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Reddit listing day
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Reddit sinks on heavy volumes, social media chatter of reduced referral traffic from ChatGPT

RBC Capital Markets says it’s tied to a recent change made by Google; ChatGPT thinks OpenAI’s recent model tweak is a plausible explanation.

Luke Kawa

Reddit is getting smoked amid elevated trading activity, deepening a rout that has seen shares sink 15% in the trailing eight sessions heading into today.

The consternation appears to be driven by reports on social media that suggest ChatGPT is using Reddit content as a source much less often.

The best example:

RBC Capital Markets analysts tied this loss of citation share to Google’s disabling of the “&num=100” parameter, which had the effect of limiting how many results large language models could draw upon to deliver answers.

They write:

This is consistent with our note from last week where we noted a 3p [third party] study posted online by agency showed that RDDT's citation share on ChatGPT had dropped significantly (from 29.2% range to 5.3% just since September 10th). At the time, we'd concluded that Google changing its indexing parameters from 100 (num=100) to 10 per page was causing 3p LLM's to essentially see 1/10th of their prior results as they indexed Google's search data. We are not yet clear as to whether companies like ChatGPT could increase their compute costs in accessing more pages to restore that indexing data or if that's even an option. A key unknown here is how much of RDDT's traffic was actually coming from ChatGPT which could have this type of an impact. To our knowledge, nothing about GOOGL's index parameter changes would have affected AI Overviews citations which we'd have thought would have been necessary to drive this pronounced of a decline in DAU's (per SimilarWeb).

OpenAI, for its part, updated its model on September 12 — just about the time these referrals apparently began to slide. I asked ChatGPT (who better?) to explain whether any tweaks made could have produced such an effect. Here’s what it told me:

What is possible/plausible from indirect/architectural changes

Even though there is no explicit statement, the kinds of changes made (or the framing of the update) could allow or encourage behavior shifts that indirectly reduce Reddit referrals. Some possibilities:

  1. Stricter guardrails/stronger authority constraints
    Because the update emphasizes clarity and stricter authority levels, internal policies might now more heavily vet or filter which external sources the model is allowed to cite, especially user‑generated content (like Reddit).

  2. Reprioritization of source quality/authority levels
    The model spec changes might shift the implicit priorities, favoring more authoritative, vetted sources (academic, official, news) over forums, social media, or user‑generated content by default.

  3. Nonpublic internal adjustments
    Even without a public note, internal (nonpublic) rule changes might have been made alongside the September 12 rollout — e.g. adjustments in how citations are ranked, filters applied, or which domains are considered “safe” to reference.

  4. Cascading effect from other policies/safety rules
    The new spec may create constraints (or higher “cost” in internal scoring) for referencing less controlled sources (where misinformation risk is higher). Over time, that could reduce those referrals as a side effect.

Update:

We asked ChatGPT which of Google or OpenAI’s tweak was playing a bigger role in reducing the share of Reddit citations. Here’s what it told us:

“I think it is quite probable that the mid‑September shift is largely driven by OpenAI’s internal changes (model / retrieval / policy), rather than being purely a downstream effect of Google’s n=100 removal.”

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Nvidia and SK Hynix strike multiyear partnership on memory chips, AI data center build-out

Nvidia shares are modestly higher after it announced a multiyear partnership with SK Hynix on memory chips and building out AI data centers.

The agreement secures a long-term pipeline of memory chips for Nvidia. At the center of the partnership is the integration of SK Hynix’s high-bandwidth memory chips into Nvidia’s newly unveiled Vera central processing units. The Vera processor is Nvidia’s first stand-alone data center microprocessor designed to compete directly against traditional enterprise server lines.

The collaboration is also structured to reshape how semiconductors are manufactured. Under the terms of the agreement, SK Hynix will implement Nvidia’s CUDA-X library and PhysicsNeMo framework directly into its memory design and manufacturing workflows.

The announcement happened during a high-profile visit to Seoul by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who arrived on June 5 to align with core infrastructure partners. Over the weekend, Huang met with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, SK Hynix CEO Kwak Noh-Jung, and other top South Korean technology executives during a dinner meeting, according to Nvidia’s blog posts and Reuters.

Last week, SK Hynix told investors that its proposed US listing has received strong backing, which would potentially give US investors an alternative way to play the memory chip crunch.

markets

FuelCell Energy rises as AI data center pipeline overshadows Q2 miss

FuelCell Energy shares rebounded into positive territory during premarket trading, reversing an initial dip sparked by Q2 results that showed widening net losses and a year-over-year revenue decline.

Key numbers:

  • Revenue of $35.6 million (compared to analyst estimates of $40.56 million).

  • An adjusted loss per share of $1.45 (estimate: a $0.50 loss).

That revenue number marks a 5% decrease from the $37.4 million generated during the same quarter last year.

The company’s net loss expanded to $78.7 million, or $1.45 per share, compared to a loss of $38.8 million in the prior-year period. Management attributed the deeper loss primarily to a $42.6 million one-time impairment expense linked to essential equipment upgrades at its Groton Project facility.

While a 9.9% drop in total backlog initially added to the shares’ downward momentum, investors appeared to quickly pivot their attention to the company’s forward-looking metrics. FuelCell highlighted a 267% sequential jump in its sales pipeline, which has reached 4 gigawatts. The surge is driven by demand for its packaged 12.5-megawatt utility-grade power block solution tailored specifically for the booming AI data center market.

To support this high-growth data center strategy, FuelCell announced a major capacity expansion at its Torrington, Connecticut, manufacturing facility. The company plans to raise its annualized production ceiling from 350 MW to 500 MW, an infrastructure upgrade estimated to cost between $200 million and $275 million over the next 24 months.

Driven by the AI data center narrative, FuelCell Energy’s stock has risen over 130% year to date.

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Lilly says its next-gen GLP-1 shot drove 28.3% weight loss, reduced comorbidities

Eli Lilly has risen around 4% in premarket trading after reporting impressive trial results for its next-generation weight-loss drug over the weekend.

According to the results unveiled on Saturday, Lilly’s experimental weight-loss shot, retatrutide, helped patients lose 28.3% of their body weight at 80 weeks. That’s more than tirzepatide, Lilly’s weight-loss shot currently considered the most effective in the market, which helped people lose 26% of their weight over 88 weeks.

Retatrutide is a triple agonist, meaning it mimics three different hormones that promote weight loss, compared to one by Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide and two by tirzepatide. Lilly says it helps preserve more muscle mass than other weight-loss shots and also helped improve knee osteoarthritis pain and obstructive sleep apnea.

Lilly has said it would submit the drug for approval this year with the goal of getting it out to market in 2027. The jab could be the next big moneymaker for Lilly, which currently sells the most lucrative drug in the world but has had an underwhelming rollout of its oral weight-loss pill, which came to market earlier this year.

Retatrutide is already quite popular among those who experiment with peptides, or unapproved injectable drugs often sold online “for research purposes only.” For gym bros trying to attain a certain physique, a drug that has shown it can melt fat while preserving muscle is enticing.

But in a market full of knockoff drugs, will retatrutide enthusiasts pay full price for the drug when it officially goes to market?

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Marvell and Flex rise on S&P 500 inclusion announcement

Chipmaker Marvell Technology and electronics manufacturer Flex are jumping 7% and 3%, respectively, in premarket trading on Monday after S&P Dow Jones Indices announced late on Friday that the two companies are set to join the S&P 500 benchmark index.

Replacing Pool Corp. and Campbell’s in the S&P 500, Marvell and Flex’s addition will be effective from June 22, per a press release from the provider, which assesses and updates the index on a quarterly basis.

Marvell has been one of the leading candidates for inclusion across the last few quarterly index rebalances. The company has ballooned into a $230 billion chip giant of late, thanks to the wider AI boom, investors chasing momentum, and, yes, Jensen Huang. Flex, which has been part of the S&P MidCap 400 Index since 2024, has also grown recently, having played a part in the data center boom with a portfolio that spans across infrastructure and cooling systems.

With today’s premarket movement taken into account, MRVL has now risen almost 40% in the last week alone.

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