markets

Paige Oamek5/8/26

Akamai climbs to highest level since 2000 after reportedly securing Anthropic as a customer

Akamai’s billion-dollar AI infrastructure customer is Anthropic, Bloomberg reported on Friday. The cloud services company extended gains to trade up over 25% following the news.

On Thursday, the company announced a seven-year, $1.8 billion commitment from a “leading frontier model provider.”

Anthropic has been on a mad scramble to boost compute capacity after facing widespread complaints about Claude usage limits and seeing OpenAI position its accumulation of computing power as a competitive advantage.

In a little over a month, Anthropic has struck or expanded deals with CoreWeave, Amazon, Google, Broadcom, as well as xAI (through SpaceX).

As part of that xAI pact, Anthropic announced that it would be increasing usage limits for paying customers.

Akamai Technologies jumps on $1.8 billion cloud infrastructure deal

Akamai Technologies jumps on $1.8 billion cloud infrastructure deal

Anthropic has been on a mad scramble to boost compute capacity after facing widespread complaints about Claude usage limits and seeing OpenAI position its accumulation of computing power as a competitive advantage.

In a little over a month, Anthropic has struck or expanded deals with CoreWeave, Amazon, Google, Broadcom, as well as xAI (through SpaceX).

As part of that xAI pact, Anthropic announced that it would be increasing usage limits for paying customers.

More Markets

See all Markets

markets

EchoStar rises as FCC approves $40 billion wireless spectrum sale to SpaceX and AT&T

EchoStar is up more than 7% in premarket trading Wednesday after the FCC said on Tuesday that it had approved the telecommunications company’s roughly $40 billion spectrum sale to SpaceX and AT&T, saying the two deals would “accelerate Internet speeds, strengthen competition, and bolster rural service.”

According to the FCC’s two separate orders, AT&T is buying about 50 MHz of EchoStar’s nationwide spectrum for roughly $23 billion to expand its 5G network, while SpaceX is buying about 65 MHz of EchoStar’s spectrum for around $17 billion to support Starlink’s next-generation direct-to-device service.

The approval caps a yearlong FCC review of EchoStar’s wireless spectrum licenses, which drew intervention from President Trump, who encouraged the company and FCC Chair Brendan Carr to reach an “amicable resolution.”

Still, the approval comes with a major condition; the FCC requires EchoStar to set up a $2.4 billion escrow account to cover potential obligations tied to disputes over work under its spectrum licenses — a requirement EchoStar called “unprecedented,” adding it is “evaluating next steps.”

markets

Oklo whipsaws after posting slightly worse-than-anticipated Q1 loss

Nuclear energy company Oklo is whipsawing in postmarket trading after posting Q1 results.

Here are the key first-quarter numbers:

Net income of -$33.1 million, or a $0.19 loss per share (compared to analyst estimates of -$29.5 million in income and a $0.19 loss per share).

Shares of America’s most valuable zero-revenue company were down over 2% just after the bell before rebounding to trade 3% higher, and then fell into the red again; its price-to-sales ratio remained unchanged throughout.

Oklo is a longtime retail darling. The reaction to these results can be a good read into traders’ appetite for speculative investments, which is probably more useful information than knowing precisely how much money it lost in a three-month period.

Not content with merely powering the AI boom at some point in the future, Oklo also plans on utilizing the technology to develop its reactors. Ahead of its earnings announcement on Tuesday, management teased new AI-integrated workflows for Oklo’s up-and-coming facilities:

“The project scope includes the development and application of technical guidance on model setup, benchmarking and validation strategies, and AI agents to accelerate existing workflows.”

Last week, Oklo announced that it had cleared another regulatory hurdle for its Aurora Powerhouse reactor, currently under construction in Idaho. The nuclear reactor would, if completed, could produce up to 75 megawatts of electricity using Oklo’s small, fast-fission technology, enough to power tens of thousands of homes or cater to the high energy demands of AI data centers.

Oklo and companies like NuScale and TerraPower have benefited from the Trump administration’s streamlined permitting process. And as AI data centers continue to push up demand, Oklo is up over 150% over the past year.

Tasha Matsumoto

Stocks retreat from records as chip stocks fall, core inflation rises

Core inflation (which strips out volatile food and energy prices) rose by more than expected in April.

Brown bear - Ursus arctos with her cubs seen on the Transfagarasan mountain road in the Carpathian Mountains, Romania.

markets

Memory stocks fall after prominent South Korean policymaker floats “citizen dividend” from AI tax revenues

US memory stocks are getting slammed on Tuesday after South Korean policymaker Kim Yong-beom suggested that citizens should get a “national dividend” funded by AI profits.

Now, those remarks have since been watered down: South Korea’s “Blue House” (or presidential office) said these remarks reflected the official’s personal views. Kim later indicated that his suggestion referred to excess tax revenues from leading chip giants, rather than any new windfall tax.

The KOSPI Index, and top weights Samsung and SK Hynix, finished off their lows after this clarification, but the damage still spread stateside.

Are Micron, Sandisk, Western Digital, and Seagate Technology Holdings South Korean companies?

<checks notes>

No, they are not.

But they are memory stocks, and this seems to have been enough of a catalyst to throw a wrench into the skyward trend for the cohort.

Along with being highly correlated by the nature of their businesses, US memory stocks also recently started to trade in the same vehicle as their South Korean counterparts. The Roundhill Memory ETF — the fastest ever to surpass $6 billion in assets, per Bloomberg Intelligence — holds all of these companies within the same wrapper.

The near parabolic run in these stocks had raised the risk that this group could reverse course for any reason — or no reason whatsoever. (Remember Google’s TurboQuant? I don’t.)

markets

Helena Cheng20h

T1 Energy posts much smaller-than-feared quarterly loss

T1 Energy shares are whipsawing in early trading after the solar equipment maker reported its Q1 financial results today, posting a quarterly loss far smaller than feared.

Key numbers:

Loss per share: $0.08 (estimate: $0.18).
Revenue: $177.65 million.
Operating expenses: $51.6 million.
Cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash: $123.7 million.

Shares were up nearly double digits in premarket trading, but have since proceeded to dip into the red.

Management highlighted the operational ramp-up at its G1_Dallas facility and continued progress on its flagship G2_Austin solar cell plant. The company is targeting a larger financing solution, which includes a significant debt component, to fund its capex needs for Phase 1 of G2_Austin.

Following a successful $160 million convertible note offering in April, the company said it has reduced its remaining Phase 1 funding requirement to approximately $225 million.

“Our team made excellent progress during the first quarter to advance our top priorities,” said Dan Barcelo, CEO and chairman of T1 Energy. “As we look ahead, we are focused on hitting key construction milestones, targeting a comprehensive financing package for G2_Austin in the second quarter, building our offtake coverage through our developer customer base, and driving profitability as T1 grows.”

Latest Stories

Sherwood Media, LLC and Chartr Limited produce fresh and unique perspectives on topical financial news and are fully owned subsidiaries of Robinhood Markets, Inc., and any views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any other Robinhood affiliate, including Robinhood Markets, Inc., Robinhood Financial LLC, Robinhood Securities, LLC, Robinhood Crypto, LLC, Robinhood Money, LLC, Robinhood U.K. Ltd, Robinhood Derivatives, LLC, Robinhood Gold, LLC, Robinhood Asset Management, LLC, Robinhood Credit, Inc., Robinhood Ventures DE, LLC and, where applicable, its managed investment vehicles.

©2026 Sherwood Media, LLC