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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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Tasha Matsumoto

Stocks climb to new record highs on peace talk optimism and tech rally

Stocks rose on news that President Trump will send Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff to Pakistan to negotiate peace talks with Iran. Additionally, Intel’s Q1 earnings crush lifted semiconductor stocks.

Michael Jordan #23, Shooting Guard and Small Forward for the Chicago Bulls wearing a warm up jacket looks on during player introductions before the NBA Midwest Division basketball game against the Denver Nuggets

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Max Knoblauch2h

Spectrum-owner Charter Communications is on pace for its worst day ever as broadband numbers and Q1 results disappoint

Cable and broadband company Charter Communications is on pace for its worst-ever trading day on Friday, as investors dump the stock following its Q1 results and forward guidance.

Charter, which owns Spectrum, reported adjusted earnings of $9.17 per share, below Wall Street estimates of $9.96 per share from analysts polled by FactSet. On the company’s earnings call, CFO Jessica Fischer appeared to lower its full-year revenue per user guidance.

“It'll be close either way in terms of whether we end up with net growth,” said Fischer.

The company lost 120,000 internet subscribers in the quarter, deeper than the expected 94,800 and double its loss from the same period last year. That news comes one day after Comcast’s earnings provided a bit of optimism for broadband as a category: the company reported Q1 losses of 65,000, significantly improving from 183,000 losses in the same quarter last year. Comcast is down more than 10%, on pace for its worst day since January 2025.

Google to reportedly invest up to $40 billion in Anthropic

Amazon announced plans to deepen its investment in the Claude developer earlier this week.

Alphabet/Google CEO Sundar Pichai

markets

Nvidia poised to snap longest run without a record close since the AI boom began

The stock price of the company responsible for the brains of the AI boom is finally showing some brawn again.

Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, is poised to close at a record high for the first time since October 29, 2025, on Friday (if it ends above $207.04).

The AI chip trade is on fire, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index slated to deliver its 18th consecutive gain as Intel’s robust results and outlook juice the entire ecosystem. Hyperscalers report earnings next week, and their capex guidance can be thought of as the earnings guidance for Nvidia and other AI suppliers for the quarters to come.

This would end Nvidia’s longest stretch without a record close since the unofficial start of the AI boom (when the chip designer delivered blowout quarterly results in May 2023).

(Sorry if I jinx this!)

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J. Edward Moreno4h

Lilly slips after prescriptions for its weight-loss pill come in below expectations in second week

Eli Lilly fell on Friday after prescription data for its new weight-loss pill, Foundayo, showed that it’s having a significantly slower rollout than its top competitor.

The pill was prescribed about 3,700 times in its second week, according to IQVIA data cited by Deutsche Bank analysts, compared to the roughly 8,000 they were expecting. Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy pill, which came out in January, hit over 18,000 prescriptions in its second week.

The FDA approved Foundayo on April 1 and shipments began on April 9. Deutsche analysts noted that Lilly’s GLP-1 injections, which currently outsell Novo’s, also had a slower start.

Lilly fell more than 4% after the numbers were released. Novo Nordisk rose more than 5%.

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