Markets
markets
Luke Kawa
8/7/25

AppLovin surges as the ad tech company prepares Q4 “bazooka” in what CEO says will be “a fun quarter”

AppLovin, which initially failed to impress traders with a revenue beat and better-than-expected Q3 sales guidance, is now on fire, up double digits as of 10:50 a.m. ET.

And that’s in large part because CEO Adam Foroughi said the real “fun” starts in Q4, when the company will open its self-service ad portal on a referral basis to onboard new advertisers and boost its footprint in areas outside of gaming, with a full-scale launch planned for the first half of 2026.

Here’s what Foroughi said (emphasis added):

“We think our advertisers are going to cause an onboarding moment that’ll be multiples bigger than what we were manually curating. Now it’s not necessarily true that we’re going to take our queue that’s built over the last year and just say, everyone, you’re in.

They’re still going to have to get invited to get into the platform. So it will be still curated onboarding. The reality is, Q4 is going to end up being a fun quarter. You’ve got the advertiser cohort that we didn’t have last Q4 that was growing in the quarter to the point where we reported huge numbers and then had huge numbers in Q1, but we’re going to have those advertisers primed and ready to go for the full Q4.

We’re going to have those advertisers inviting their friends onto our platform in Q4, and we’re going to be opening up international all at the same time. So there’s going to be a lot of fun moments, moments for us and our customers in this e-commerce or web-based category that’ll set sort of a new baseline for that business. And then obviously, then we will go through hopefully another inflection when we really truly open up the platform and try to get into a state where we’re more stable long-term.”

Morgan Stanley analyst Matthew Cost boosted his price target on the stock to $480 from $460. “We are fundamentally bullish on the self-serve initiative, which the company made clear will simplify onboarding and workflows, widen the funnel of non-gaming advertisers, open the product to international markets, and put the infrastructure in place to allow AI-generated ads and agentic support over time,” he wrote.

Bank of America analyst Omar Dessouky described the messaging around this catalyst as AppLovin loading a fourth-quarter “bazooka.” However, he also lowered his expected multiple for the company while keeping the price target unchanged thanks to a big boost to earnings estimates, citing “execution risk” associated with this launch.

More Markets

See all Markets
J. Edward Moreno
9m
Hims expands into testosterone treatments

The company will start with compounded enclomiphene, with more treatments to come in 2026.

Hims & Hers Health CEO Andrew Dudum
David Crowther, Claire Yubin Oh
CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF a $1 Trillion market cap
28m
Oracle’s insane cloud infrastructure forecast is giving shades of Nvidia’s data center business

But it’s just a forecast, of course.

A businessman with his head in the clouds.
markets
Luke Kawa
55m

Oracle’s outlook for massive cloud sales growth is driving a bid to buy everything AI

“Listen, even I’m sort of blown away by what this looks like going forward.”

That’s how the Q&A portion of Oracle’s Q1 2026 earnings call started, with Guggenheim Securities analyst John DiFucci expressing amazement at the company’s outlook for hockey-stick revenue growth in its cloud business thanks to AI.

Oracle’s outlook for cloud sales to rise in an Nvidia-like fashion to $144 billion in its fiscal 2030 from $18 billion in fiscal 2026 is fueling gains across chip suppliers, infrastructure suppliers, server companies, and power providers linked to the AI boom.

Though the gains pale in comparison to Oracle’s more than 30% advance in premarket trading, the other companies atop the S&P 500’s leaderboard include Advanced Micro Devices, GE Vernova, Vistra, Nvidia, Arista Networks, Constellation Energy, Broadcom, NRG, Micron, and Super Micro Computer. All are up at least 1.5% as of 8 a.m. ET.

It’s a similar dynamic to what we saw throughout the AI ecosystem on the heels of Microsoft and Meta’s earnings reports at the end of July, and quite different from the reaction within the chip space after Broadcom’s quarterly release last week (even if that didn’t really make a ton of sense fundamentally).

The seemingly massive rising tide prophesied by Oracle really is lifting all boats.

Nia Warfield, Luke Kawa
16h
S&P 500 closes at record as tech heavyweights flex (besides Apple)

The Magnificent 7 did the heavy lifting, performing better than any S&P 500 sector ETF on Tuesday.

Bull by the horns
markets
Matt Phillips
17h

Oracle rips as backlog builds, but company misses on top and bottom lines

Oracle shares shot higher after-hours as the company reported a growing backlog, even though its fiscal Q1 results fell slightly short of expectations. The company reported:

  • Adjusted earnings per share of $1.47 vs. expectations of $1.48.

  • Revenue of $14.93 billion vs. expectations of $15.04 billion.

Shares were up 21% in after-hours trading, which is a pretty crazy stock move for a company with a market cap of more than $675 billion.

The market was likely impressed by a giant build in the company’s “remaining performance obligations,” or RPO, which is how the company measures the value of signed cloud computing deals that haven’t yet been reported as revenue. In a statement, CEO Safra Catz said: 

“We signed four multi-billion-dollar contracts with three different customers in Q1. This resulted in RPO contract backlog increasing 359% to $455 billion. It was an astonishing quarter — and demand for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure continues to build. Over the next few months, we expect to sign-up several additional multi-billion-dollar customers and RPO is likely to exceed half-a-trillion dollars.”

Oracle Announces Fiscal Year 2026 First Quarter Financial Results

Oracle Announces Fiscal Year 2026 First Quarter Financial Results

The market was likely impressed by a giant build in the company’s “remaining performance obligations,” or RPO, which is how the company measures the value of signed cloud computing deals that haven’t yet been reported as revenue. In a statement, CEO Safra Catz said: 

“We signed four multi-billion-dollar contracts with three different customers in Q1. This resulted in RPO contract backlog increasing 359% to $455 billion. It was an astonishing quarter — and demand for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure continues to build. Over the next few months, we expect to sign-up several additional multi-billion-dollar customers and RPO is likely to exceed half-a-trillion dollars.”

Latest Stories

Sherwood Media, LLC produces fresh and unique perspectives on topical financial news and is a fully owned subsidiary 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, or Robinhood Money, LLC.
©2025 Sherwood Media, LLC