Astera Labs, CoreWeave, Nebius, Rocket Lab, Teradyne rise on Nasdaq 100 Index inclusion announcement
AI was the top reason cited for US job cuts for the third straight month in May
Alphabet’s Waymo is getting into the subscription — and Uber’s — business
At the same time that the Trump administration is pushing further toward coal power, announcing plans only last week to invest almost $700 million into reviving the industry, a key renewable energy source has just hit a major milestone in the US.
New data from energy think tank Ember, released Wednesday, shows that solar supplied 12.8% of US energy generation in May — marking not only the highest share ever recorded for the clean energy source, but also the first time that solar has generated more monthly energy than coal in the US, which supplied 12.2%.
AMD’s shares are rising in premarket trading following a double upgrade from Citi. Citi analyst Atif Malik raised AMD’s investment rating to “buy” from “neutral” and boosted the bank’s 12-month price target to $575 from $460 per share, per Barron’s.
Malik argued that the broader market currently misprices AMD by looking at it primarily as a CPU producer, underestimating its massive GPU potential. Citi says that AMD is uniquely “poised to win the lion’s share” of Meta’s customized graphics chip business. Meta is leaning into AMD’s custom MI450 chips, which deliver a lower total cost of ownership compared to buying traditional off-the-shelf merchant hardware, according to Investing.com.
Citi highlighted a massive multiyear deal between the two tech giants involving a 160 million-share common stock warrant. As the first phase ramps up through 2027, Citi expects each gigawatt of data center infrastructure to translate into roughly $15 billion in revenue. Consequently, Citi hiked its 2027 AMD AI sales forecast to $33 billion (up 137% year over year) and projects GPU sales to reach $50.8 billion by 2028.
CEO Lisa Su recently delivered an optimistic demand forecast, predicting that the global market for CPUs will grow by more than 35% annually over the next five years. The chipmaker delivered a robust Q1 earnings report back in May that beat Wall Street expectations across key data center segments.
Tech stocks Astera Labs, CoreWeave, Nebius, Rocket Lab, and Teradyne have risen as much as 8.9% in premarket trading on Friday, thanks in part to Nasdaq’s announcement that the five companies will join its flagship Nasdaq 100 Index starting June 22.
As part of the index operator’s quarterly rebalance, which affects some $1.4 trillion in assets within the Nasdaq 100 ecosystem, the companies will replace Charter, Zscaler, Cognizant, Insmed, and Verisk — relatively slow-growth legacy businesses that have lingered around the bottom of the index in market cap terms of late. Most of those stocks slipped slightly on the news.
With CoreWeave and Nebius as two of the major players in the neocloud space, and Astera Labs and Teradyne specializing in making AI hardware and semiconductors, the latest additions reflect how the index is upping its exposure to the AI infrastructure stack. Back in December, Nasdaq also added AI data storage names Seagate Technology Holdings and Western Digital, as well as AI server manager Monolithic Power Systems, as part of its quarterly rebalance.
Adobe reported fiscal Q2 results Thursday, beating analysts’ estimates for revenue and earnings, as its stock plumbed its lowest levels since 2019.
For Q2 2026, the creative software company posted:
Revenues of $6.62 billion (estimate: $6.45 billion).
Adjusted earnings per share of $5.96 (estimate: $5.82).
Annual recurring revenue of $27.1 billion (estimate: $26.6 billion).
Subscription revenue of $6.42 billion (estimate: $6.27 billion).
Remaining performance obligations of $22.27 billion (estimate: $21.86 billion).
The company also said its CFO, Dan Durn, would step down next week “to pursue a new professional opportunity.” And it boosted its full-year guidance for earnings and revenue.
Shares fell 5.5% in after-hours trading.
Adobe is feeling the pressure from AI, as the April release of Anthropic’s Claude Design threatens the company’s core design software business. Shares have tanked lately, with the stock down by nearly half over the past 12 months, putting it at levels not seen in years.
Last quarter, Adobe announced that CEO Shantanu Narayen, who had been at the company for 18 years, would be leaving after his successor was appointed. Today, Adobe announced that CFO Dan Durn would also be leaving the company — this month.
Adobe announced a $25 billion stock buyback in April, which gave the stock a boost. The company said it repurchased about 8.5 million shares during the quarter.
In a press release, Narayen said:
“Adobe delivered record revenue of $6.62 billion in Q2 reflecting strong AI-driven demand across our customer groups and we are raising our full-year fiscal 2026 revenue and non-GAAP EPS targets on the strength of that performance.”
President Trump on Thursday afternoon said he is calling off upcoming planned strikes on Iran. In a Truth Social post, Trump said “discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved.”
Stocks broadly popped, with the S&P 500 moving from roughly flat to up 1.4% on the day, and oil plunged on the news.
“Discussions and final points have been, in both concept and great detail, approved by all parties involved, including the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, and others. The Naval Blockade will remain in full force and effect until this Transaction is finalized — Time and place of the signing to be announced shortly,” the president added.
West Texas Intermediate crude futures are down 3% on Thursday afternoon, dropping sharply following the post.
Oil-sensitive stocks reacted accordingly, with airlines including Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, JetBlue, Alaska Air, and Frontier all climbing significantly. Carnival, Norwegian, and Royal Caribbean similarly jumped.
Freight companies including UPS, FedEx, XPO, and Old Dominion Freight were also up on oil’s movement.
Oil-adjacent companies including Exxon, ConocoPhillips, and Occidental Petroleum dipped.
Reminder: these models are not people, they don’t think, and when you close the tab, the model isn’t pondering your last interaction.
After years of booming sandwich sales, JM Smucker has finally earned a billion-dollar crust.
On Tuesday, the company reported results for fiscal year 2026, highlighting better-than-expected profits driven by higher prices for coffee and sweet baked goods. However, at another point on the earnings call, CEO Mark Smucker pointed to one particularly jammy figure: in line with previous forecasts, the company sold $1 billion worth of its (almost always) crustless sandwiches, Uncrustables, in the last year alone.
As we approach mid-June, the national average of US gas prices has been dropping for three weeks in a row, giving some relief to drivers traveling during a busy summer season. Since May 21, prices have fallen from $4.56 a gallon and are currently at $4.12 due to crude oil prices staying below $100 per barrel, according to the American Automobile Association.
US gas prices have a tendency to peak during this time of the year, and the uncertainty associated with the Strait of Hormuz has made them more volatile and unpredictable. While gas prices have remained around four-year highs, they’re still far from when they reached their highest, at $5 per gallon in June 2022.
GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan posted on Wednesday that motorists today will be spending approximately $137 million less on gas than they did a month ago, but $385 million more than a year ago.
(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)
Prediction markets show traders currently pricing in an 81% chance that US gas prices will drop below $3.80 this year.
US gas prices have a tendency to peak during this time of the year, and the uncertainty associated with the Strait of Hormuz has made them more volatile and unpredictable. While gas prices have remained around four-year highs, they’re still far from when they reached their highest, at $5 per gallon in June 2022.
GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan posted on Wednesday that motorists today will be spending approximately $137 million less on gas than they did a month ago, but $385 million more than a year ago.
(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)
Prediction markets show traders currently pricing in an 81% chance that US gas prices will drop below $3.80 this year.
Intel shares are surging following a double rating upgrade from Bank of America, which flipped its stance on the company from bearish to bullish.
Bank of America raised its rating on Intel to “buy” from “underperform,” boosting its 12-month price target to $135 a share from $96.
Shares of Intel rose 5.2% in recent trading, bringing the stock’s gains thus far in 2026 to more than 200%.
Analyst Vivek Arya noted “higher confidence in INTC’s opportunity to help address industry constraints in leading edge wafers/packaging” and its ability to capture a “much larger” agentic CPU market.
Bank of America heavily increased its estimate for the global server CPU total addressable market (TAM), predicting it will skyrocket to more than $170 billion by 2030. Analysts highlighted the rise of agentic AI as a critical tailwind that will require a massive volume of traditional x86 server chips.
Beyond standard chip architecture design, the report also shows confidence in Intel’s customized manufacturing services. BofA analysts now project that its server CPU revenue could top $40 billion by the end of the decade.
Momentum was built around Intel Foundry services as surging global AI demand continuously outpaces capacity. Just last week, Google reportedly placed an order with Intel to manufacture more than 3 million of its increasingly popular tensor processing unit chips in 2028. According to the report, Nvidia is also testing to see if Intel could manufacture its next-gen Feynman chips.
It’s coming up with new metrics to allay fears about its ballooning capex and debt load.
US Attorney David Metcalf announced Thursday the arrests of Ruslan Igorevich Tkachuk and Alexander Vladimirovich Ledenev, alleged senior members of AudiA6, a cryptocurrency money-laundering service believed to be responsible for laundering over $389 million.
The arrests coincided with a coordinated international takedown of AudiA6 and its infrastructure, involving the search of three properties, the seizure of servers and domains connected to the organization, as well as freezing cryptocurrency assets, according to a Department of Justice press release.
Tkachuk and Ledenev were “charged by criminal complaint with one count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments and one count of sting money laundering,” the DOJ said. If convicted, they face a maximum possible sentence of 20 years of incarceration.
Per the criminal complaint, AudiA6 offered services to conceal the origin of cryptocurrency linked to criminal activity, charging fees of up to 5% of the amount laundered.
The two defendants are in custody of Republic of Georgia authorities, and the US Attorney’s Office aims to seek their extradition to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Several US-listed ADRs of major Chinese EV makers are trading at fresh lows, following reports of domestic sales continuing to stagnate and Chinese regulators warning the companies about their price war.
XPeng, BYD, and Li Auto each hit 52-week lows on Thursday morning.
According to CnEVPost, Chinese regulators summoned automakers suspected of taking part in “irrational” competition on Thursday, warning them to comply with price laws and regulations. China has struggled to crack down on a downward pricing trend among automakers jostling for market share for the better part of a year.
Earlier this week, BYD and Nio were added to the Pentagon’s “Chinese Military Companies” list. Both automakers refuted the designation and left legal action on the table. Nio appears to be seeing a modest stock price boost from the rollout of an update to its Onvo-branded L60 SUV.
According to CnEVPost, Chinese regulators summoned automakers suspected of taking part in “irrational” competition on Thursday, warning them to comply with price laws and regulations. China has struggled to crack down on a downward pricing trend among automakers jostling for market share for the better part of a year.
Earlier this week, BYD and Nio were added to the Pentagon’s “Chinese Military Companies” list. Both automakers refuted the designation and left legal action on the table. Nio appears to be seeing a modest stock price boost from the rollout of an update to its Onvo-branded L60 SUV.
Trulieve officially began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, becoming the first American plant-touching cannabis company to do so.
Major exchanges have historically not allowed companies that grow or sell weed in the US to list. Instead, they have traded on low-liquidity over-the-counter exchanges or Canadian exchanges.
Trulieve, which went public in 2018 with a Canadian Securities Exchange listing, is now trading on the NYSE under the ticker TRLV.
Following recent regulatory changes, Trulieve successfully applied to list on the NYSE after it spun off its recreational cannabis business. Other companies have indicated that they are gearing up to do the same.
Trulieve, which went public in 2018 with a Canadian Securities Exchange listing, is now trading on the NYSE under the ticker TRLV.
Following recent regulatory changes, Trulieve successfully applied to list on the NYSE after it spun off its recreational cannabis business. Other companies have indicated that they are gearing up to do the same.