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Matt Phillips

Rocket Lab reports better-than-expected Q1 sales, stock rises

Retail favorite Rocket Lab rose late Thursday after reporting better-than-expected Q1 sales and offering upbeat sales guidance for Q2.

Here’s how the company did:

  • Q1 revenue of $200.3 million vs. Wall Street’s expectation for $189.7 million, according to FactSet.

  • An adjusted loss per share of $0.07 vs. the consensus estimate of a $0.07 loss.

  • Adjusted EBITDA of -$11.8 million vs. the analyst forecast of -$26.3 million.

  • Q2 sales guidance of between $225 million and $240 million ($232.5 million midpoint) vs. expectations for $205.3 million.

  • Q2 guidance for EBITDA between -$20 million and -$26 million (-$23 million midpoint) vs. the -$14.5 million analysts were penciling in.

Rocket Lab shares have surged roughly 2,000% over the last two years, as the company capitalized on investor enthusiasm for space.

Over the last year, Rocket Lab also rode growing excitement about companies that plan to use their ability to place clusters of satellites into low-Earth orbit and then sell data services to earthlings below — essentially the business model of Elon Musk’s Starlink.

Though it’s privately held for now, Musk’s space behemoth, SpaceX, remains the key source of excitement around the sector, enthusiasm that will likely grow as the company moves forward with plans for what’s likely to be the largest public offering ever.

Rabid space enthusiasm aside, Rocket Lab remains a money-losing company that’s burning a lot of cash, though Wall Street analysts think it could break even in 2027.

We’ll see. That projection hangs on the company’s ability to get its larger Neutron rocket into its commercial launch cycle sooner rather than later. And given that Neutron’s maiden launch — originally slated for 2025 — has been delayed to the fourth quarter of 2026, that’s by no means assured.

Separately, Rocket Lab also announced that it’s signed the largest launch services contract in its history with a “confidential customer.”

The multi-launch agreement includes five dedicated Neutron launches and three of the company’s smaller Electron rocket. The launches are expected to occur between 2026 and 2029. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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Akamai Technologies jumps on $1.8 billion cloud infrastructure deal

Akamai is up 26% in premarket trading Friday after the company announced a major cloud infrastructure deal tied to AI, helping investors look past modestly better-than-expected Q1 results and a weaker-than-expected Q2 outlook.

In a press release Thursday after the bell, the cloud and cybersecurity company said it had secured a $1.8 billion, seven-year commitment from a “leading frontier model provider” for Akamai’s cloud infrastructure services, a deal CEO Tom Leighton said strengthened the company’s position as a “key infrastructure provider in the AI economy.”

The announcement came alongside Akamai’s Q1 earnings, which were only modestly ahead of Wall Street expectations. Adjusted earnings came in at $1.61 per share, slightly above analysts’ estimate of $1.60 per share compiled by FactSet. Revenue rose 6% year on year to $1.074 billion, broadly in-line with Wall Street's forecasts.

The company said growth was led by its cloud infrastructure services, where revenue jumped 40% year on year. Security revenue grew 11%, while delivery and other cloud applications revenue dropped 7%.

For the current quarter, the company forecast adjusted earnings per share of $1.45 to $1.65, with the midpoint falling short of the $1.68 expected, and revenue of $1.075 billion to $1.1 billion also below the $1.104 billion estimate at the midpoint, according to FactSet.

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Luke Kawa

Nvidia to invest up to $2.1 billion in IREN in partnership that deploys as much as 5 gigawatts of its AI infrastructure

Another day, another massive Nvidia warrants deal in the AI ecosystem.

Shares of data center company IREN spiked 20% in postmarket trading after it reached a pact with the chip designer to deploy up to 5 gigawatts of its AI offerings across data centers.

This means that IREN will effectively be building out data centers designed by Nvidia to optimize for its hardware. And some of that hardware deployed will seemingly then be utilized by Nvidia: IREN also announced a $3.4 billion AI cloud contract with the giant on Thursday.

As part of the arrangement, IREN issued Nvidia warrants that expire in five years that enable the company to buy up to 30 million shares at $70 apiece. If fully exercised, that would amount to a $2.1 billion investment into IREN.

This announcement took the sting out of IREN’s Q3 results, which saw the firm report sales of $144.8 million (compared to analyst estimates of $216.6 million) and adjusted EBITDA of $59.5 million (estimate: $125 million).

On Wednesday, Nvidia announced an investment of $500 million in fiber-optics firm Corning to accelerate its manufacturing capacity.

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Paige Oamek

Applied Optoelectronics sinks after Q1 sales miss, underwhelming Q2 revenue guidance

Applied Optoelectronics tumbled after-hours after the connectivity company reported lower-than-expected Q1 sales and underwhelming revenue guidance.

Here are the numbers:

  • Revenue of $151.1 million (compared to analyst estimates of $157.5 million).

  • An adjusted loss per share of $0.07 (estimate: a $0.05 loss).

  • An adjusted gross margin of 29.1% (estimate: 30.37%).

The company helps servers in large-scale data centers relay information, partnering with companies like Microsoft and Amazon. Last month, the stock surged after news broke that a key hyperscale customer, following an initial order, had significantly increased its demand for AAOI’s offerings.

For second quarter of 2026, the company expects:

  • Revenue in the range of $180 million to $198 million (estimate: $196.83 million).

  • Adjusted gross margin in the range of 29% to 30% (estimate: 31.42%).

In the press release, AAOI Chief Financial and Strategy Officer Dr. Stefan Murry said:

“Our focus remains on ramping our capacity thoughtfully to meet the unprecedented demand and are confident in our ability to execute on our ambitious growth plans, while ensuring reliability, quality, and a dedication to excellence.”

Demand for photonics does not seem to be in question, but judging by Lumentum’s post-earnings call on Tuesday and Applied Optoelectronics’ commentary, the challenge lies in securing supply.

AAOI was up nearly 300% since the beginning of the year before this print.

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