CAPITOL LOSSES
CAPITOL LOSSES
Washington, DC, lost over 100,000 jobs last year, the most in the US
PRIME PILLED
PRIME PILLED
Amazon’s relentless push to become your doctor and your pharmacy
the cig is up
the cig is up
How do you stop teens smoking? The UK thinks a lifetime ban is the only way forward.
Analyst reports that OpenAI is partnering with Qualcomm for custom processors for an AI smartphone chip
Amazon-backed X-Energy continues post-IPO rally
US stock futures erase losses on report of new Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz
Spectrum owner Charter Communications is on pace for its worst day ever as broadband numbers and Q1 results disappoint
Lilly slips after prescriptions for its weight-loss pill come in below expectations in second week
DeepSeek releases new V4 series models highlighting efficiency and long context
Latest News
Deep Dives
- The power play behind Hyperion, Mark Zuckerberg’s colossal data center being built in rural Louisiana
- Clean energy investment hit a new record last quarter, mostly driven by EVs
- The cruise industry is booming thanks to younger consumers looking to “seacation”
- Reading an article online? It’s now a coin flip whether it was authored by a human or AI
Latest Stories
Analyst reports that OpenAI is partnering with Qualcomm for custom processors for an AI smartphone chip
Qualcomm, the worst-performing member of the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index this year which finally got its day in the spotlight on Friday, is basking in the sunshine once again. The San-Diego based firm is up 12% in early trading on Monday after an analyst said that the smartphone chipmaker is partnering with OpenAI to build new custom processors for smartphones.
Per an X post from TF Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo late last night, OpenAI is working with Qualcomm, as well as MediaTek and Luxshare, to develop an AI agent phone, with plans for mass production to start from 2028.
Per Kuo, processors for the AI phone, which Qualcomm and MediaTek will partner to co-develop, will prioritize “power consumption, memory hierarchy management, and basic small-model execution,” in an effort to continuously understand the user’s context, whilst more complex or compute-intensive tasks will be handled by cloud AI. Specifications and suppliers for the processors are expected to be finalized by late 2026 or 1Q27.
The reported partnership continues OpenAI’s ambitions to get into agentic AI hardware, after announcing in July 2025 that it is building an AI device with Broadcom under the watch of Jony Ives, the former Chief Design Officer at Apple.
Amazon-backed X-Energy continues post-IPO rally
Nuclear energy company X-Energy continued to rise in premarket trading on Monday after rushing out of the gate on its Nasdaq debut.
X-Energy shares closed 27% above their IPO price on Friday, its first day as a publicly-listed company. Shares have risen another ~16% before the bell on Monday.
The company raised $1 billion for its IPO, with high-profile backers including Amazon and Ken Griffin, the founder of the hedge fund Citadel. X-Energy had a market capitalization of $11.6 billion as of Friday’s close.
The company uses modular nuclear reactors to produce energy for industrial facilities and data centers, joining a list of energy startups including Oklo and Fermi looking to profit from the artificial intelligence boom’s massive energy demand.
X-Energy, which counts Dow, Inc. and Amazon among its clients, reported $109.3 million in revenue in 2025 and a $390 million net loss for the year.
US stock futures erase losses on report of new Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz
S&P 500 futures erased small losses on Sunday evening after Axios reported that Iran, through Pakistan, is offering a fresh proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the conflict. West Texas Intermediate futures are off their highs, but still up 1.6% as of 9:33 p.m. ET. According to Axios, this deal would punt the issue of Iran’s nuclear program to a later date.
This new potential off-ramp follows some less than encouraging news on the status of talks between the two sides. On Saturday, President Donald Trump said that he canceled a trip to Pakistan during which Steve Witkoff (special envoy to the Middle East) and Jared Kushner (Trump’s son-in-law) had been expected to negotiate with Iran. On Sunday, Trump told Fox News that Iran “can come to us, or they can call us” if they want to talk.
The Strait of Hormuz, a key chokepoint for global oil flows, has been largely closed since the conflict started roughly two months ago, despite a ceasefire agreement that was said to be contingent on the reopening of this waterway. In addition to Iranian military threats, which initially made passage through the strait too dangerous for most vessels to attempt, the US has also recently started a naval blockade to limit Iranian oil exports.
Spectrum owner Charter Communications is on pace for its worst day ever as broadband numbers and Q1 results disappoint
Cable and broadband company Charter Communications is on pace for its worst-ever trading day on Friday, as investors dump the stock following its Q1 results and forward guidance.
Charter, which owns Spectrum, reported adjusted earnings of $9.17 per share, below Wall Street estimates of $9.96 per share from analysts polled by FactSet. On the company’s earnings call, CFO Jessica Fischer appeared to lower its guidance for full-year revenue per user.
“It’ll be close either way in terms of whether we end up with net growth,” Fischer said.
The company lost 120,000 internet subscribers in the quarter, deeper than the expected 94,800 and double its loss from the same period last year. That news comes one day after Comcast’s earnings provided a bit of optimism for broadband as a category: the company reported Q1 losses of 65,000, significantly improving from 183,000 losses in the same quarter last year. Comcast is down more than 10%, on pace for its worst day since January 2025.
Nvidia poised to snap longest run without a record close since the AI boom began
The stock price of the company responsible for the brains of the AI boom is finally showing some brawn again.
Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, is poised to close at a record high for the first time since October 29, 2025, on Friday (if it ends above $207.04).
The AI chip trade is on fire, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index slated to deliver its 18th consecutive gain as Intel’s robust results and outlook juice the entire ecosystem. Hyperscalers report earnings next week, and their capex guidance can be thought of as the earnings guidance for Nvidia and other AI suppliers for the quarters to come.
This would end Nvidia’s longest stretch without a record close since the unofficial start of the AI boom (when the chip designer delivered blowout quarterly results in May 2023).
(Sorry if I jinx this!)
Lilly slips after prescriptions for its weight-loss pill come in below expectations in second week
Eli Lilly fell on Friday after prescription data for its new weight-loss pill, Foundayo, showed that it’s having a significantly slower rollout than its top competitor.
The pill was prescribed about 3,700 times in its second week, according to IQVIA data cited by Deutsche Bank analysts, compared to the roughly 8,000 they were expecting. Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy pill, which came out in January, hit over 18,000 prescriptions in its second week.
The FDA approved Foundayo on April 1 and shipments began on April 9. Deutsche analysts noted that Lilly’s GLP-1 injections, which currently outsell Novo’s, also had a slower start.
Lilly fell more than 4% after the numbers were released. Novo Nordisk rose more than 5%.
DeepSeek releases new V4 series models highlighting efficiency and long context
Chinese AI lab DeepSeek has released a major new version of its eponymous open-source AI models that are nipping at the heels of leading frontier models in some areas.
The most significant DeepSeek-V4 Pro and DeepSeek-V4 Flash both have a 1 million-token context — the amount of information the model can actively work with in a single session — which is a crucial feature for complex, long-running coding tasks.
DeepSeek rebuilt how the models process information under the hood, making them substantially more efficient — and that efficiency is what makes the large context window actually usable.
Also, the new models’ coding skills have closed the gap with the major frontier models from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google.
The authors of the model acknowledge some of V4’s shortcomings, such as its lower scores on reasoning benchmarks, saying that V4 “trails state-of-the-art frontier models by approximately 3 to 6 months.”
As open-weight models, V4 can be run on any user’s own hardware, making the V4 models among the top-performing open-source models out there. V4’s large context and token efficiency are especially significant among open-source models.
But like with earlier DeepSeek models, don’t ask it about Tiananmen Square.
DeepSeek rebuilt how the models process information under the hood, making them substantially more efficient — and that efficiency is what makes the large context window actually usable.
Also, the new models’ coding skills have closed the gap with the major frontier models from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google.
The authors of the model acknowledge some of V4’s shortcomings, such as its lower scores on reasoning benchmarks, saying that V4 “trails state-of-the-art frontier models by approximately 3 to 6 months.”
As open-weight models, V4 can be run on any user’s own hardware, making the V4 models among the top-performing open-source models out there. V4’s large context and token efficiency are especially significant among open-source models.
But like with earlier DeepSeek models, don’t ask it about Tiananmen Square.
Intel soars to its best day since the 1980s after crushing Q1 earnings
A pretty good day.
SpaceX thinks its total addressable market (TAM) is a whopping $28.5 trillion for its businesses, according to an S-1 filing for its upcoming IPO reviewed by Reuters. And most of that market isn’t rockets. The company says roughly 90% could come from AI — largely selling artificial intelligence tools to businesses.
“We believe that our enterprise strategy, which is focused on serving the digital needs of the world’s largest industries with Al solutions, positions us competitively to pursue this rapidly growing opportunity,” SpaceX said in the filing. “We believe we have identified the largest actionable total addressable market in human history.”
TAM, of course, assumes capturing every possible customer. But even a small slice of a $28.5 trillion market would be enormous.
The chip rally is getting so intense, even Qualcomm gets to surge
If you’re a good host, even the last person who shows up to the party gets to have a good time.
On that note, beleaguered Qualcomm — the worst-performing member of the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index this year — is staging a furious rally on Friday, with the industry poised to deliver its 18th consecutive session of gains.
Intel’s earnings are buoying the semi space broadly on Friday, and Qualcomm isn’t being left out. Options activity is also elevated and tilted toward the bull side. As of 9:56 a.m. ET, more than 48,000 calls have changed hands, roughly double its full-day average for the past 20 sessions. Its put/call ratio of 0.17 is well below the 20-day average of 0.44.
The San Diego-based firm has been negative in 2026 since the seventh session of the year, and even with today’s advance, remains mired in the red year to date. The stock cratered after reporting Q1 earnings in early February because its poor Q2 guidance seemingly confirmed fears that smartphone sales would come under pressure from rising memory chip prices and limited availability. Smartphone chips are still Qualcomm’s primary business, accounting for nearly two-thirds of revenues in its most recent quarter, and memory chip sellers appear to be incentivized to meet demand from major AI customers first.
Qualcomm reports Q2 earnings next Wednesday, but that release will likely be overshadowed by the four Magnificent 7 hyperscalers releasing results after the close.
Tesla Cybercab production has begun
On Tesla’s earnings call earlier this week, CEO Elon Musk said production of the company’s steering-wheel-less Cybercab had begun. Since then, Musk and Tesla have posted videos showing the gold two-seater rolling off the line at its Texas Gigafactory and onto the road.
Cybercab has started production pic.twitter.com/MAeswanf96
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 24, 2026
The Cybercab — meant both for consumers and Tesla’s Robotaxi network — is widely seen as central to the company’s future. “The future of the company is fundamentally based on large-scale autonomous cars and large scale and large volume, vast numbers of autonomous humanoid robots,” Musk said last year.
Whether these cars actually make it to consumers is another question. For now, regulations generally require steering wheels, and Tesla still has to prove the vehicles can reliably drive themselves.
In formation pic.twitter.com/7qA0SluL8J
— Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) April 24, 2026
On the earnings call, Musk said production would be “very slow” but would ramp up and go “kind of exponential towards the end of the year and certainly next year.”
Meta signs deal to use Amazon Graviton chips
Meta said it will deploy “tens of millions” of Amazon Web Services Graviton CPU cores to power so-called “agentic” AI systems — tools that can reason, plan, and act on their own. The move makes Meta one of the largest customers of Amazon’s in-house chips.
The deal also underscores a broader shift in AI infrastructure, as companies move beyond Nvidia GPUs and use different chips for different tasks.
Meta, which is working on its own custom inference chips, also has chip deals with Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia.
The deal also underscores a broader shift in AI infrastructure, as companies move beyond Nvidia GPUs and use different chips for different tasks.
Meta, which is working on its own custom inference chips, also has chip deals with Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia.
Analysts applaud Intel’s massive Q1
Intel’s massive Q1 numbers and mega Q2 guidance shocked Wall Street and sent shares across the semiconductor industry higher Friday morning.
Here’s how Wall Street analysts are characterizing the far better-than-expected results:
DA Davidson (rating: “neutral,” price target: $77): “Strong 1Q26 earnings that were highlighted by a significant beat on top and bottom-line expectations. Results in the quarter reflect the growing importance of CPUs and advanced packing. We view the recent Terafab announcement as a proof point that Intel is likely to see continued customer acquisition as the United States demands more domestic semiconductor manufacturing.”
Barclays (rating: “equal weight,” price target: $65): “The sizable top-line and gross margin beat caught us by surprise as our expectation was for tight supply in Q1. Mgmt expects the supply situation to improve through the year and for yields to improve, which should support growth in server.”
HSBC (rating: “buy,” price target: $100): “The market has been
underestimating Intel’s CPU average selling price upside as well as its ability to re-allocate its own foundry capacity to unlock further CPU unit growth, considering a CPU shortage environment that we expect to persist until 2027e.”
Bernstein: (rating: “market perform,” price target: $65): “Server strength seems demonstrably real, client seems to be holding up for now, commentary around 18A/14A was positive, and there remains hopes for forthcoming packaging announcements. That being said, there were quite a few nuggets for the bears as well; namely while 18A yields are seemingly running better than expected they apparently remain underwhelming, and ASP increases are being met by cost inflation.”
JPMorgan (rating: “underweight,” price target: $45): “EPS quality issues, 2H gross margin headwinds, structural OpEx creep, and a Foundry breakeven timeline that is likely to push beyond YE CY27 keep us at UW even as we raise estimates.”
DA Davidson (rating: “neutral,” price target: $77): “Strong 1Q26 earnings that were highlighted by a significant beat on top and bottom-line expectations. Results in the quarter reflect the growing importance of CPUs and advanced packing. We view the recent Terafab announcement as a proof point that Intel is likely to see continued customer acquisition as the United States demands more domestic semiconductor manufacturing.”
Barclays (rating: “equal weight,” price target: $65): “The sizable top-line and gross margin beat caught us by surprise as our expectation was for tight supply in Q1. Mgmt expects the supply situation to improve through the year and for yields to improve, which should support growth in server.”
HSBC (rating: “buy,” price target: $100): “The market has been
underestimating Intel’s CPU average selling price upside as well as its ability to re-allocate its own foundry capacity to unlock further CPU unit growth, considering a CPU shortage environment that we expect to persist until 2027e.”
Bernstein: (rating: “market perform,” price target: $65): “Server strength seems demonstrably real, client seems to be holding up for now, commentary around 18A/14A was positive, and there remains hopes for forthcoming packaging announcements. That being said, there were quite a few nuggets for the bears as well; namely while 18A yields are seemingly running better than expected they apparently remain underwhelming, and ASP increases are being met by cost inflation.”
JPMorgan (rating: “underweight,” price target: $45): “EPS quality issues, 2H gross margin headwinds, structural OpEx creep, and a Foundry breakeven timeline that is likely to push beyond YE CY27 keep us at UW even as we raise estimates.”
It seems like the US weed industry finally got what it wanted. Why did pot stocks plunge?
The DOJ’s order to reclassify marijuana could be a boon for US cannabis companies. But the devil is in the details.
Oracle rises after Wedbush’s Dan Ives calls the stock a buy with 25% upside
Oracle extended its premarket gains Friday after Wedbush Securities’ Dan Ives initiated coverage with an “outperform” rating and a $225 price target — about 25% upside to its pre-initiation level — calling the enterprise software and cloud infrastructure company a “foundational infrastructure provider for the AI revolution.”
Ives argues investors are misreading Oracle’s heavy capital spending and negative free cash flow as risky, despite being backed by a massive $553 billion backlog of contracted demand. He says the company’s “secret sauce” is a two-part strategy: building high-performance cloud infrastructure for AI workloads while connecting those models directly to companies’ own data.
“We believe Oracle is in the early innings of a significant repositioning as it executes on this generational opportunity,” Ives wrote.
