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Claire Yubin Oh2/12/26

SoftBank’s OpenAI investment gains drive fourth consecutive profitable quarter

SoftBank is up 4% in premarket trading on Thursday after the Japanese conglomerate announced a net profit of 248.6 billion yen ($1.6 billion) in its fiscal third quarter, buoyed by a $4.2 billion valuation gain in its OpenAI investment.

SoftBank marked its fourth consecutive quarter of profits, swinging from a loss of 369 billion yen ($2.4 billion) in the same quarter the year before.

The Masayoshi Son-led firm has invested a total of $34.6 billion in OpenAI so far, amounting to an ~11% stake in the startup, per its earnings presentation. The company is also reportedly looking to invest as much as $30 billion more in the ChatGPT maker in a funding round that would value it at up to $830 billion.

SoftBank is accumulating more dry powder to fund its investments in OpenAI and other AI-adjacent ventures. Management shared on Thursday that they sold $12.7 billion worth of T-Mobile shares between June and December 2025, offloading an additional $2.3 billion in January of this year. In addition, they borrowed another $400 billion via a margin loan that uses SoftBank Corp. shares in December.

Since SoftBank started investing in OpenAI through the end of 2025, the company has enjoyed a $19.8 billion investment gain in total. The OpenAI investment, alongside other investments in its second tech-heavy Vision Fund, drove a $6.5 billion increase in fair value for the quarter — helping to outweigh a $4.1 billion loss in its first Vision Fund, “primarily due to share price declines of Coupang and DiDi.”

Softbank — Source: Company filing

BTIG analyst Jesse Sobelson estimates that the ChatGPT maker now represents 30% of SoftBank’s net asset value. The company’s stock has also almost doubled in the past year as retail investors piled into SoftBank to get pseudo-exposure to the now private OpenAI.

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J. Edward Moreno7/7/26

SpaceX gets a wave of bullish ratings from Wall Street analysts

SpaceX received more than a dozen positive analyst calls on Tuesday — including from major Wall Street banks — as they initiate coverage on Elon Musk’s space and AI company.

SpaceX went public on June 12 at a $2.2 trillion valuation, the largest debut in history. While the company hasn’t yet posted a profit, it seems to have convinced Wall Street that it will get there and grow its valuation on the way.

Of the at least 17 analysts that gave a rating on Tuesday, all but one gave it a “buy” or “outperform” rating. MoffettNathanson was "neutral."

The ratings come as SpaceX joined the Nasdaq 100 index, a benchmark tech-heavy basket of companies that underpins millions of portfolios. The inclusion adds built-in demand for the stock from index funds and ETFs.

Still, SpaceX fell more than 5% on Tuesday amid a broader sell-off, and is currently effectively flat from its opening price of $150 a share.

US job growth falls far short of estimates in June; unemployment rate unexpectedly dips to 4.2%

Job growth was 57,000. Analysts foresaw job growth of 113,000; prediction markets were more optimistic, looking for job growth above 125,000 but below 150,000.

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Meta surges on report it’s starting a cloud business to sell excess AI compute

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markets

Paige Oamek6/30/26

Nike sinks to lowest level since 2014 after warning of “challenged” sales environment in Q4 report

Did Nike do it?

Investors had a mixed reaction after the global sports apparel company reported its fourth quarter earnings on Tuesday after the bell. Shares initially rose 5% as Nike beat out Wall Street expectations amid a hefty tariff refund bonus. However, the stock then sank to its lowest level since August 2014 in postmarket trading.

Here are the Q4 numbers:

Revenue of $11.0 billion (estimate: $10.8 billion).
Adjusted earnings per share of $0.20 (estimate: $0.12).

Ahead of this report, Nike warned that results would be flattered by a one-time tariff refund (now estimated at roughly $0.52 per share for the bottom line). That gave the company an extra cushion in snapping its streak of seven quarters of year-over-year profit declines.

Over the past year, the company had been punished by tariffs on imported goods, stagnant consumer spending, and increasing competition from other footwear brands like New Balance, Adidas, and Hoka.

Outgoing CFO Matthew Friend deemed it an “increasingly challenging operating environment, where sell-through remains challenged.”

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