Dan Durn, Adobe’s CFO and executive vice president (Adobe)

INSIDER BUYING

Adobe’s CFO is buying the dip — again

Durn’s first buy came in September 2022, just as Adobe’s stock was dropping sharply.

3/26/25 9:52AM

Adobe’s stock has been on a rough ride, with its shares shedding more than 20% over the past year.

The company’s leadership is currently focused on building out its AI-powered offerings, while trying to convince Wall Street that its AI initiatives, in particular its focus on agentic AI, will pay off in the long run for the $174 billion Photoshop giant. And its chief financier is putting his money where his mouth is: according to an SEC filing last week, Adobe CFO Dan Durn just dropped over half a million dollars to scoop up Adobe stock — only the second time he’s made an open-market purchase since joining the company in October 2021.

Adobe’s CFO is buying the stock — Sherwood News

Buy the dip

Durn’s first buy came in September 2022, just as Adobe’s stock was tanking. Shares had cratered ~60% from its pandemic highs, spooked in part by a $20 billion plan to acquire Figma that some investors felt was overpriced. Per the SEC filings, Durn bought $936,358 worth of Adobe stock on September 22, an investment which appreciated nicely over the coming 12 months: shares soared nearly 80% in 2023 after Adobe launched its generative-AI tool Firefly and abandoned the Figma deal in December, owing to regulatory concerns.

Now, Adobe’s back under pressure. Earlier this month, the company’s lackluster Q2 revenue guidance triggered a ~14% drop in a single day, pushing shares toward another major low — and Durn bought it… again.

In a recent Reuters interview, Durn said Adobe expects to double its AI-driven recurring revenue over the next three quarters. Meanwhile, Bank of America analysts reiterated their “buy” rating last week, citing stronger monetization potential from “a broadening set of AI features” rolling out this year.

Durn’s not the only Adobe insider reloading: Director David Ricks (who is Eli Lilly’s CEO) also bought the dip back in 2022 and jumped back in this January, buying ~$1 million worth of Adobe shares on January 28.

Tasha Matsumoto

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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.

Penguin Solutions Stock Takes Off On AI Bolstered Outlook

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.”

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.

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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.

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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.

Globalstar surges after FT reports that Amazon is in talks to buy the satellite group

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.

Elsewhere in the space stock world, Intuitive Machines — a maker of space infrastructure that provides services to NASA for lunar missions — also rose.

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