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Luke Kawa

Chinese food delivery stocks soar as regulatory probe into price wars may save them from themselves

If there’s one thing Chinese companies are known for, it’s ruthless competition on price to make sure the nation’s products are attractive on global markets. Oftentimes, this comes with implicit or explicit state support for favored industries, which draws the ire of other countries.

Production > profitability is a pretty good shorthand for how China attempts to conquer tradable goods (see: electric vehicles). However, when it comes to consumer-oriented services, policymakers clearly don’t feel the same way.

Alibaba, Meituan, andJD.com are all soaring after the Chinese State Council’s anti-monopoly and anti-unfair competition committee said it’s investigating the food delivery sector over practices that are potentially distorting the market and weighing on brick-and-mortar firms.

These tech giants have been investing heavily in their food delivery capabilities, including via subsidies and incentives. Effectively, the market reaction here is that traders believe regulators are saving these companies from themselves.

A commentary in the state-run People’s Daily published midyear 2025, when JD.com announced plans to bolster its food delivery business, argued that there will be no “winners” in these price wars, which would lead to irrational consumption.

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President Trump Delivers An Announcement From The Oval Office

Pharma largely unfazed as Greenland tariffs roil markets

Drugmakers, which have spent the past six months reaching tariff deals with Trump, seem to expect some immunity from a new batch of tariffs on European countries.

markets

POET Technologies nears multiyear high on strong call demand after flagship product wins award

POET Technologies is surging on heavy volumes and high call demand after announcing that it won a Product Innovation Award at China’s Infostone awards.

The honor went to the optical communications company’s flagship product, the Teralight, which uses light to move data between chips.

“Unveiled less than a year ago at the 2025 OFC Conference, POET Teralight has driven commercial interest in the Company because of its highly integrated design and complete optical system-on-chip architecture that simplifies module development,” per the press release.

This award may be the latest excuse to buy the stock, which is up over 40% year to date.

Call activity is elevated, with nearly 37,000 having changed hands as of 10:55 a.m. ET, well above the 20-day average of 28,030 for a full session. Shares are approaching their multi-year high of $9.41.

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Intel bucks market slump after Wall Street upgrades

While the market slid early Tuesday, Intel soared as the American chipmaker received a pair of upgrades:

  • HSBC analysts lifted their rating on the stock to “hold” — essentially “neutral” — from “reduce,” Wall Street-speak for “sell.” The analysts nearly doubled their price target for the shares to $50 from $26. (That’s essentially where the stock is currently trading.)

  • Seaport Global also boosted its rating to “buy” from “neutral,” with a $65 price target.

Improving demand for CPUs — Intel’s bread-and-butter processors — is behind HSBC’s newfound enthusiasm for the shares. Analysts at the bank wrote:

“We had been cautious on Intel mainly given overall uncertainty on customer pipeline and execution headwinds in their foundry business while the core business was also lacking visibility on growth drivers. However, we now turn more positive as we expect the traditional servers (DCAI) to get back on a growth trajectory. We expect there is an overwhelmingly increasing demand for server CPUs driven by rising agentic AI... While the stock has moved up 19% YTD (vs S&P 500 up 1%), we believe there is further [data center and AI group] upside still not fully priced in. Hence, we upgrade Intel from Reduce to Hold.”

HSBC seems to be slightly understating the extent of the gains for the stock so far in 2026, as its share price has risen nearly 30% since the end of last year. But the gains are even more impressive if you date them to the partial nationalization of the ailing American chip giant, which was announced on August 22. Almost a month later, Nvidia announced a strategic partnership with the company, giving it a massive shot in the arm. Since then the stock is up more than 90%.

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ImmunityBio surge continues on sign its drug may be approved to treat a broader range of bladder cancers

Once you start squeezing, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.

Shares of ImmnuityBio are flying higher once again, up more than 30% in early trading Tuesday after having been down as much as 10% in the premarket. A little more than half an hour into the regular trading day, more than 46 million shares have changed hands, more than 3x the 20-day average for this point in the session.

Last week, we discussed how a number of positive press releases from the company touting the progress of its treatments helped send shares skyward, making the heavily shorted company a hot topic of discussion on the r/ShortSqueeze subreddit.

The positive press parade continues this morning, with ImmunityBio announcing that the FDA asked for more information about the ability of its ANKTIVA drug to treat a certain type of bladder cancer, though it doesn’t need to do any new clinical trials. Management said they would provide this information within 30 days.

Share are up nearly 200% over the past six sessions.

On Monday, the company published a podcast appearance by Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, founder, executive chairman, and global chief medical and technology officer, on “The Sean Spicer Show,” which was provocatively titled, “Is the FDA BLOCKING Life Saving Cancer Treatments?”

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