Nia Warfield6/9/25

Stocks stay level as US-China trade talks kick off

Stocks got a small boost as US and Chinese officials met in London to continue trade talks, following temporary tariff cuts from both sides aimed at easing tensions. The S&P 500 eked out a 0.09% gain, well off of session highs, while the Nasdaq 100 added 0.17% and the Russell 2000 climbed 0.57%.

Consumer discretionary, materials, and tech were the top-performing sectors, while utilities and financials lagged. Chip stocks including On Semiconductor and AMD helped fuel the gains, as investors grow hopeful that talks will help loosen semiconductor export restrictions. Meanwhile…

Warner Bros. Discovery shares jumped as much as 10% before closing down 3% after the media giant announced plans to split into two publicly traded companies.

Apple shares ticked 1% lower after the tech giant’s highly awaited AI software and Apple Intelligence updates missed the mark at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference.

Shares of Robinhood Markets fell 2% after speculation that the brokerage platform would be added to the S&P 500 failed to pan out. (Sherwood News is an editorially independent subsidiary of Robinhood.)

Tesla, which started the day down following two analyst downgrades, managed to end the day up 4.5% after CEO Elon Musk reposted some President Trump-adjacent tweets, signaling a possible cooling to the pair’s public feud.

Shares of IonQ traded up as much as 11%, but gave back much of those gains by the close after the quantum computing company said it would acquire British startup Oxford Ionics.

Metsera jumped nearly 11% after the obesity treatment startup reported encouraging early trial results for its MET-233 drug candidate

Intuitive Surgical sank more than 5% after Deutsche Bank analysts gave stock a rare “sell” rating as competition in the robot surgery space finally starts to heats up.

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GameStop jumps in after-hours trading after CEO Ryan Cohen purchases another 500,000 shares

Ryan Cohen is putting his money where his mouth is.

The GameStop CEO bought another 500,000 shares of company stock for $10.8 million on Wednesday, per a filing.

The stock was trading higher on Wednesday thanks to Cohen’s purchase of 500,000 shares for roughly $10.6 million on Tuesday, and extended these gains in the after-hours session on this news.

“The Reporting Person believes that it is essential for the Chief Executive Officer of any public company to purchase shares of such company in the open market with his or her own personal funds in order to further strengthen alignment with stockholders,” per the filing. “The Reporting Person believes that any Chief Executive Officer who fails to do so should be fired.”

Cohen is poised to become even more financially enmeshed with GameStop’s stock and operating performance should shareholders approve a package that would tie his pay completely to ambitious targets for the company’s earnings and market cap.

The CEO now owns about 8.56% of shares outstanding.

markets

AppLovin tumbles; company dismisses negative report as “false, misleading, and nonsensical”

AppLovin managed to finish well off the lows on Tuesday after initially getting clobbered in the wake of an incendiary report on the adtech firm published by CapitalWatch.

Nonetheless, shares are getting torched on Wednesday, ending down nearly 6%. An AppLovin spokesperson forcefully denied the allegations made by CapitalWatch, which included calling it “the ultimate monument to 21st-century new-type transnational financial crime.”

Per an emailed statement:

We categorically reject the claims made in this report, which is rife with false, misleading, and nonsensical allegations. AppLovin’s public filings transparently disclose our material investments, global operations, and information regarding significant shareholders.

Claims that AppLovin facilitated money laundering or its products are used for unauthorized downloads are patently false. AppLovin functions within a broader ecosystem that includes major app stores, operating systems, and payment providers, and the apps monetized through our platform must be publicly available on the major app stores and subject to their independent review and enforcement. Economically, the money laundering theory is implausible: publishers receive only a portion of advertiser spend, meaning any attempt to “launder” funds would require forfeiting a substantial share while creating a highly visible, auditable transaction trail across multiple independent companies. Accepting the report’s premise would therefore imply a systemic failure across the broader mobile advertising and app-store ecosystem, for which the report provides no evidence.

AppLovin craters after report from CapitalWatch alleges it’s a money-laundering operation for “transnational criminal kingpins”

Nonetheless, shares are getting torched on Wednesday, ending down nearly 6%. An AppLovin spokesperson forcefully denied the allegations made by CapitalWatch, which included calling it “the ultimate monument to 21st-century new-type transnational financial crime.”

Per an emailed statement:

We categorically reject the claims made in this report, which is rife with false, misleading, and nonsensical allegations. AppLovin’s public filings transparently disclose our material investments, global operations, and information regarding significant shareholders.

Claims that AppLovin facilitated money laundering or its products are used for unauthorized downloads are patently false. AppLovin functions within a broader ecosystem that includes major app stores, operating systems, and payment providers, and the apps monetized through our platform must be publicly available on the major app stores and subject to their independent review and enforcement. Economically, the money laundering theory is implausible: publishers receive only a portion of advertiser spend, meaning any attempt to “launder” funds would require forfeiting a substantial share while creating a highly visible, auditable transaction trail across multiple independent companies. Accepting the report’s premise would therefore imply a systemic failure across the broader mobile advertising and app-store ecosystem, for which the report provides no evidence.

Tasha Matsumoto, Nate Becker

Stocks jump as Trump walks back European tariff threats

All sector ETFs traded higher in the broad-based rally.

Benny, the mascot for the Chicago Bulls, performs during a break between the Bulls and the New Orleans Pelicans at the United Center on January 14, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois.

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Matt Phillips5h

Intel soars amid retail engagement, analyst chatter

Intel ripped toward a new 52-week high Wednesday, amid a flurry of activity in the options market and a couple of positive analyst assessments ahead of its earnings report due tomorrow.

Shortly after 11 a.m. ET, call options activity was roughly equivalent to the full-day average over the past 10 sessions. Bets on stock swings using call options have become a highly popular retail trade, suggesting that retail investors are getting interested in the shares ahead of the report from the partially nationalized American chip icon.

(That interpretation is buttressed by what we’re seeing on social sentiment-monitoring sites like SwaggyStocks, which at about 11:30 a.m. listed Intel as the fifth-most-mentioned stock on Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets forum over the past 24 hours.)

Wall Street analysts are also chattering about the stock, with RBC and Bernstein Research both writing about it in the last 24 hours.

RBC — which has a “sector perform” (or neutral) rating on Intel — said it expects a “slight beat and largely inline outlook” when the company reports after the close Thursday.

Bernstein’s Intel watchers — who have a “market perform” (also neutral) rating on the stock — seemed a bit more cautious, writing, “Overall numbers going forward still looking high to us. Fundamentals and valuation keep us sidelined.”

“If there is no memory, there’s no AI.”

FLASH FORWARD

ByMattPhillips

WedJan 212026

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