wake-up call
wake-up call
Google research: Quantum computers a “serious threat” to 6.7 million bitcoin, including Satoshi’s coins
70s vibes
70s vibes
The Iran war oil shock gave the markets ’70s stagflation vibes
I Like Big Batts
I Like Big Batts
Big batteries are the newest answer to Big Tech’s big energy needs
AI server cluster maker Penguin Solutions takes flight
Solana drops to price not seen since February as Drift exploit rattles sentiment
Momentum returns to optics stocks as the release valve for AI optimism
Space stocks rip during a topsy-turvy day for the equity market
Globalstar surges after FT reports that Amazon is in talks to buy the satellite group
FDA clarifies stricter stance on GLP-1 compounding: Reuters
Latest News
- Stocks eke out gains on hopes for a path forward for reopening the Strait of Hormuz
- Optimism around bitcoin’s trajectory is fading following Trump’s address, as whales continue to offload
- Oil spikes, equity stocks slump as President Trump commits to hitting Iran “extremely hard” over the next 2 to 3 weeks
- Drift, solana-based trading venue, suffers ongoing exploit, resulting in at least $270 million lost
Deep Dives
- The power play behind Hyperion, Mark Zuckerberg’s colossal data center being built in rural Louisiana
- Clean energy investment hit a new record last quarter, mostly driven by EVs
- The cruise industry is booming thanks to younger consumers looking to “seacation”
- Reading an article online? It’s now a coin flip whether it was authored by a human or AI
Latest Stories
AI server cluster maker Penguin Solutions takes flight
Small-cap AI server cluster maker Penguin Solutions surged Thursday after posting better-than-expected Q2 revenue and profit numbers Wednesday after the close, along with an increase in full-year sales and profit guidance.
The company, which was known as Smart Global Holdings until July 2024, has positioned itself as a provider of “end-to-end AI infrastructure solutions.”
Its Advanced Computing division designs and sells computers, cabling, and cooling systems, the server racks and clusters of racks AI data centers need. Its other main division sells flash and DRAM memory products.
It’s a pretty small company, with a fully diluted market cap of just over $1 billion and roughly 2,900 employees, according to FactSet.
The stock is volatile. Penguin dove during last year’s tariff tantrum that followed “Liberation Day” in April. Then it turned tail and doubled through early October amid a surge of call options activity, which tends to reflect retail interest. From the October peak, it then plunged by about 50%, before Thursday’s renaissance.
For what it’s worth, call options activity in Penguin is pretty busy today, too — relatively speaking — with roughly 2,625 traded as of 1:15 p.m. ET. That’s the most since early January, when the company last reported quarterly numbers. The average volume over the previous 25 trading sessions is about 325 calls a day, FactSet data shows.
The company, which was known as Smart Global Holdings until July 2024, has positioned itself as a provider of “end-to-end AI infrastructure solutions.”
Its Advanced Computing division designs and sells computers, cabling, and cooling systems, the server racks and clusters of racks AI data centers need. Its other main division sells flash and DRAM memory products.
It’s a pretty small company, with a fully diluted market cap of just over $1 billion and roughly 2,900 employees, according to FactSet.
The stock is volatile. Penguin dove during last year’s tariff tantrum that followed “Liberation Day” in April. Then it turned tail and doubled through early October amid a surge of call options activity, which tends to reflect retail interest. From the October peak, it then plunged by about 50%, before Thursday’s renaissance.
For what it’s worth, call options activity in Penguin is pretty busy today, too — relatively speaking — with roughly 2,625 traded as of 1:15 p.m. ET. That’s the most since early January, when the company last reported quarterly numbers. The average volume over the previous 25 trading sessions is about 325 calls a day, FactSet data shows.
Big batteries are the newest answer to Big Tech’s big energy needs
America’s booming energy demand is creating a powerful case for large-scale energy storage.
Solana drops to price not seen since February as Drift exploit rattles sentiment
Solana has historically seen its largest price declines on Thursdays, and today is no exemption as the crypto industry reels from the over $270 million exploit that occurred yesterday on Drift, a trading venue native to the solana blockchain.
The price of solana has decreased 5.5% to around $78, a level not seen since February, data from CoinGecko shows.
Drift was one of the largest protocols on the solana network by total value locked, which now sits at nearly $245 million. The total value locked on solana has shrunk by nearly $1 billion since the incident, per DefiLlama.
Exploit likely involved from social engineering
The attack, which has turned into a wider contagion event, is unsettling for those in the industry. It did not come from a bug in the protocol’s smart contracts or programs. “Humans remain the bottleneck,” Mert Mumtaz, cofounder and CEO of solana development firm Helius, said in response to the incident.
The exploit involved unauthorized transaction approvals likely facilitated through social engineering. The sophisticated operation “appears to have involved multi-week preparation and staged execution,” the team said on Thursday.
Omer Goldberg, founder of risk management firm Chaos Labs, added, “The DeFi [decentralized finance] ecosystem continues to grow in scale, but not in operational security.”
“Protocols now have custody of hundreds of millions in user funds while depending on admin key setups that would be considered unacceptable in TradFi for a fraction of that AUM [assets under management],” Goldberg wrote on X.
“Most hacks come down to the simple act of one clicking a link they shouldn’t have clicked. These are picking up in pace, be extra cautious clicking any link or file,” continued Helius’ Mumtaz.
Over 50 years since it last sent astronauts to the moon, the US is now reentering a very different space race
The successful launch of the Artemis II lunar flyby marked one small step for NASA, while China’s already making giant leaps in its own space program.
Momentum returns to optics stocks as the release valve for AI optimism
Potentially imminent end to the war? Buy optics stocks.
Maybe not? Buy optics stocks anyway.
Effectively all the juice left in the AI trade is coming from optics (and memory) stocks. And the latter group is taking a bit of a breather today while the former continues to surge.
Shares of Ciena Corp., Lumentum, and Coherent are building on recent big gains and among the biggest gainers in the S&P 500 near midday, while Applied Optoelectronics is also surging on Thursday.
These companies all provide solutions that help information move around in data centers, and thus are key beneficiaries of the aggressive capex plans of hyperscalers. Nvidia has invested $2 billion apiece in Coherent and Lumentum in deals that also include purchase commitments.
Space stocks rip during a topsy-turvy day for the equity market
Satellite-services-from-space stocks surged Thursday after reports that Amazon is in talks to buy Globalstar, which provides voice and connectivity services from its satellite network. It also can’t hurt that the general mood around space is ebullient, following the successful launch of Artemis II on Thursday.
Planet Labs and ViaSat also soared on the news.
The gains for EchoStar — seen as a backdoor play at pre-IPO SpaceX exposure — and Rocket Lab were more muted, perhaps because a deep-pocketed competitor like Jeff Bezos getting serious about space services could complicate the plans of the two largest commercial space launch companies.
Rocket Lab and SpaceX see launch services as key to their aspirations of being major providers of voice and data services from low-Earth orbit satellites.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s SpaceX is the dominant provider of such services, and the early rumors on the company’s planned IPO — expected to be the largest ever — suggest the market is very excited about the prospects for the industry.
Elsewhere in the space stock world, Intuitive Machines — a maker of space infrastructure that provides services to NASA for lunar missions — also rose.
The gains for EchoStar — seen as a backdoor play at pre-IPO SpaceX exposure — and Rocket Lab were more muted, perhaps because a deep-pocketed competitor like Jeff Bezos getting serious about space services could complicate the plans of the two largest commercial space launch companies.
Rocket Lab and SpaceX see launch services as key to their aspirations of being major providers of voice and data services from low-Earth orbit satellites.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s SpaceX is the dominant provider of such services, and the early rumors on the company’s planned IPO — expected to be the largest ever — suggest the market is very excited about the prospects for the industry.
Elsewhere in the space stock world, Intuitive Machines — a maker of space infrastructure that provides services to NASA for lunar missions — also rose.
Tesla delivered 358,023 vehicles in Q1, short of expectations
Ahead of its first-quarter earnings later this month, Tesla on Thursday announced that it delivered 358,023 vehicles in the quarter.
Analysts polled by FactSet had expected 380,500 vehicle deliveries in the first quarter this year, while Tesla last month released its own company-compiled Wall Street consensus estimate — something it began doing in the fourth quarter of 2025 — of 365,645 vehicles.
The Texas-based company produced some 408,000 vehicles, meaning that it made 50,400 more vehicles than it sold during the quarter. That’s the largest gap in Tesla’s history, surpassing the previous record set in Q1 2024.
Shares extended losses in premarket trading on Thursday, falling more than 4%.
The deliveries figure is still up from the same quarter last year, when Tesla delivered fewer than 337,000 vehicles amid intensifying competition in China and flailing public perception over CEO Elon Musk’s involvement with the Trump administration.
As of 3 p.m. ET on Wednesday, event contract odds held a slightly less optimistic view than the broader analyst community, but a sunnier view than the figure Tesla put forward. 52% of traders predicted Tesla’s Q1 deliveries would come in at more than 360,000, 40% thought the figure would be higher than 370,000, and 15% estimated it would be higher than 380,000.
(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)
Globalstar surges after FT reports that Amazon is in talks to buy the satellite group
Globalstar is up 11% in premarket trading on Thursday on reports that Amazon is in talks to buy the satellite company, in a push to take on Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The two companies are currently negotiating the details of a potential deal after lengthy talks, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Amazon has ambitions to compete with SpaceX to provide satellite-based internet access anywhere on the planet — a market that’s dominated by Starlink at the moment and a key pillar of the eye-watering $1 trillion valuation that SpaceX is seeking in its IPO, which it has just confidentially filed for.
Indeed, Amazon has been signing deals with airlines and doubling down on investing in its internet constellation lately, with plans to increase its ~200 satellites in orbit to about 700 by the middle of 2026 — still a fraction compared to SpaceX’s mega constellation, which has some 10,000 active satellites.
But Amazon’s not the only Big Tech giant with an interest in Globalstar. Back in 2024, Apple invested $1.5 billion for a 20% stake in the company, necessitating a negotiation between Apple and Amazon for the latest deal talks to proceed, per the FT. SpaceX also reportedly had early talks with Globalstar, Bloomberg reported last October.
Globalstar’s stock has been up ~230% in the past year, pushing its value to some $8.8 billion as of yesterday’s close.
Amazon has ambitions to compete with SpaceX to provide satellite-based internet access anywhere on the planet — a market that’s dominated by Starlink at the moment and a key pillar of the eye-watering $1 trillion valuation that SpaceX is seeking in its IPO, which it has just confidentially filed for.
Indeed, Amazon has been signing deals with airlines and doubling down on investing in its internet constellation lately, with plans to increase its ~200 satellites in orbit to about 700 by the middle of 2026 — still a fraction compared to SpaceX’s mega constellation, which has some 10,000 active satellites.
But Amazon’s not the only Big Tech giant with an interest in Globalstar. Back in 2024, Apple invested $1.5 billion for a 20% stake in the company, necessitating a negotiation between Apple and Amazon for the latest deal talks to proceed, per the FT. SpaceX also reportedly had early talks with Globalstar, Bloomberg reported last October.
Globalstar’s stock has been up ~230% in the past year, pushing its value to some $8.8 billion as of yesterday’s close.
FDA clarifies stricter stance on GLP-1 compounding: Reuters
The Food and Drug Administration reiterated its increasingly strict stance on compounded versions of GLP-1s, Reuters reported Wednesday.
The FDA said that outside of drug shortages, “routine production” of copycat drugs is not allowed. Producing the compounded versions could now “prompt enforcement action,” Reuters reported.
Hims & Hers, which has historically been one of the largest sellers of copycat GLP-1s, fell more than 4% on Wednesday and slipped further in premarket trading on Thursday.
Hims attracted FDA scrutiny in February when it launched a copy of Novo Nordisk’s new GLP-1 pill. At the time, the FDA said it would take “decisive steps” to restrict GLP-1 compounding in a statement that specifically called out Hims.
After a bitter spat with Novo, which makes Ozempic and Wegovy, Hims entered a pact with the drugmaker in which it agreed not to market compounded GLP-1s.
Hims & Hers, which has historically been one of the largest sellers of copycat GLP-1s, fell more than 4% on Wednesday and slipped further in premarket trading on Thursday.
Hims attracted FDA scrutiny in February when it launched a copy of Novo Nordisk’s new GLP-1 pill. At the time, the FDA said it would take “decisive steps” to restrict GLP-1 compounding in a statement that specifically called out Hims.
After a bitter spat with Novo, which makes Ozempic and Wegovy, Hims entered a pact with the drugmaker in which it agreed not to market compounded GLP-1s.
April 1 is known as a day for funny pranks. However, a popular trading venue on the solana blockchain, Drift, is suffering from an ongoing exploit today, on-chain data shows.
“Drift Protocol is experiencing an active attack. Deposits and withdrawals have been suspended. We are coordinating with multiple security firms, bridges, and exchanges to contain the incident. This is not an April Fools joke,” the team said on social media at 2:58 p.m. ET.
TheBlock reported the exploit is at least $200 million, while blockchain sleuth Lookonchain estimates the figure is $270 million. It could be even more. At this range, the Wednesday hack is among the largest ever, according to the exploits ranking dashboard from Rekt.
Drift’s exploit is concerning for those within the crypto industry. Solana treasury firm DeFi Development Corp. allocates a portion of its balance to on-chain strategies to generate yield, including Drift, though the firm announced it had no exposure to the protocol and “was not impacted by an alleged exploit affecting the platform,” per its press release.
Drift also provides to qualified users sACRED, a derivative token of a tokenized feeder fund that is linked to Apollo Global Management Inc.’s traditional Diversified Credit Fund.
SpaceX reportedly files confidentially for IPO
SpaceX confidentially filed its draft IPO paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the matter, the next step toward what is expected to be a blockbuster summer listing.
Elon Musk’s satellite and rocket company could raise around $75 billion in an IPO that would value it at more than $1.75 trillion — both records — though the exact amounts won’t be settled until it goes public, likely in June.
Another notable thing about this IPO: the portion of shares committed to individual investors is expected to be much higher than in traditional IPOs — per Reuters, up to 30%, versus the typical 10% — a move that could broaden retail participation in one of the most anticipated public offerings ever.
Another notable thing about this IPO: the portion of shares committed to individual investors is expected to be much higher than in traditional IPOs — per Reuters, up to 30%, versus the typical 10% — a move that could broaden retail participation in one of the most anticipated public offerings ever.
Energy stocks tumble after massive March
Energy and chemical stocks tumbled early Wednesday on growing expectations that the US participation in the Iran war is nearing an end, and West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures slipped back below $100 a barrel.
LyondellBasell, APA Corporation, Dow, Inc., CF Industries, and Marathon Petroleum — the S&P 500’s top 5 gainers last month — all sank.
Natural gas drillers EOG Resources, Devon Energy, Coterra Energy, and Diamondback Energy dropped, as did integrated oil giants Exxon and Chevron. Fuel refiners and marketers such as Phillips 66 and Valero also fell.
Don’t shed too many tears for these energy giants; the S&P 500 energy sector rose 10% in March and 37% in Q1 2026.
The Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund is coming off its second-best quarter on record relative to the SPDR S&P 500 ETF, based on data going back to 1999.