markets

Hyunsoo Rim8/5/25

Yum! Brands misses Q2 estimates as US demand weakens

Yum! Brands posted a miss across the board, reporting lower-than-expected Q2 results amid a slowdown in consumer spending at its key US franchises.

Revenue rose 9.6% year over year to $1.93 billion, slightly below analyst estimates of $1.94 billion. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $1.44, also missing the $1.46 expected, while same-store sales grew 2% globally, falling short of the 2.3% consensus compiled by FactSet.

The fast-food giant behind KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell posted mixed results across its brands.

Taco Bell is doing okay. The brand, which is responsible for ~38% of the company’s revenue, saw US same-store sales rise 4%, down from 5% growth a year ago. But over at KFC and Pizza Hut, things aren’t so rosy: both saw their US same-store sales slip 5%.

For KFC specifically, competition in the fried chicken arena has never been so intense, with chains like Chick-fil-A, as well as a flood of newcomers like Raising Cane’s, Dave’s Hot Chicken, and Church’s Chicken, clucking at its heels.

As a broader pullback in consumer spending and rising ingredient costs weigh on margins, Yum! and its rivals have leaned into budget meals to lure cost-conscious diners, including Taco Bell’s $5 to $9 meal boxes.

Taco Bell parent Yum Brands misses estimates as spending slows, costs rise

Taco Bell parent Yum Brands misses estimates as spending slows, costs rise

The fast-food giant behind KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell posted mixed results across its brands.

Taco Bell is doing okay. The brand, which is responsible for ~38% of the company’s revenue, saw US same-store sales rise 4%, down from 5% growth a year ago. But over at KFC and Pizza Hut, things aren’t so rosy: both saw their US same-store sales slip 5%.

For KFC specifically, competition in the fried chicken arena has never been so intense, with chains like Chick-fil-A, as well as a flood of newcomers like Raising Cane’s, Dave’s Hot Chicken, and Church’s Chicken, clucking at its heels.

As a broader pullback in consumer spending and rising ingredient costs weigh on margins, Yum! and its rivals have leaned into budget meals to lure cost-conscious diners, including Taco Bell’s $5 to $9 meal boxes.

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Report: US Senators plan to introduce bill blocking Nvidia from selling advanced chips to China for 30 months

US Senators are on the verge of introducing a bill that would block Nvidia from selling its H200 or Blackwell chips to China for 30 months, the Financial Times reports. The H200 is Nvidia’s best chip from the Hopper generation, while the Blackwell line is its current flagship offering.

Shares of the chip designer are little changed in the wake of this report, still up more than 1% on the session. The reaction makes sense, seeing as previous positive indications on Nvidia’s ability to sell advanced chips to China failed to inspire much positive momentum in its shares.

The stock got a brief-lived jolt higher (that didn’t last the day!) on November 21 after Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration had discussed the possibility of selling its H200 chips to China.

Nvidia has effectively been shut out of China’s AI market in 2025. First, export restrictions meant it could no longer sell the H20, a nerfed version of its Hopper chip, to the world’s second-largest economy. After that export ban was lifted, demand from China “never materialized,” per Nvidia CFO Colette Kress. Reports indicate that China banned its leading technology giants from purchasing these semiconductors, instead pushing them towards domestic alternatives.

President Donald Trump had mused about allowing Nvidia to sell Blackwell chips to China prior to his meeting with Chinese President Xi in late October, but failed to do so. The two leaders did not discuss the topic at that time.

Per the FT, this upcoming bill would be a bipartisan effort, being co-sponsored by the leading Republican and Democrat members of the Senate Foreign Relations east Asia subcommittee.

markets

AI energy plays soar on an explosion of call buying

Like their quantum computing counterparts, AI-linked energy plays are benefiting from an explosion of bullish options activity on Thursday.

Oklo is up double digits with call volumes above 106,000 as of 2:46 p.m. ET, more than double its 20-day average for a full session, with a put/call ratio of about 0.6. Call options with a strike price of $110 that expire this Friday (which are now in-the-money thanks to today’s surge) are seeing the most activity.
Nuscale, another nuclear energy play, seen nearly 140,000 call options change hands versus a 20-day average of 51,073.
And fuel cell company Bloom Energy has traded nearly 80,000 calls, roughly twice its 20-day average, with a put/call ratio of about 0.3.

During his appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast released on Wednesday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang talked up the potential for nuclear energy, saying, “In the next 6-7 years I think you are going to see a whole bunch of small nuclear reactors.”

This adds to the evidence that the speculative bid is back in a big way after smaller stocks tied to the AI boom and quantum computing cratered from mid-October through most of November as credit risk began to seep into the AI trade.

Old electronic items tossed on ground for disposal, Hudson

Technology giants don’t look like they used to, as the asset-light era fades

Oracle and Meta are now some of the most capital-intensive businesses in the S&P 500, spending more than energy giants. I guess data really is the new oil?

David Crowther2h

markets

Matt Phillips3h

Space stocks rip amid speculation on Altman joining race

Space stocks AST SpaceMobile, Planet Labs, and Rocket Lab all soared Thursday amid a recovery in the high-beta momentum class of shares coveted by some retail traders.

(High-beta momo stocks are basically shares that have been on a winning streak for a while, and tend to go up a lot more than the overall market on positive days. Goldman Sachs includes all three of the aforementioned space stocks in its themed basket of such shares.)

There’s little other fundamental news out there on the companies themselves.

But a Wall Street Journal report that OpenAI impresario Sam Altman has been toying with the idea of entering the space industry, potentially standing up a rival to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite service, may also be contributing.

As we’ve mentioned elsewhere, sometimes these stocks seem to trade on a what’s-bad-for-the-Musk-empire-is-good-for-us-and-vice-versa vibe.

markets

Matt Phillips4h

Intel sinks on news it will hang on to networking unit

Intel dropped in early trading Thursday after it disclosed plans to retain ownership of its networking unit following a strategic review of operations.

The unit, known as NEX, makes products like infrastructure processors, which do needed “housekeeping” tasks like running security checks, thereby freeing core Intel CPUs to do the higher-value operations. It also produces switches and controllers that manage and direct the flow of data to CPUs.

Intel Shelves Plans to Sell Networking Division After Review

Intel Shelves Plans to Sell Networking Division After Review

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