Markets
FRANCE-LA-CLUSAZ-OFF-PISTE-AVALANCHE-WARNING
Warning sign (Stéphane Mouchmouche/Getty Images)

Wedbush’s Dan Ives warns Trump’s new focus on household electricity bills risks “slowing down the data center buildouts” at a “crucial time”

Hyperscalers’ margins look well positioned to absorb some higher costs, but some have better trends than others.

Luke Kawa

Call it SophAI’s choice.

President Donald Trump is aiming to shield American households from one of the negative side effects of the AI boom — higher electricity prices — by calling on tech giants to “pay their own way.”

This call was quickly answered by Microsoft, which unveiled a “community-first AI infrastructure plan” that will see the company aim to privatize the financial impacts of its electricity demands on the grid, among other measures.

Wedbush Securities’ global head of technology research, Dan Ives, expects similar plans from other tech giants to “follow soon,” he said in a note to clients on Tuesday.

And that’s not necessarily good news to the analyst, who wrote:

“While this initiative alleviates a major headache from the Trump administration, this will create a larger bottleneck with big tech organizations looking to build out large data center footprints as quickly as possible without impacting the bottom-line with this potentially slowing down the data center buildouts with the US entering a crucial time of the AI Revolution with the US facing significant energy shortages/issues to fuel data center buildouts.”

In November, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said “China is going to win the AI race” because it has a more favorable regulatory environment and cheaper access to power.

Ives echoed these concerns amid this high-wire, highly wired balancing act by the US government and its leading tech companies.

“With China spending incrementally more across new and existing power technologies into 2030 putting greater pressure on the US to fuel its lofty AI ambitions, we believe this will be a continuous back and forth battle between Big Tech players and the Trump administration with data center buildouts an important aspect of fueling the AI Revolution over the coming years,” he wrote.

My colleague Rani Molla noted that Meta may be more negatively impacted by progress on any presidential ambitions to nudge tech companies to shoulder more of these energy costs. The social media company doesn’t have a cloud business, so its AI costs need to generate revenues that are a little more downstream (in advertising) than its high-spending peers.

Despite escalating depreciation charges, hyperscalers have largely seen their estimated profit margins continue to creep higher. These firms — or in particular, their cloud divisions — are much more profitable than the S&P 500 at large. But there’s one company that is bucking this trend: Meta, the only one of the cohort to see its projected profit margin fall since the end of 2024.

We once again present this trilemma, inspired by Signum Global Advisors’ George Pollack, for your consideration:

Trump AI trilemma

More Markets

See all Markets
Dickens, Great Expectations, He said, Aha! would you?

Tech tumbles as momentum stocks run into a blowout jobs report and a wave of profit-taking

The AI trade is under some pressure, taking prices back like... a few days. President Donald Trump is not a fan of the price action.

Trump Administration Considers Reclassifying Marijuana As A Less Dangerous Drug

Trulieve to list on NYSE, a first for US cannabis sector

More may be on the way: several other US cannabis companies have announced reverse stock splits with the intention of listing on a major exchange.

markets

Lululemon’s stretch getting tested: Stock plunges after after outlook is cut

Lululemon shares are down double digits in premarket trading after the company cut its full-year sales and profit outlook, overshadowing a Q1 beat and raising fresh concerns about the brand’s turnaround efforts.

The company now expects fiscal 2026 revenue to be flat to down 1%, compared with its prior forecast for 2% to 4% growth. Guidance for full-year diluted earnings per share was dragged down to a range of $10.95 to $11.15, below the company’s previous guidance of $12.10 to $12.30 and well below Wall Street’s estimate of $13.26.

Key numbers for Q1:

  • EPS of $1.69 vs. the $1.68 expected.

  • Revenue of $2.47 billion vs. the $2.43 billion expected.

The modest top-line beat masked a widening divergence between Lululemons geographic markets. While international revenue rose 22% overall with a 30% increase in Mainland China, the bigger problem remains North America, where revenue fell 5%.

Interim co-CEO and CFO Meghan Frank acknowledged during the earnings call that recent product rollouts underperformed. A highly anticipated yoga campaign failed to generate its expected halo effect across broader product lines.

Profitability metrics took a major hit, with gross margins contracting by 410 basis points to 54.2% due to mounting tariff costs and promotional markdowns. Operating income consequently fell 37% year over year to $276.9 million.

“We experienced spikes of negative commentary in the media and on social channels with regard to our brand, which had an impact on traffic and overall top-line performance,” Frank said during the earnings call. “And second, not all of our product launches have met our expectations. While we have had several successful launches so far this year, we have seen others as we start Q2 not generate the anticipated guest response.”

Lululemons valuation has already been steadily compressing for years. While it was once one of retails richly valued stocks, investors have been questioning whether the company can return to the double-digit growth era.

The results also arrive during a leadership transition. Lululemon announced back in April that former Nike executive Heidi ONeill is set to take over as CEO in September, with investors looking to her to revive growth in North America and restore the brands growth.

As Lululemon faces both macroeconomic pressure and brand-specific challenges, its stock has dropped around 40% year to date.

markets

US job growth skyrocketed in May, blasting past expectations

The US economy added 172,000 jobs in the month of May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday, sending 10-year Treasury yields higher.

The strong May job market surprised economists. Experts had predicted only 85,000 new jobs — just half the reported number. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%, as expected.

The job growth story is a hopeful spot for the economy as consumers continue to feel inflationary pressure from the Iran war.

Job gains were buoyed by the leisure and hospitality sector, which added 70,000 jobs, as well as local government, healthcare, and education.

Both the March and April jobs reports were revised upward, making them collectively 93,000 higher than previously reported.

Latest Stories

Sherwood Media, LLC and Chartr Limited produce fresh and unique perspectives on topical financial news and are fully owned subsidiaries of Robinhood Markets, Inc., and any views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any other Robinhood affiliate, including Robinhood Markets, Inc., Robinhood Financial LLC, Robinhood Securities, LLC, Robinhood Crypto, LLC, Robinhood Money, LLC, Robinhood U.K. Ltd, Robinhood Derivatives, LLC, Robinhood Gold, LLC, Robinhood Asset Management, LLC, Robinhood Credit, Inc., Robinhood Ventures DE, LLC and, where applicable, its managed investment vehicles.