“purgatory”
“purgatory”
Salesforce gets more direct about rivals and more vocal about customers
downside warning
downside warning
Bitcoin’s brief bounce doesn’t signal the bottom, analysts warn
Good energy
Good energy
Celsius soars after crushing earnings expectations with record sales year
Apple and Netflix announce a Formula 1 content swap
Google drops new Nano Banana
Ethereum struggles to hold market gains
Michael Burry flags “troubling” jump in Nvidia’s supply commitments
OpenAI may need to IPO or achieve AGI to get all of Amazon’s $50 billion investment
Vistra beats Q4 earnings expectations for adjusted EBITDA, but dips on income decline
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
Smartphone shipments are expected to decline 13% — the biggest drop ever — to 1.12 billion in 2026, according to new data from IDC, as the memory shortage drives up costs and prices for phones. The firm expects the average smartphone selling price to jump 14% to a record $523 this year.
The shortfall will mostly affect makers of lower-end smartphones, whose customers are more cost-conscious, while higher-end manufacturers such as Samsung and Apple are likely to be more insulated from the pressure.
“The memory crisis will cause more than a temporary decline; it marks a structural reset of the entire market, fundamentally reshaping long‑term TAM (Total Addressable Market), the vendor landscape, and the product mix,” Nabila Popal, senior research director with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, said. “We expect consolidation as smaller players exit, and low-end vendors to face sharp shipment declines amid supply constraints and lower demand at higher price points.”
Apple and Netflix announce a Formula 1 content swap
Just months after Apple signed a five-year, $140 million/year deal for US media rights to Formula 1 races, the streamer is sharing with Netflix.
In a rare content swap, Apple TV will allow Netflix to simulcast the F1 Canadian Grand Prix in May. Netflix, in turn, will allow Apple to carry its popular “Drive to Survive” docuseries.
“Drive to Survive” will land on the queues of both Netflix and Apple TV at 12:00 a.m. PT this Friday.
The docuseries has been a major driving force behind F1’s increasing popularity in the US, with more than half of the sport’s followers crediting “Drive to Survive” as a key reason they became fans, per a 2022 survey.
“Drive to Survive” will land on the queues of both Netflix and Apple TV at 12:00 a.m. PT this Friday.
The docuseries has been a major driving force behind F1’s increasing popularity in the US, with more than half of the sport’s followers crediting “Drive to Survive” as a key reason they became fans, per a 2022 survey.
Google drops new Nano Banana
Google is hoping to recapture the viral boost it received when it released its Nano Banana image generation model. Nano Banana 2 arrives today, which Google has rolled into its Gemini app.
The new model promises more accurate text rendering and translation and “advanced world knowledge,” which “pulls from Gemini’s real-world knowledge base, and is powered by real-time information and images from web search to more accurately render specific subjects,” according to the company’s press release.
New creative controls let users keep groups of characters consistent across scenes, render images with higher resolution, and parse complex prompts.
The first version of Nano Banana became popular for making action figures out of users, and helped catapult the Gemini AI app to the top of the charts, bumping ChatGPT from its perch.
New creative controls let users keep groups of characters consistent across scenes, render images with higher resolution, and parse complex prompts.
The first version of Nano Banana became popular for making action figures out of users, and helped catapult the Gemini AI app to the top of the charts, bumping ChatGPT from its perch.
Ethereum struggles to hold market gains
After rallying from $1,830 to above $2,100 on Wednesday, ethereum struggled to hold on to its gains and dipped under $2,000, a round psychological price level, on Thursday.
The seesaw price action helped liquidate $146 million worth of leveraged long and short positions on ethereum in the last 24 hours, data from CoinGlass shows.
While ethereum was due for a relief rally after entering into oversold conditions as measured by its relative strength index, some are still maintaining a bearish sentiment, according to Delphi Digital analyst Simon Shockey.
With ethereum now trading under $2,000, Shockey called the rally “unconvincing.” He told Sherwood News that he doesn’t “think most crypto natives are compelled to really believe the lows are in,” adding that he could see ethereum fall further from here and make new lows in the second half of the year.
The price action comes as cofounder Vitalik Buterin has sold $35 million worth of ethereum tokens since the start of February and the paper loss for the largest ethereum treasury firm, BitMine Immersion Technologies, has climbed to nearly $7.9 billion.
On the positive side, ethereum developers introduced a new road map that involves seven hard fork upgrades by 2029 and several north stars, one of which aims to make ethereum a “post quantum” layer 1 network.
Michael Burry flags “troubling” jump in Nvidia’s supply commitments
“The Big Short” investor Michael Burry — famous for betting against the 2008 housing bubble — just warned of a major risk in Nvidia’s latest annual report, pointing to a sixfold surge in purchase obligations over the past year.
In a Substack post Thursday, Burry called the increase from $16.1 billion to $95.2 billion in just 12 months “troubling,” noting that Nvidia has been forced to place noncancelable purchase orders well before knowing the final demand for its AI chips. The surge is partly tied to supplier TSMC requiring longer-term contracts, he added.
Tesla’s ride-hailing service is looking a lot more like Uber’s than Waymo’s
Despite numerous promises about amassing a giant network of driverless cars, so far it seems like Tesla’s Robotaxis are a lot more similar to Uber’s plain old ride-hailing service than Waymo’s expanding autonomous fleet.
In California, where Tesla has its largest ride-hailing service, the company has taken no formal steps to gain approval for a truly driverless car service, according to Reuters. Throughout 2025, Tesla failed to log a single mile of autonomous test driving on state roads, and has not applied for the necessary permits to test or deploy vehicles without a human present. Currently, Tesla holds only a basic permit that requires a human safety monitor to remain in the driver’s seat at all times.
Currently, Tesla’s California Robotaxi service consists of roughly 300 Teslas operated by human drivers using the company’s supervised Full Self-Driving tech. In Austin, where the company has about 45 vehicles, Tesla made a big show earlier this year of announcing it was removing the safety monitors sitting in the front seats during rides. However, to date, only a handful of those vehicles have been reported to be actually operating without a safety monitor onboard.
In other words, it’s performing a service more akin to a tech-heavy Uber ride than the one operated by Alphabet subsidiary Waymo, which earlier this week announced it now has driverless rides available to the public in 10 markets. Even Uber is trying to put space between itself and the old driver-having Ubers of yore: this week its autonomous software partner said the company plans to launch a driverless service in London this year, with plans for 10 markets.
During its earnings report last month, Tesla said it planned to offer Robotaxi service in a half dozen new cities in the first half of this year, including Phoenix, Miami, and Las Vegas. Judging by Tesla’s progress so far, it’s likely those services will also feature a human in the front seat.
In California, where Tesla has its largest ride-hailing service, the company has taken no formal steps to gain approval for a truly driverless car service, according to Reuters. Throughout 2025, Tesla failed to log a single mile of autonomous test driving on state roads, and has not applied for the necessary permits to test or deploy vehicles without a human present. Currently, Tesla holds only a basic permit that requires a human safety monitor to remain in the driver’s seat at all times.
Currently, Tesla’s California Robotaxi service consists of roughly 300 Teslas operated by human drivers using the company’s supervised Full Self-Driving tech. In Austin, where the company has about 45 vehicles, Tesla made a big show earlier this year of announcing it was removing the safety monitors sitting in the front seats during rides. However, to date, only a handful of those vehicles have been reported to be actually operating without a safety monitor onboard.
In other words, it’s performing a service more akin to a tech-heavy Uber ride than the one operated by Alphabet subsidiary Waymo, which earlier this week announced it now has driverless rides available to the public in 10 markets. Even Uber is trying to put space between itself and the old driver-having Ubers of yore: this week its autonomous software partner said the company plans to launch a driverless service in London this year, with plans for 10 markets.
During its earnings report last month, Tesla said it planned to offer Robotaxi service in a half dozen new cities in the first half of this year, including Phoenix, Miami, and Las Vegas. Judging by Tesla’s progress so far, it’s likely those services will also feature a human in the front seat.
OpenAI may need to IPO or achieve AGI to get all of Amazon’s $50 billion investment
A month ago, word got out that Amazon was planning to invest up to $50 billion in OpenAI as part of a larger $100 billion funding round. Now, it seems that money might be dependent on OpenAI pulling off one of two massive goals: a successful IPO, or achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI).
OpenAI is in a heated race against rival Anthropic to be the first big generative-AI startup to IPO, which the former is reportedly trying to do by Q4 of this year.
AGI is still a squishy concept, but is generally described as an AI system that is better than humans at pretty much everything. When the much-hyped AGI goal might be achieved is the subject of rampant speculation.
The Information reports that negotiations between Amazon and OpenAI are still ongoing, but they may include an agreement for OpenAI to build custom models for Amazon, which could be used in Alexa.
The $100 billion fundraising round is reported to value OpenAI at around $730 billion.
OpenAI is in a heated race against rival Anthropic to be the first big generative-AI startup to IPO, which the former is reportedly trying to do by Q4 of this year.
AGI is still a squishy concept, but is generally described as an AI system that is better than humans at pretty much everything. When the much-hyped AGI goal might be achieved is the subject of rampant speculation.
The Information reports that negotiations between Amazon and OpenAI are still ongoing, but they may include an agreement for OpenAI to build custom models for Amazon, which could be used in Alexa.
The $100 billion fundraising round is reported to value OpenAI at around $730 billion.
As Nvidia’s gaming results underwhelm, the company sees “very tight” quarters ahead
The company’s former golden goose gaming division booked $3.7 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter, 8% below Wall Street’s expectations.
Vistra beats Q4 earnings expectations for adjusted EBITDA, but dips on income decline
Power provider Vistra, a key player in the AI energy trade, reported better-than-expected adjusted earnings results early Thursday, but shares dipped in early trading as Q4 net income dropped.
The Texas-based company, which supplies nuclear- and natural gas-fueled power to wholesale and retail markets, reported:
Net income of $233 million, a decline of 52% from Q4 2024.
Adjusted EBITDA from ongoing operations of $1.74 billion vs. the $1.71 billion expected by Wall Street analysts.
Vistra maintained previously issued guidance for full-year EBITDA from ongoing operations and adjusted free cash flow from ongoing operations.
Vistra shares soared 258% in 2024 amid a flurry of excitement over the AI energy boom. Last year was more muted, with the stock rising 17%. So far in 2026, shares were up roughly 9% before the report.
Net income of $233 million, a decline of 52% from Q4 2024.
Adjusted EBITDA from ongoing operations of $1.74 billion vs. the $1.71 billion expected by Wall Street analysts.
Vistra maintained previously issued guidance for full-year EBITDA from ongoing operations and adjusted free cash flow from ongoing operations.
Vistra shares soared 258% in 2024 amid a flurry of excitement over the AI energy boom. Last year was more muted, with the stock rising 17%. So far in 2026, shares were up roughly 9% before the report.
Sandisk rises on partnership with SK Hynix to standardize memory chip architecture tailored for AI data centers
Sandisk is up 3% in premarket trading on Thursday after it began its global standardization strategy of high-bandwidth flash (HBF) memory solutions with SK Hynix.
SK Hynix commented in a press release on Thursday that “by making HBF an industry standard, together with Sandisk, we will lay the foundation for the entire AI ecosystem to grow together,” adding that the companies will set up a dedicated workstream to work on the standardization under the Open Compute Project, the world’s largest organization dealing with data center technologies.
First debuted last February, Sandisk’s HBF technology lies in between ultrafast high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and high-capacity SSDs. That is, these have more storage capacity than HBMs, but are still fast enough to be utilized in AI inferencing (albeit not as quick as HBM).
Sandisk has previously argued that this hybrid architecture is central to AI services that need user applications but require a significant amount of fast interconnect between GPUs. The latest announcement also notes that HBF technology is expected to be more cost-efficient compared to alternatives of similar scale.
The launch, which was shared in an kickoff event on Thursday evening, starts SK Hynix and Sandisk’s workflow, which was announced when the two companies signed a memorandum of understanding “to standardize the specification, define technology requirements and explore the creation of a technology ecosystem” last August, per Sandisk’s press release at the time. Ultimately, by collaborating with SK Hynix, one of the three key HBM suppliers, to standardize and commercialize the technology, Sandisk is manufacturing somewhat of a first-mover advantage to offer the system-level “AI-optimized memory architecture” required for AI inference markets, rather than focusing on the performance of a single chip element.
Warner Bros. reports deeper-than-expected Q4 loss amid its bidding war
Warner Bros. Discovery reported its fourth-quarter earnings before the market opened on Thursday. The results come as the company finds itself in the middle of a still-hot bidding war between Netflix and Paramount. Its shares were flat in premarket trading.
In the three months ended in December, WBD reported:
A loss of $0.10 per share, deeper than the $0.03 loss expected by analysts polled by FactSet.
Total revenue of $9.46 billion, ahead of the $9.35 billion consensus.
Warner Bros.’ cable business booked $4.2 billion in revenue, beating estimates of $4.04 billion but down 12% from last year. The division is a key difference between the Netflix and Paramount acquisition offers: Netflix is seeking to acquire everything except Warner’s cable networks, while Paramount is seeking to purchase WBD in its entirety.
Industry analysts mostly view WBD’s cable networks as being worth between $2 and $4 per share, and Paramount’s most recent bid is $3.25 per share more than Netflix’s. Paramount has said its own analysis values Warner’s cable division at $0 per share.
WBD said it would not answer any questions about the two proposals on Thursday’s earnings call, but noted the following about Paramount’s recent offer:
“There can be no assurance that the Board will conclude that the transaction proposed by PSKY is superior to the merger with Netflix or that any definitive agreement or transaction will result from Warner Bros. Discovery’s discussions with PSKY.”
Celsius soars after crushing earnings expectations with record sales year
Shares of Celsius were up almost 16% in early trading on Thursday, after the company released Q4 and full-year results that exceeded expectations.
The energy drink company reported:
Adjusted earnings per share for the fourth quarter of $0.26, above analysts’ average projection of $0.20 per share, per Bloomberg data.
Q4 revenue of $721.6 million, beating forecasts of $638.7 million.
Celsius also posted annual revenue of $2.5 billion, which marked a massive 86% increase from FY2024. It also reported strong sales growth in North America (up 89% year over year) and its retail sales of the Alani Nu brand (up 101%) as bright spots, while Rockstar Energy brand sales slumped 11% in FY2025.
In the press release, CEO John Fieldly said that Celsius is “entering 2026 with positive momentum,” and added that the brand “reached an approximate 20% dollar share of the U.S. energy drink category in Q4 2025.” Competitor Monster Beverage is expected to report earnings after the bell today.
