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

Tower Semiconductor is surging in early trading after the company released solid Q1 results and announced $1.3 billion in silicon photonics contract wins for 2027.

Q1 revenues of $413.6 million came in slightly better than Wall Street’s call, with adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.65 well ahead of the $0.56 estimate.

Looking forward, the company projects Q2 2026 revenue to reach an all-time record of $455 million (plus or minus 5%), above analysts’ expectations for $436.6 million.

Tower Semiconductor is benefiting from a surge in demand for AI infrastructure and is committed to its multiyear growth target in its silicon photonics business. Tower has already received $290 million in customer cash prepayments to reserve this capacity. Management said it has “an even larger contractual wafer commitment for 2028 for which additional associated prepayments are due by January 2027.”

“We are confident in our path toward achieving our model targets of $2.8 billion in annual revenue and $750 million in net profit in 2028,” said Russell Ellwanger, CEO of Tower Semiconductor.

Shares of Tower Semiconductor are up more than 80% year to date.

Nebius is soaring in early trading after reporting robust Q1 results and boosting its outlook for how much power it expects to have secured by year-end, a necessary ingredient for AI compute.

For the three months ended March 31, the neocloud reported:

• Revenue of $399 million (compared to analyst estimates of $391.6 million).

• Adjusted EBITDA of $129.5 million (estimate: $87.2 million).

Management raised their guidance for contracted power, or energy supply, to more than 4 gigawatts by year-end 2026 from a prior view in February of more than 3 gigawatts.

These results “strengthen the case for scaled AI infrastructure, in our view,” wrote Bloomberg Intelligence senior technology analyst Vasu Kasibhotla. “The 3.5x quarter-over-quarter pipeline increase in 1Q, a new 1.2 GW Pennsylvania facility and $6.3 billion raised in the quarter improve funding and capacity to execute.”

Eos Energy Enterprises is surging in premarket trading after the company reported better-than-expected Q1 sales and unveiled a joint venture with a major alternative investment firm for battery energy storage projects.

The key Q1 numbers:

• Revenue of $57 million (compared to analyst estimates of $54.27 million).

• Adjusted earnings per share of $0.12 (estimate: a $0.20 loss), which was juiced by a noncash change in fair value based on the change in EOSE’s share price.

Concurrently with earnings, Eos and Cerberus Capital Management announced the formation of a joint venture called Frontier Power USA, which will be a stand-alone, purpose-built Independent Power Producer to be supplied through a 2-gigawatt-hour capacity reservation agreement with Eos.

“Frontier Power USA is expected to deploy this capacity across commercial and industrial applications, AI data centers, and utility-scale projects, drawing from a multi GWh project pipeline which is under active development,” per the press release.

To support the platform’s launch, Cerberus has committed $100 million in equity, and, to underscore its confidence in Eos, extended its stock lockup agreement through the end of 2026. Eos plans to launch a rights offering to raise $150 million to support this JV.

“The market is telling us what it needs: long-duration storage that is safe, American-made, and financeable at scale,” said Joe Mastrangelo, CEO of Eos. “We have the technology, the manufacturing, the controls, and now, with Frontier Power USA, the planned capital to accelerate project deployment.”

Last month, Eos also announced a joint development agreement with Turbine-X Energy. The partnership focuses on deploying zinc-based battery storage solutions for AI hyperscale data centers, with a target capacity of up to 2 gigawatt-hours beginning in 2027.

For the full year in 2026, Eos expects to achieve revenue between $300 million and $400 million, in line with its previously provided guidance.

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 megahertz of EchoStar’s nationwide spectrum for roughly $23 billion to expand its 5G network, while SpaceX is buying about 65 megahertz 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 that it’s “evaluating next steps.”