AI is giving life to a resurrection economy
Einride and its autonomous electric trucks are speeding toward the public markets
Robinhood traders bought the dip — and that one, that one, and that one
Figma jumped postmarket Thursday after posting impressive sales in Q1, surpassing Wall Street expectations and raising its full-year guidance. The key numbers:
Q1 revenue of $333.4 million (compared to analyst estimates of $316 million).
Q2 sales guidance of $348 million to $350 million (estimate: $329.7 million).
Full-year revenue between $1.422 billion and $1.428 billion (up from previous guidance of $1.37 billion).
The digital design software firm is the latest company to diminish investor fears about AI-induced disruption by making the technology work for them. Like Atlassian or Datadog, Figma said it was able to use AI to its advantage, bringing more customers on board and getting them to spend more.
In the press release, Praveer Melwani, Figma CFO, said:
“As AI gets better, Figma is accelerating and customer usage and workflows on our platform are deepening. Our platform and AI products drove faster growth for both new customer acquisition and expansion within existing accounts.”
Revenue grew 46% year over year in Q1 2026, an acceleration from growth of 40% in Q4 2025.
Infleqtion is falling in postmarket trading after reporting a Q1 adjusted loss from operations of $13.2 million and sales of $9.5 million.
Management modestly upgraded its sales guidance to “at least” $40 million for 2026, adding that language to enhance the target provided in early April. Revenues of $40 million would mark an increase of roughly 23% compared to the $32.5 million generated in 2025, and an acceleration from growth of 12% last year.
The company utilizes neutral-atom technology to make quantum sensors used in clocks and antennas in addition to computers.
“Q1 reinforced our confidence that quantum is gaining momentum as the market shifts toward deployable systems, real applications, and measurable customer value,” said CEO Matt Kinsella. “Across computing, sensing, and software, we are seeing expanding customer activity especially in national security, space, and hybrid quantum-AI applications.”
Shares are roughly flat since February 13, which is just before the company went public via a SPAC, after being down 35% near the end of March, and then up nearly 30% in mid-April.
The quantum computing space benefited from the return of speculative appetite in April after the US and Iran agreed to a ceasefire. The cohort was later bolstered after Nvidia unveiled a suite of open models designed to leverage AI to improve calibration and error correction for quantum computers.
Shares of Applied Materials are gaining in postmarket trading after the company reported robust Q2 results and a sales outlook that indicate building momentum.
Net sales: $7.9 billion (compared to analyst estimates of $7.7 billion and guidance for $7.65 billion, plus or minus $500 million).
Adjusted earnings per share: $2.86 (estimate: $2.68, guidance: $2.68, plus or minus $0.20).
For Q3, the company anticipates net sales of $8.95 billion (plus or minus $500 million; estimate: $8.15 billion) with adjusted EPS of $3.36 (plus or minus $0.20; estimate: $2.88).
“The growth in AI that Applied has been investing for is now in full force,” CFO Brice Hill said in the press release.
Management has consistently indicated that it expects demand to pick up in the second half of this year, but its first-half results have already blown away expectations by a wide margin. All this appetite for semiconductors to support AI compute is fantastic news for companies like Applied Materials that make the equipment to produce these specialized chips.
Shares of Applied Materials closed near a record high ahead of this report, up more than 70% year to date.
“Here today, gone tomorrow” is a winning idea — according to Wall Street.
Shares of Snap are down nearly 5% Thursday afternoon after Meta announced Instants, a new feature and companion app that allows users to share “spontaneous, unfiltered photos” that disappearing after viewing. Remind you of anything?
Snap has fallen roughly 34% this year, while Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta has dipped 5% over the same time frame. Last week, Snap reported earnings that showed the social media company losing out on ad sales.
After nearly a week of declines, the national average price for a gallon of regular gas is rising again with Memorial Day less than two weeks away.
Today, the price sits around $4.53, which is a couple of cents lower than it was last week. But with crude oil prices floating around the $100-per-barrel range, gas prices remain around their highest levels since 2022.
(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)
The uptick comes as we get closer to Memorial Day weekend, with many drivers preparing to hit the road facing the highest price at the pump during the summer holiday in four years. GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan told Sherwood News last month that gas could potentially hit $5 by then.
(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)
The uptick comes as we get closer to Memorial Day weekend, with many drivers preparing to hit the road facing the highest price at the pump during the summer holiday in four years. GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan told Sherwood News last month that gas could potentially hit $5 by then.
The two-year-old alliance between Apple and OpenAI has deteriorated, Bloomberg reports, with the AI giant now consulting legal counsel about issuing a potential breach of contract notice.
OpenAI executives allege that Apple failed to adequately integrate and promote ChatGPT on the iPhone, causing the AI firm to lose out on billions a year in subscriptions and hurt its brand, according to the report.
Meanwhile, Apple has expressed concerns over OpenAI’s privacy protection, and has been miffed that OpenAI has been working on its own hardware with former Apple design lead Jony Ive.
More recently, Apple, which has trailed its peers in developing AI, has decided to offer users their choice of AI models, rather than aligning exclusively with OpenAI’s.
Meanwhile, Apple has expressed concerns over OpenAI’s privacy protection, and has been miffed that OpenAI has been working on its own hardware with former Apple design lead Jony Ive.
More recently, Apple, which has trailed its peers in developing AI, has decided to offer users their choice of AI models, rather than aligning exclusively with OpenAI’s.
Boeing is on pace for one of its worst trading days of 2026 following President Trump’s announcement that China will place a 200-plane order from the company — the country’s first major Boeing order since 2017.
Since last year, reports of the deal’s size have placed the order number at “up to 500.”
Trump disclosed the order details in an interview on Fox News, saying, “Boeing wanted 150; they got 200.”
According to several public job listings, streaming giant Netflix appears to be building a GenAI animation studio called INKubator.
First reported by journalist Janko Roettgers in the Lowpass newsletter, INKubator seems to have launched in March and aims to “develop feature-quality content in a creator-led environment.”
As Lowpass reports, INKubator appears focused on AI-generated short-form animation, but listings imply ambitions toward longer-form content. Netflix didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
INKubator wouldn’t be Netflix’s first foray into AI. Back in March, it acquired Ben Affleck’s AI filmmaking startup InterPositive — which trains on individual films’ already-shot footage — for as much as $600 million depending on certain targets.
Netflix’s potential future AI-generated animations could be served to an increasingly ad-packed streaming service. At Netflix’s Upfront presentation on Wednesday, the company said its ad-supported tier has now reached 250 million subscribers globally, up 31% from November.
As Lowpass reports, INKubator appears focused on AI-generated short-form animation, but listings imply ambitions toward longer-form content. Netflix didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
INKubator wouldn’t be Netflix’s first foray into AI. Back in March, it acquired Ben Affleck’s AI filmmaking startup InterPositive — which trains on individual films’ already-shot footage — for as much as $600 million depending on certain targets.
Netflix’s potential future AI-generated animations could be served to an increasingly ad-packed streaming service. At Netflix’s Upfront presentation on Wednesday, the company said its ad-supported tier has now reached 250 million subscribers globally, up 31% from November.
Apple’s MacOS has long been considered to have some of the strongest cybersecurity protections in the industry.
But researchers using a preview release of Anthropic’s Mythos AI model were able to take control of a Mac, in a significant example of the unreleased AI model’s cyber capabilities, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
It took two security researchers five days to pull off the feat, which chained together bugs to corrupt the Mac’s memory, per the report. The researchers told the Journal that human expertise was required to use Mythos, and it would not be able to execute the attack on its own. The researchers reportedly said some of the Mythos hype was “overblown.”
Apple said it was taking the bug report “very seriously” and has not yet issued a fix.
It took two security researchers five days to pull off the feat, which chained together bugs to corrupt the Mac’s memory, per the report. The researchers told the Journal that human expertise was required to use Mythos, and it would not be able to execute the attack on its own. The researchers reportedly said some of the Mythos hype was “overblown.”
Apple said it was taking the bug report “very seriously” and has not yet issued a fix.
The rule of three means we can now declare 2026 will not be the year of crypto IPOs:
Security hardware company Ledger,
And crypto exchange Kraken are pausing plans to go public, according to reports from CoinDesk.
The companies have delayed their IPOs due to tough market conditions, the report said, including declined trading volume in digital assets, weak price performance of tokens, and investor interest in other sectors.
Kay Kyeongsik Woo, the founder of blockchain ride-hailing application Tada, told Sherwood News, “The market is cooled down and investors’ appetite has been sold to AI.”
Just today, AI chipmaker Cerebras Systems went public and is this year’s largest IPO so far, and investors are excited about potential IPOs for OpenAI and Anthropic as their valuations soar.
“It’s a fair decision on behalf of all the crypto firms,” according to Kairos Research cofounder Ian Unsworth. “For one thing, they will ultimately be dwarfed by some of the other massive IPOs coming up.”
Unsworth also pointed to how the CLARITY Act, if passed, could be a strong tailwind for these companies. “A better regulatory environment could make these companies more appealing to potential investors,” he said.
Consensys, Ledger, and Kraken did not confirm to Sherwood if they had put their IPO plans on hold. A Consensys spokesperson told Sherwood, “As a matter of policy, we do not comment on market speculation,” while a Ledger representative declined to comment on the story.
Meanwhile, Lauren Post, Kraken’s vice president of corporate communications, told Sherwood that the company did not put out any public statements on freezing IPO plans.
Ford shares are having another banner day. The stock is up 7% intraday Thursday, after closing up more than 13% on Wednesday (the company’s best trading day since March 2020). The activity has added about $10 billion to Ford’s market cap since Tuesday’s close, according to Bloomberg data.
About 268,000 call options have changed hands as of 10:50 a.m. ET on Wednesday, roughly 3x the 20-day average for a full session.
Optimism around Ford Energy, the company’s new energy business, appears to still be driving the price action. The company will sell US-assembled battery systems to “utilities, data centers, and large industrial and commercial customers in the United States” and is licensing tech from Chinese battery giant CATL.
In a Tuesday evening note, Morgan Stanley analysts said Ford Energy could be worth $10 billion. Analyst Andrew Percoco said there is a “fairly high likelihood” Ford signs a supply agreement with a large commercial customer, and potentially hyperscalers, in the next few months.
Ford’s new subsidiary is similar to Tesla’s energy storage business and will add revenue through both sales (of its large 20-foot battery container systems) and service. Detroit rival GM is doing something similar and retooled its Tennessee EV battery plant to make energy storage batteries.
Optimism around Ford Energy, the company’s new energy business, appears to still be driving the price action. The company will sell US-assembled battery systems to “utilities, data centers, and large industrial and commercial customers in the United States” and is licensing tech from Chinese battery giant CATL.
In a Tuesday evening note, Morgan Stanley analysts said Ford Energy could be worth $10 billion. Analyst Andrew Percoco said there is a “fairly high likelihood” Ford signs a supply agreement with a large commercial customer, and potentially hyperscalers, in the next few months.
Ford’s new subsidiary is similar to Tesla’s energy storage business and will add revenue through both sales (of its large 20-foot battery container systems) and service. Detroit rival GM is doing something similar and retooled its Tennessee EV battery plant to make energy storage batteries.
America loves a good boogeyman, and data centers have become one.
It was once easy for the hyperscalers to sidle up to state legislators, utility executives, and local officials with the promise of jobs and the high-tech glow of AI for their economically challenged areas without much local opposition.
But now the script has been flipped, and public opposition to data centers is starting to solidify. A new Gallup survey asked 1,000 Americans for their thoughts on data centers, the first such survey for the polling company. Among the findings:
70% of survey respondents opposed local construction of AI data centers.
Opposition to local data centers was much stronger than opposition to local nuclear power plants.
Dislike for data centers is bipartisan — majorities of both Democrats and Republicans were opposed to data centers, but more so for Democrats.
Among those opposed to data centers, the impact on the environment and energy usage were top concerns.
Local communities and state governments around the US have introduced bans or moratoriums on data center construction. Senators have also introduced similar legislation in Congress.
Last month, Maine Governor Janet Mills vetoed legislation that would have enacted the first statewide bill to pause data center construction.
But now the script has been flipped, and public opposition to data centers is starting to solidify. A new Gallup survey asked 1,000 Americans for their thoughts on data centers, the first such survey for the polling company. Among the findings:
70% of survey respondents opposed local construction of AI data centers.
Opposition to local data centers was much stronger than opposition to local nuclear power plants.
Dislike for data centers is bipartisan — majorities of both Democrats and Republicans were opposed to data centers, but more so for Democrats.
Among those opposed to data centers, the impact on the environment and energy usage were top concerns.
Local communities and state governments around the US have introduced bans or moratoriums on data center construction. Senators have also introduced similar legislation in Congress.
Last month, Maine Governor Janet Mills vetoed legislation that would have enacted the first statewide bill to pause data center construction.
Fermi, a Texas-based energy and AI infrastructure company, reported a net loss of $189 million in Q1 as it heavily accelerated capital investments.
During the conference call, co-President Anna Bofa offered some encouraging news, saying that the firm has “hosted multiple prospective tenants and strategic partners” at its Project Matador data-center site, sending shares sharply higher.
Fermi funneled $441 million into property, plant, and equipment in Q1, bringing its gross balance to approximately $1.4 billion.
Its big investment push coincided with the substantial expansion of Project Matador at its development site in Texas. The company officially secured over 2 gigawatts of power generation capacity across its owned and contracted assets.
The company plans to have secured a tenant for this location and delivered power to it within the next 90 days. It’s poised to be a busy quarter for Fermi: another goal during this span includes hiring its next CEO.
To continue supporting the build-out plans, Fermi closed $785 million in new equipment finance facilities this quarter, anchored by a $500 million facility from MUFG. Fermi also received a $156 million financing commitment secured with Yorkville.
Klarna is climbing Thursday after the fintech company reported a strong start to 2026, swinging to a net profit of $1 million.
The company’s revenue for Q1 landed at $1 billion, above estimates, with earnings per share increasing by $0.25 to $0.01. The revenue beat helped drive adjusted operating profit up to $68 million, a leap from just $3 million in the same period a year ago. Operating income also turned positive at $17 million, reversing a $99 million operating loss from the first quarter of 2025. Meanwhile, active Klarna users jumped by 21% year on year to 119 million.
Klarna did give a weaker-than-expected outlook for the upcoming quarter, projecting revenue to land between $960 million and $1 billion, missing the $1.05 billion target analysts had modeled. Despite the soft current-quarter guidance, management reiterated its full-year 2026 growth and profitability projections, highlighting that its short loan durations allow it to effectively manage credit risk and adapt to market shifts in real time.
“Klarna is spend-centric, not lend-centric,” Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO and cofounder of Klarna, wrote in a statement. “The FY26 framework is unchanged — these results give us confidence in the trajectory we laid out.”
The stock has dropped over 45% since the start of 2026.
Ondas is surging in premarket trading after posting record Q1 revenue Thursday morning that exceeded analysts’ estimates.
Key numbers:
Revenue of $50.1 million (estimate: $39.36 million).
Adjusted EBITDA loss of $10.9 million (estimate: $19.53 million).
The company ended the first quarter with a pro forma order backlog of $457 million, up sharply from $68.3 million at the end of 2025.
The primary catalyst for this backlog expansion is the company’s aggressive integration of newly secured defense and autonomy contracts. One driver is Ondas’ recently finalized $175 million acquisition of Mistral, which directly injected $264 million in contracted backlog and established Ondas as a prime contractor for the US Army and Special Operations.
Furthermore, the company’s newly formed ONBERG Autonomous Systems joint venture is actively positioning Ondas to capture upcoming critical infrastructure and drone defense contracts across Germany and Ukraine.
“Looking ahead, we believe Ondas is well positioned for the remainder of 2026 and beyond,” said Eric Brock, chairman and CEO of Ondas. “Recent global developments continue to underscore the urgency driving accelerated adoption of our solutions, reinforcing our long-term thesis and validating the strategic actions we have taken to position the Company for a multi-decade growth cycle.”
Ondas raised its full-year 2026 revenue target to at least $390 million, compared with analysts’ forecasts for $377 million.
Before Thursday, the stock had fallen about 9% year to date after surging in 2025.