A sun halo over Curacao. (Photo by Wild Horizons/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

A tiny UK company is showing how easy it is to get an (undeserved?) Nvidia halo effect

Step 1: join a free Nvidia program. Step 2: watch stock go up. Step 3: watch stock go down.

9/24/25 9:35AM

UK-based RedCloud Holdings, which operates a business-to-business platform for retailers, nearly doubled at its peak in premarket trading after announcing that “it has joined the NVIDIA Connect program as part of its mission to deliver a new operating system for global trade.”

RedCloud is fairly small, with a market cap of under $70 million heading into Wednesday’s session. Shares are up about 25% as of 9:33 a.m. ET.

What is the Nvidia Connect program, you might ask? Sounds fancy. And official.

The $4 trillion chip designer’s website describes it as “a free program that helps software development companies and service providers shorten time to market through tailored development resources, technical training and guidance, and preferred pricing on NVIDIA technologies.”

In other words, companies learn how to be more effective users (read: customers!) of Nvidia’s products and technology.

RedCloud is hardly the first company to seek a massive spike upon revealing its membership in this club.

However, the vast majority of these jumps were short-lived. With the exception of Stereotaxis, every company on this list proceeded to get crushed after the initial announcement-driven advance.

A cynic might point out that the requirements of joining the Nvidia Connect program are arguably only slightly more onerous than securing a Discover credit card: the applying organization “must provide at least two contacts with corporate emails, maintain a working website, be officially incorporated, and accept the program’s terms and conditions” to be eligible, per Nvidia. There are no application or membership fees.

Still, Jorge Guerrero, assistant vice president of product at RedCloud, made it sound like a pretty big deal in the company’s press release:

“Joining NVIDIA Connect is an exciting opportunity for our development teams. This program provides us with access to NVIDIA’s ecosystem of AI tools and expertise, which we expect to be instrumental in building powerful AI-native infrastructure to enable intelligent trade of FMCG products across global supply chains. Specifically, we are seeking to expand and refine our AI models, improve real-time inference capabilities, and accelerate the deployment of next-generation applications.”

Max Knoblauch13m

Nio, Li Auto rise as Q1 delivery totals beat internal guidance

China’s EV startup trio — Nio, Li Auto, and XPeng — are all climbing on Wednesday, following the release of March and first-quarter delivery totals.

Nio delivered 83,465 vehicles in the three months that ended in March, up 99% from the same quarter a year ago and slightly beating the upper end of its guidance. Li Auto delivered 95,142 vehicles in the period, up 2.5% and ahead of its guidance range. The figure was bolstered by 12% growth in March deliveries.

XPeng, on the other hand, saw Q1 deliveries drop 33% year over year to 62,682 vehicles — the company’s first quarterly drop since 2023. Shares are still up as of 10 a.m. ET on Wednesday, as the automaker’s March deliveries were up 80% from February’s total.

BYD is down more than 2% on Wednesday, as the automaker posted its seventh consecutive month of sales declines. First-quarter sales fell 30% year over year, Reuters reported.

Matt Phillips28m

Data center trade reboots amid Iran relief rally

Memory, networking, chipmaking machinery, semiconductor, and rack-building stocks were all up early Wednesday, in a broad-based reboot of the data center trade on growing optimism about America’s potential exit from the Iran war.

Companies that make all the core components of data center were on the move early. Memory plays Micron, Sandisk, Western Digital, and Seagate Technology Holdings all opened near the top of the S&P 500’s leaders, as they shook off last week’s jitters related to a Google Research announcement about an AI algorithm that might cut demand for memory.

Fiber-optic and networking shares like Ciena Corp., Arista Networks, Corning, Coherent, Amphenol, and Lumentum — popular recent data center plays — also rose. OG data center trades like chip companies Nvidia, Intel, and Advanced Micro Devices gained. And the companies that make the machines that make the chips, like Lam Research and KLA Corp, are also catching a bid.

Even the more hard-hat elements of the AI boom were up, with Comfort Systems USA, Eaton Corp, Carrier, and Quanta Services rising. Server rack builders Dell and HP Enterprise also increased.

Clearly, there’s a big element of relief rally at play in the early bounce, building on Monday’s advance, which saw the S&P 500 post its biggest one-day gain since May.

Luke Kawa37m

Intel soars after buying back stake in Irish manufacturing facility

Intel is spending $14.2 billion to take back full ownership of a manufacturing facility in Ireland, the company announced on Wednesday.

“The agreement reflects Intel’s continued business momentum underpinned by the growing and essential role CPUs play in the era of AI,” according to the company’s press release.

Shares are soaring, up around 6% in early trading.

Investors appear to be viewing this measure as a concrete sign that Intel’s turnaround plan is entering a new phase — growth mode, powered by AI — after years of sluggish sales forced a focus on cost controls.

The chipmaker had previously sold a 49% stake in this fab for $11.2 billion to Apollo Global Management in order to raise cash for other investment opportunities, including its 18A manufacturing process in the US.

Intel intends to fund the transaction through available cash and an additional $6.5 billion in debt.

Luke Kawa

OpenAI to be added to ARK’s ETF lineup after completing funding round with $852 billion valuation

ARK and buzzy companies go together like early LLMs and hallucinations.