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Luke Kawa2/13/25

AppLovin rockets higher after crushing Wall Street estimates

Ad tech firm AppLovin is mooning after releasing robust quarterly results after the close on Wednesday, with shares up nearly 30% premarket.

The company reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.73 on revenues of $1.37 billion, crushing every Wall Street analyst’s estimate. Its core business, advertising, came just shy of cracking $1 billion in sales for the quarter.

And based on its guidance, that bar may be cleared in the current quarter, with management seeing total revenues between $1.36 billion to $1.39 billion, versus the consensus estimate for $1.32 billion. Wall Street is looking for AppLovin’s advertising unit to surpass that milestone.

“Early adopters in gaming and direct-to-consumer commerce have already seen the impact of our technology, and our mission is clear: to onboard every business that wants to drive measurable growth,” CEO Adam Foroughi wrote in a letter to shareholders.

AppLovin has had two major revenue sources: helping developers monetize their apps through advertisements (enhanced with AI tools) and mobile gaming. Management announced that the latter unit is being sold for $900 million.

It’s in a bucket of companies that we’ve previously referred to as successfully “doing AI on the cheap” — a group that saw a spurt of outperformance following the US election and has seemingly benefited from the emergence of China’s DeepSeek AI, as well.

Numbers like these leave me with one big question: What does it mean for the “AI enablers” (or, if you prefer, “hyperscalers”) that a company doing AI on the cheap, with a core business that shares some degree of overlap with Meta and Alphabet, can crush Wall Street’s estimates by this much?

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Saleah Blancaflor6m

US gas prices hit the highest level since the Iran war began, at $4.18 per gallon

US gas prices climbed on Tuesday to their highest level in four years as peace talks between the US and Iran are at a standstill.

The national average gas price is currently $4.18 per gallon, according to the American Automobile Association. The 1.6% rise is the highest percentage increase in more than a month — and the last time the price of gas was this high was in April 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Less than a week ago, AAA reported that US gas prices had gone down to $4.03 per gallon, giving drivers a very brief sigh of relief.

Oil prices also continued to rise on Tuesday as negotiations over reopening the Strait of Hormuz remain at a deadlock. Additionally, the UAE made a bombshell announcement that it’s leaving OPEC, adding to the disruption in the oil market.

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(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

Oil prices also continued to rise on Tuesday as negotiations over reopening the Strait of Hormuz remain at a deadlock. Additionally, the UAE made a bombshell announcement that it’s leaving OPEC, adding to the disruption in the oil market.

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(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

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UAE quits OPEC, citing desire to be “meeting the urgent needs of the market”

In a bombshell move, the United Arab Emirates announced that it will be leaving OPEC (and OPEC+) on May 1.

The Middle Eastern country will soon chart its own course on how much oil to supply to global markets, which have endured significant disruptions in light of the Iran war.

“This decision is taken at the right time in our view because it’s not going to hugely impact the market: the market is undersupplied,” said Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei, according to Bloomberg.

The UAE is the third-largest producer within the oil cartel and among the world’s 10 largest, based on April data. Despite the positive implications for supply, the United States Oil Fund LP is still up about 2.5% as of 9:52 a.m. ET.

“After leaving OPEC, the UAE will continue its responsible role by gradually and thoughtfully increasing production, in line with demand and market conditions,” per the country’s official news agency, which added that the decision reflects “the state’s commitment to contribute effectively to meeting the urgent needs of the market, while geopolitical fluctuations continue in the near term through the disturbances in the Arabian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.”

The UAE’s access to global markets is less negatively impacted by the closure of this important oil shipping choke point than many other producers in the region, as the Port of Fujairah lies outside the Persian Gulf. However, energy infrastructure at this port has also come under fire during the conflict for precisely this reason.

In the last few weeks, the UAE has a) sounded out the US on a swap line b) pulled billions of dollars out of Pakistan, an ally c) left Opec, where it was one of the biggest members by quota.
— Joseph Cotterill (@jsphctrl.ft.com) April 28, 2026 at 8:34 AM

While the timing of this move may come as a surprise, fractures between the UAE and some of largest producers in OPEC (and the expanded OPEC+ alliance) have arguably been long in the making. The UAE was the strongest advocate for a more aggressive boost to output during OPEC’s postpandemic slow return of supply, arguing that its productive capacity was too low. Eventually, the country won an increase to their baseline.

The UAE’s exodus “leaves OPEC even more Saudi-centric as the main holder of spare capacity and reduces the group’s future ability to manage prices — particularly given Russia’s inability to ramp production up and down as required,” wrote Viresh Kanabar, an investment strategist at Macro Hive. “More broadly, the closure of the Strait is likely to have lasting consequences for regional players and markets, and the UAE’s exit from OPEC is one example.”

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J. Edward Moreno5h

Match Group invests $100 million in Grindr rival Sniffies, with future option to acquire the startup

Tinder owner Match Group has invested $100 million in Sniffies — a gay hookup site that’s earned a reputation as a raunchier rival to Grindr — in a deal that gives it an option to acquire the startup in the future.

It would not be Match’s first investment turned acquisition, having pulled the same strategy with Hinge, its currently fastest-growing app. Match will be sunsetting its existing gay dating app, Archer, and focusing its attention on Sniffies, the company told Bloomberg. The announcement sent Grindr slipping in after-hours trading.

Unlike Grindr, which must abide by Apple’s App Store rules, the privately held Sniffies is a website and isn’t bound by the same restrictions. Users can make their profile photos explicit images and enjoy wider anonymity. This has, however, subjected the platform to increasingly common government restrictions on porn sites.

Sniffies has 3 million monthly active users globally, according to Match Group, compared to the 15.2 million on Grindr in the last quarter of 2025. Still, it has grown massively in popularity, clocking 60 million page visits in March, up 60% from last year, per Similarweb figures.

Sniffies founder and CEO Blake Gallagher said the investment “unlocks our ability to move faster on the things that matter most: stronger trust & safety, better product, and a more dynamic network.”

Unlike Grindr, which must abide by Apple’s App Store rules, the privately held Sniffies is a website and isn’t bound by the same restrictions. Users can make their profile photos explicit images and enjoy wider anonymity. This has, however, subjected the platform to increasingly common government restrictions on porn sites.

Sniffies has 3 million monthly active users globally, according to Match Group, compared to the 15.2 million on Grindr in the last quarter of 2025. Still, it has grown massively in popularity, clocking 60 million page visits in March, up 60% from last year, per Similarweb figures.

Sniffies founder and CEO Blake Gallagher said the investment “unlocks our ability to move faster on the things that matter most: stronger trust & safety, better product, and a more dynamic network.”

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Matt Phillips & Claire Yubin Oh5h

Corning sinks after posting underwhelming Q2 guidance, despite Q1 beat

Corning reported Q1 results before the bell on Tuesday that beat Wall Street’s expectations, but shares still fell from the company’s softer second-quarter guidance.

For the first quarter, Corning reported:

Non-GAAP core earnings per share of $0.70, just beating consensus analyst expectations of $0.69, according to FactSet.
Core sales of $4.34 billion vs. a $4.30 billion consensus estimate from analysts.

The fly in the Corning ointment was the outlook for Q2 2026. The maker of fiber-optic networking equipment now expects core sales to grow to approximately $4.6 billion, slightly lower than $4.65 billion forecast by analysts. Core EPS is expected to reach a range of $0.73 to $0.77, largely in line with the $0.75 Wall Street consensus.

Management highlighted the company’s “powerful momentum across our Market-Access Platforms,” or five fast-growing industries ranging from optics to mobile consumer electronics, but also noted that an additional $30 million of expense is expected in the second quarter compared to the first, as it upgrades and repairs its solar wafer facility to a “permanent power system.”

After such a hot run, with the stock up 85% so far this year, it’s no wonder that it’s taking a breather on results that don’t give analysts enough excuses to meaningfully bump their forecasts.

Indeed, Corning is one of a number of fiber-optic networking stocks — including Lumentum, Coherent, and Ciena Corp. — that have soared this year. They all handle slightly different aspects of the same undertaking: using light and electrical signals to almost instantly transfer the data that AI technology both consumes and produces.

Demand for their products has jumped as AI’s requirements for bandwidth, speed, and power have moved beyond the capacity of long-standing networking technologies, such as the copper cables that usually carry signals using electricity.

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Max Knoblauch5h

JetBlue reports deeper-than-expected Q1 loss on elevated fuel costs

JetBlue reported its first-quarter earnings before markets opened on Tuesday. The carrier’s shares have ticked down about 2% in premarket trading.

For Q1, JetBlue reported:

An adjusted loss of $0.87 per share, compared to Wall Street estimates of a loss of $0.73 per share from analysts polled by FactSet.
Total revenue of $2.24 billion, in line with estimates.

JetBlue said it expects to pay between $4.13 and $4.28 per gallon for fuel in the second quarter, up from the $2.40-per-gallon average in the same period last year. The carrier also said it expects to recapture between 30% and 40% of fuel costs in Q2, and 100% by early next year. The airline forecast a boost in capacity by between 1.5% and 4.5% in the second quarter, compared to the Wall Street consensus of 3.2% growth.

Like its major US rivals, JetBlue has been pummeled by higher fuel costs amid the war in Iran despite reporting strong demand. Late last month, JetBlue became the first major US carrier to hike its bag fees in an effort to offset fuel costs. The rest of the industry soon followed.

In the coming days, JetBlue could see significant impact from the outcome of reports that the Trump administration is considering extending a lifeline to low-budget rival Spirit in the form of a loan of up to $500 million.

Like its larger rival United Airlines, JetBlue has reportedly been mulling merger partners of its own. A common industry theory is that United’s efforts to merge with American could have been a means to actually attempt a smaller (but still huge) merger with JetBlue.

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