Markets
Reddit Shares surge as analyst talks up its value to feed AI models
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Analyst talks up Reddit’s value as a source for AI

The company’s posts “offer a unique training dataset.”

Reddit shares continue to romp on relatively little news in early trading, with the stock up more than 20% over the last three days, as of just before 12:30 p.m. ET.

As noted, Reddit has all the ingredients to make a squeeze-y stew: a recent surge of options activity, relatively high short interest, and a sprinkling of spicy chatter from retail traders on r/WallStreetBets.

But yesterday, analysts at brokerage firm B. Riley Securities also published a note spotlighting some potential upside for the stock based on Meta’s recent roughly $15 billion deal for Scale AI, a US-based startup that essentially tags and labels data that AI models need to digest.

B. Riley analysts wrote:

While Scale AI’s curated data labeling services used for LLM training differ from Reddit’s content, we note that Reddit’s 10M daily posts+ user signals and a corpus of 1B+ posts/16B+ comments also offer a unique training dataset, and the intrinsic value of the dataset may not be reflected in the stock’s valuation today. We believe that RDDTs platform DAUs essentially provide data annotation through user-generated content (posts, comments), upvotes/downvotes, and content moderation.

...Reports of Scale AIs key customers plans point to value of independent training data sets such as Reddit, in our view. According to media reports, Google, which was expected to pay Scale AI ~$200M in 2025, plans to cut its ties with Scale AI post-deal. Other large tech companies — Microsoft and xAI, are also reportedly considering moving away from Scale AI. Scale-AI’s ability to service many large LLM players also points to the importance of independence of data providers such as Reddit.

Of course, there’s always the chance that Meta is simply wildly overpaying for Scale AI, which would change the analysis somewhat. But it will take a long time to figure that out. In the meantime, the market does seem to be putting a premium on potential sources of feedstock for AI to devour.

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Lululemon’s stretch getting tested: Stock plunges after after outlook is cut

Lululemon shares are down double digits in premarket trading after the company cut its full-year sales and profit outlook, overshadowing a Q1 beat and raising fresh concerns about the brand’s turnaround efforts.

The company now expects fiscal 2026 revenue to be flat to down 1%, compared with its prior forecast for 2% to 4% growth. Guidance for full-year diluted earnings per share was dragged down to a range of $10.95 to $11.15, below the company’s previous guidance of $12.10 to $12.30 and well below Wall Street’s estimate of $13.26.

Key numbers for Q1:

  • EPS of $1.69 vs. the $1.68 expected.

  • Revenue of $2.47 billion vs. the $2.43 billion expected.

The modest top-line beat masked a widening divergence between Lululemons geographic markets. While international revenue rose 22% overall with a 30% increase in Mainland China, the bigger problem remains North America, where revenue fell 5%.

Interim co-CEO and CFO Meghan Frank acknowledged during the earnings call that recent product rollouts underperformed. A highly anticipated yoga campaign failed to generate its expected halo effect across broader product lines.

Profitability metrics took a major hit, with gross margins contracting by 410 basis points to 54.2% due to mounting tariff costs and promotional markdowns. Operating income consequently fell 37% year over year to $276.9 million.

“We experienced spikes of negative commentary in the media and on social channels with regard to our brand, which had an impact on traffic and overall top-line performance,” Frank said during the earnings call. “And second, not all of our product launches have met our expectations. While we have had several successful launches so far this year, we have seen others as we start Q2 not generate the anticipated guest response.”

Lululemons valuation has already been steadily compressing for years. While it was once one of retails richly valued stocks, investors have been questioning whether the company can return to the double-digit growth era.

The results also arrive during a leadership transition. Lululemon announced back in April that former Nike executive Heidi ONeill is set to take over as CEO in September, with investors looking to her to revive growth in North America and restore the brands growth.

As Lululemon faces both macroeconomic pressure and brand-specific challenges, its stock has dropped around 40% year to date.

markets

US job growth skyrocketed in May, blasting past expectations

The US economy added 172,000 jobs in the month of May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday, sending 10-year Treasury yields higher.

The strong May job market surprised economists. Experts had predicted only 85,000 new jobs — just half the reported number. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%, as expected.

The job growth story is a hopeful spot for the economy as consumers continue to feel inflationary pressure from the Iran war.

Job gains were buoyed by the leisure and hospitality sector, which added 70,000 jobs, as well as local government, healthcare, and education.

Both the March and April jobs reports were revised upward, making them collectively 93,000 higher than previously reported.

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