.5% and 5.5% in the first quarter this year, and between 1% and 3% in 2026. The carrier guided for a boost in capacity between 0.5% and 3.5% in the first quarter of 2026, and between 2.5% and 4.5% for the full year.

JetBlue plans to roll out first class seating to its fleet this year, amid an industry-wide premium push.

Detroit automaker GM reported its fourth-quarter and full-year earnings results on Tuesday. Its shares climbed more than 5% in premarket trading.

The company, which leads the US in auto sales, guided for adjusted earnings of between $11 and $13 per share in 2026, with a midpoint just modestly ahead of the $11.94 per share expected by Wall Street analysts polled by FactSet. GM forecast adjusted automotive free cash flow of between $9 and $11 billion in the year ahead, compared to estimates of $9.8 billion.

In its fourth-quarter, GM posted adjusted earnings of $2.51 per share, beating the $2.25 per share estimate. In its Q4 sales report GM said EV sales dropped 43% in the quarter amid an industry-wide pullback due to the end of federal tax credits. Total sales fell 7% year-over-year in the quarter, but climbed 6% for the full-year.

The automaker also announced a new $6 billion stock buyback program, and said it would raise its quarterly dividend 20% to $0.18 per share.

Earlier this month, GM said it would take a $6 billion write-down on its EV business in the fourth quarter. Its rival Ford announced a $19.5 billion write-down for similar reasons in December.

Apple has become the red-headed stepchild of the Magnificent 7 in an AI-heavy market.

Jeff Jacobson, head of derivatives strategy at 22V Research, thinks the time is ripe to bet on a rebound in the stock that retail traders have been using as a source of funds for other opportunities in tech.

Ahead of the iPhone maker’s earnings report on Thursday, Jacobson recommends a call spread trade in Apple that offers exposure to a long-lived positive reaction to the company’s quarterly results and commentary.

His proposed trade:

• Buy Apple calls with a strike price of $262.50 that expire on February 20

• Sell the same amount of Apple calls with a strike price of $285 and the same expiry

When Jacobson initially made this recommendation in an email to clients, the trade could be put on for about $3.95; as of Monday’s close, that’s risen to about $4.27.

“What I particularly like about the setup for AAPL into earnings this quarter is the sharp pullback in the stock on both an absolute and relative basis heading into the report later this week (AAPL reports on 1/29 post-close),” he writes. “Not only did we see a nearly 16% decline from the December (all-time) highs but shares also underperformed the market (SPX) by over 14% over that time. Now that the stock has already moved lower and underperformed, perhaps we can see a meaningful rebound once they report earnings?”

Apple is aiming to beef up its AI presence in 2026 after a host of management changes late last year, and is reportedly exploring the possibility of a wearable AI pin. The company seemingly has a solid base from which to innovate, with its now world-leading smartphone market share and its services business supported by the 850 million weekly App Store users it counted at the end of 2025.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives called the Tim Cook-led firm one of his top five artificial intelligence stocks for 2026, despite its “invisible AI strategy.”

Only a few months after formally launching its defense unit, Salesforce has become the latest beneficiary of the Pentagon’s desire for more streamlined software.

The stock is up more than 2% in premarket trading on Tuesday after the company announced that Computable Insights, its subsidiary focused on US intelligence and national security, had signed a deal potentially worth up to $5.6 billion with the US Army to provide its AI, customer relationship management, and data analytics capabilities.

Per the press release, the announced 10-year indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract — agreements that offer an unspecified amount of services over a fixed period — will consist of a five-year base ordering period and a five-year optional ordering period with a $5.6 billion ceiling. The company noted that it is not a guaranteed purchase amount.

In the words of Kendall Collins, CEO of Salesforce’s Missionforce and Government Cloud unit: “This new contract, which builds on more than a decade-long relationship between Salesforce and the U.S. Armed Forces, will operationalize Missionforce across the Army and DOW, delivering trusted data and seamless interoperability, and supporting the DOW’s transformation into an agentic enterprise.”

The cloud software provider doubled down on its defense business after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made implementing modern commercial systems a priority in a March note, debuting the new security-focused business unit Missionforce in September and launching a version of popular messaging app Slack with security levels in line with Defense Department standards.

Web infrastructure company Cloudflare rose nearly 10% in premarket trading Tuesday, building on a 9% gain on Monday, as social media buzz around the viral AI agent Clawdbot drew investor attention to Cloudflare’s role in the infrastructure behind emerging AI tools.

Clawdbot is an open-source AI assistant built on Anthropic’s Claude model, which has recently gained traction among developers for its ability to carry out tasks autonomously rather than just responding to prompts. After a weekend of online chatter around the tool, investors began linking that momentum to Cloudflare’s infrastructure — which is commonly used to deploy and secure AI tools and agents.

One feature getting particular attention is Cloudflare Tunnel, which allows developers to securely connect locally run tools (like AI agents) to the public internet without exposing their servers directly. According to Cloudflare’s website, its AI services are “already used by 80% of the top 50 generative AI companies.”

Cloudflare is expected to report earnings on February 10, which investors will be watching closely for signs that the AI-related buzz is showing up in actual traffic and revenue.

Silver prices soaring to fresh records on Monday translated into record activity in the iShares Silver Trust.

While geopolitical factors and some signs of physical market tightness have played a role in the parabolic moves in precious metals, escalating prices are in large part a function of escalating financial demand.

Nearly $40 billion changed hands in SLV, the ticker for the iShares Silver Trust, on the opening session of the week. That’s roughly 3.8x the prior peak set in Q2 2011. Call volumes of 3.64 million were nearly a full million above the previous record high from January 2021.

So intense was the scramble to get exposure to silver through this product that SLV dollar volumes nearly eclipsed those of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF, the most heavily traded fund on the planet, and well exceeded those of the Invesco QQQ Trust, which tracks the Nasdaq 100.

It’s the first time since May 2011 that the silver fund traded more than QQQ, and the closest it’s come, bar April 25, 2011, to besting SPY on this metric.

This shiny metal product continues to enjoy more trading activity than the SPDR Gold Shares ETF, which holds its more richly valued previous peer.

“The Big Short” is now “The Big Catalyst.”

Michael Burry’s Substack post on Monday, in which he announced that he owns GameStop and had been buying the stock recently, was a spark for retail to follow in his footsteps.

The revelation spurred a wave of activity around the stock, especially in short-term options. Call volumes were north of 695,000 on Monday, more than 4.5x their 20-day average.

Per JPMorgan analyst Arun Jain, the net retail imbalance in GameStop shares was the most positive since late Q1 2025.

That timeline loosely aligns with the release of GameStop’s fourth-quarter results for 2024 on March 25 of last year, wherein the company booked its largest operating profit since Q4 2017.

More importantly for retail demand, management also confirmed that the board had “unanimously approved” its ability to start buying bitcoin.

That confirmed the worst-kept secret in finance, with reports about potential crypto buying having picked up steam after GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen posted a picture with Strategy founder Michael Saylor.

Ahead of that report, positioning in GameStop options was tilted decisively to the bull side as traders hoped for a crypto confirmation-induced bump.

(Ironically, there’s current speculation that this very pivot to bitcoin is something the company might be shifting away from, as GameStop has moved its crypto holdings from cold storage to Coinbase Prime.)

Micron sees an AI boom and wants to sell more chips into it.

On Monday evening, the company announced that it broke ground on an additional wafer fabrication facility at its complex in Singapore, kicking off a decade-long, $24 billion project.

Shares are up more than 3.5% as of 4:05 a.m. ET.

Of note: this is an expansion of NAND capacity, rather than DRAM. The latter contains high-bandwidth memory and makes up the lion’s share of Micron’s revenues.

“Wafer output is scheduled to begin in the second half of calendar 2028, helping Micron address growing market demand for NAND technology driven by the rapid expansion of AI and data-centric applications,” per the press release.

Micron’s rivals in South Korea enjoyed strong sessions on Tuesday despite President Donald Trump threatening to raise tariffs on the nation’s exports to the US to 25%, from 15%. The KOSPI Index rebounded from early losses with SK Hynix and Samsung soaring. SK Hynix’s outsized gains appeared to be fueled by a report from local media that it will be the sole supplier of HBM3E for Microsoft’s new Maia 200 chip, which was unveiled on Monday.

As we’ve discussed before, the supply crunch in memory and storage is the shortage that traders have wanted exposure to for much of the past five months.

The beneficiaries of memory chip giants’ quest to increase capacity include semicap stocks like ASML, Lam Research, KLA Corp, and Applied Materials, which provide the equipment used in new fabs.

Investment management company VanEck on Monday introduced the first exchange-traded fund offering spot exposure to AVAX, the native token for the Avalanche blockchain and the latest cryptocurrency with an ETF. 

The new investment vehicle also aims to provide staking rewards for holders, according to the press release. AVAX, which has seen over $354 million in trading volume in the last 24 hours, is up slightly today. The token is trading at $11.70 as of 1:20 p.m. ET, a far cry from its all-time high of $144.96 in 2021. 

The nascent VanEck fund joins a group of its crypto-specific ETFs, including the firm’s bitcoin ETF, with $1.4 billion in total assets; its ethereum ETF, which holds $147.5 million; and its solana ETF, with assets totaling $27.9 million.