Markets
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Claire Yubin Oh & David Crowther

AppLovin is the hottest stock in the market today — but what does the company actually do?

AppLovin’s stock was one of Wall Street’s darlings of 2024, gaining more than 700% last year. Investors seem to be lovin’ it again in 2025, with shares in the company up more than 30% this morning after it reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.73, crushing Wall Street’s expectations and taking the company’s market cap north of $170 billion. That makes it bigger than Uber, Pfizer, Boeing, and Starbucks.

But what does the company actually do?

Wall Street’s hottest stock has nothing to do with a fake Hawaiian driver’s license from 2007 movie “Superbad”; instead, it’s a gaming company turned software business. From the company’s 10Q in November:

“The Company is a leader in the advertising ecosystem providing an end-to-end software platform that allows businesses to reach, monetize and grow their global audiences.”

That’s not hugely enlightening, of course.

Digging deeper, the company essentially runs a marketplace-like platform where app developers can place ads to help brands reach new users that will hopefully download their apps. Indeed, AppLovin reported making money from two main ways:

  • Advertising: A division that used to be called “Software Platform” until yesterday, AppLovin makes the bulk of its revenue from matching advertisers with owners of digital advertising inventory “via auctions at large scale and microsecond-level speeds.” This brought in about $3.2 billion and change in 2024, some 68% of the company’s total. If a user sees an add delivered by an AppLovin network, the company gets paid.

  • Apps: Remember those stories where a kid spends hundreds of dollars on in-app purchases in a game? There’s a decent chance AppLovin’s technology was involved. This segment, which brought in some $1.5 billion in 2024 for the company, was described in a recent SEC filing as incorporating “fees collected from users to purchase virtual goods to enhance their gameplay experience.”

Interestingly, the company did start its journey as a public company as a gaming business, riding a Covid-era hype in online games. But recently it’s sought to boost its advertising efforts. Per AdExchanger, the company is reportedly selling off “the 10 remaining gaming studios in its portfolio” for some $900 million, helping it become what CEO Adam Foroughi called “a pure advertising platform.”

AppLovin has also been doubling down, like so many other public companies, on its AI capabilities, with senior execs talking up the company’s “self-learning” AI called “AXON” that’s based on the large first-party data that it has collected from its own gaming titles.

AppLovin soars almost 30% on earnings, guidance beat

AppLovin soars almost 30% on earnings, guidance beat

Wall Street’s hottest stock has nothing to do with a fake Hawaiian driver’s license from 2007 movie “Superbad”; instead, it’s a gaming company turned software business. From the company’s 10Q in November:

“The Company is a leader in the advertising ecosystem providing an end-to-end software platform that allows businesses to reach, monetize and grow their global audiences.”

That’s not hugely enlightening, of course.

Digging deeper, the company essentially runs a marketplace-like platform where app developers can place ads to help brands reach new users that will hopefully download their apps. Indeed, AppLovin reported making money from two main ways:

  • Advertising: A division that used to be called “Software Platform” until yesterday, AppLovin makes the bulk of its revenue from matching advertisers with owners of digital advertising inventory “via auctions at large scale and microsecond-level speeds.” This brought in about $3.2 billion and change in 2024, some 68% of the company’s total. If a user sees an add delivered by an AppLovin network, the company gets paid.

  • Apps: Remember those stories where a kid spends hundreds of dollars on in-app purchases in a game? There’s a decent chance AppLovin’s technology was involved. This segment, which brought in some $1.5 billion in 2024 for the company, was described in a recent SEC filing as incorporating “fees collected from users to purchase virtual goods to enhance their gameplay experience.”

Interestingly, the company did start its journey as a public company as a gaming business, riding a Covid-era hype in online games. But recently it’s sought to boost its advertising efforts. Per AdExchanger, the company is reportedly selling off “the 10 remaining gaming studios in its portfolio” for some $900 million, helping it become what CEO Adam Foroughi called “a pure advertising platform.”

AppLovin has also been doubling down, like so many other public companies, on its AI capabilities, with senior execs talking up the company’s “self-learning” AI called “AXON” that’s based on the large first-party data that it has collected from its own gaming titles.

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Matt Phillips, Tasha Matsumoto
3/20/26
Stocks sink as the war escalates; Russell 2000 enters correction territory

The S&P 500 closed lower for the fourth consecutive week as the US deployed more troops and warships to the Middle East.

Alaskan Brown Bears (Ursus horribilis) fighting in a river
markets
Matt Phillips

Exxon and Chevron surge as oil rises; gold keeps getting clobbered

Exxon and Chevron jumped again on Friday, the two largest positive contributors to the S&P 500 as of midday, even as the broader market remained mired in the red.

The two giant US energy companies are also on track to notch another in a series of new all-time highs as well Friday, and for obvious reasons.

Energy continues to be the bright spot for the S&P 500 since the start of the Iran war. (It is the only gainer of the 11 separate sectors that compose the blue-chip index, rising more than 7% in March.)

But energy’s gain has come with pain elsewhere. Since rising gas prices work mechanically as a tax on other forms of consumer spending, staples stocks have been hit hard, with the sector down more than 6% this month alone. Meanwhile, the inflationary pressure pushing the Fed away from further rate cuts continues to hit precious metals and miners. SPDR Gold Shares ETF and iShares Silver Trust futures both fell further on Friday; they’re down roughly 10% and 15% for the week, respectively, and producers like Newmont and Freeport-McMoRan also continue to drop.

markets
David Crowther

Investors have been drawn to software stocks since the Iran war started — Figma has been an exception

Since the Iran war started, risky assets have been in the crosshairs. Stocks have sold off as oil prices spiked, the odds of rate cuts later this year have been slashed, and even the usual safe havens like gold and silver have been unreliable ports in the growing storm.

One port of refuge, however, has been in software stocks. As noted by my colleague Matt Phillips recently, a number of high-profile software names — the same ones that some pundits doomed to obsolescence because of AI just a few short weeks ago — have held up well. Design company Figma, however, has not been one of those names.

Figma’s stock has dropped 19% since the close of trading on February 27, while the iShares Expanded Tech Software ETF has gained 2%.

Though still notching very respectable top-line growth, with sales up 40% last year, Figma is far from the “cash cow” stage of its life — perhaps why it’s been hit harder than peers such as Adobe, Workday, or Salesforce. Indeed, on a GAAP basis, Wall Street still expects the company to lose $477 million this year, as heavy stock-based compensation weighs on its profitability.

Figma’s pain was then compounded when Google announced a major update to Stitch on Wednesday — a product described as “an AI-native software design canvas that allows anyone to create, iterate and collaborate on high-fidelity UI from natural language.”

Debate is still raging on Reddit and other social media platforms as to whether Stitch, or other vibe-coding platforms and tools, will meaningfully eat into Figma’s core business. One user said that it “offers very little to experienced designers. It removes the tools Figma offers and delegates everything to AI. Figma at least has all the capabilities plus AI for people who want to use AI.” Another — complaining about the newly prohibitive cost of credits in Figma’s own AI-powered tool, Figma Make — was more bearish on Figma’s usefulness, saying that the number of credits the designer would need to use would cost $16,000 under Figma’s new pricing model.

For now, investors aren’t giving Figma the benefit of the doubt, with the stock down 12% in the last two days alone.

markets
Matt Phillips

Chip-smuggling charges against Super Micro cofounder boost rival server maker Dell

Dell is up in early Friday trading after rival Super Micro Computer plunged on news that one of its cofounders had been charged by US prosecutors with allegedly illegally smuggling AI chips to China.

Dell, Super Micro, and HP Enterprise are all what’s known as “system makers”: they sell ready-to-roll rack servers, storage systems, and the other hardware that’s needed to fill all those data centers that hyperscalers are so desperate to build.

Dell and Super Micro both sell systems built around Nvidia GPUs, so the US government’s allegations against key personnel tied to Super Micro could jeopardize the company’s access to Nvidia products and give Dell a leg up in that crucial AI-related server market.

Super Micro dives after cofounder charged with allegedly smuggling AI chips to China

Super Micro dives after cofounder charged with allegedly smuggling AI chips to China

Dell, Super Micro, and HP Enterprise are all what’s known as “system makers”: they sell ready-to-roll rack servers, storage systems, and the other hardware that’s needed to fill all those data centers that hyperscalers are so desperate to build.

Dell and Super Micro both sell systems built around Nvidia GPUs, so the US government’s allegations against key personnel tied to Super Micro could jeopardize the company’s access to Nvidia products and give Dell a leg up in that crucial AI-related server market.

markets
Matt Phillips

Planet Labs soars after earnings beat and positive analyst commentary

Planet Labs held on to huge post-earnings gains early Friday as analysts that cover the retail favorite issued largely upbeat reviews of its Q4 report released Thursday after the bell. Here’s some of their commentary on the satellite services company:

Wedbush (rating: “outperform,” price target: $40): PL is seeing major tailwinds in the geopolitical space, continuing to drive mission-critical demand globally. Total RPO came in at ~ $852 million (up ~106% y/y) with backlog of ~$900+ million (up ~79% y/y) highlighted by 9- figure deal with the Swedish Armed Forces which was the third 9-figure Satellite Services contract over the past 12 months totaling $500+ million across Sweden, Japan, and Germany, with management noting on the call that both deal count and average size in the satellite services pipeline has grown appreciably.”

Citizens (rating: “market perform,” price target: N/A): “In our view, Planet’s solid performance in the quarter and the significant revenue acceleration implied for FY27 reflect the company’s success in shifting to a satellite services model and leaning (heavily) into the needs of Defense & Intelligence segment customers. We believe this is the correct area of focus (for management and investors) and view some of the flashier announcements around Project Suncatcher (space-based data centers), or more recently, AI enabling a renaissance within Planet’s Civil and Commercial businesses as somewhat of a distraction.”

Clear Street (rating: “buy,” price target: $34): “While F2026 revenue grew 26%, non-defense verticals have lagged. Management signaled an inflection point, with use cases such as maritime awareness data poised towards gaining traction across finance, insurance, and supply chain, supported by a more tailored approach with LLM partnerships like Anthropic (private).”

There’s a reason the stock has built a strong retail following: it had already surged more than 500% over the past year, even before jumping another 20% after last night’s earnings.

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