Markets
markets
Luke Kawa

AppLovin surges as the ad tech company prepares Q4 “bazooka” in what CEO says will be “a fun quarter”

AppLovin, which initially failed to impress traders with a revenue beat and better-than-expected Q3 sales guidance, is now on fire, up double digits as of 10:50 a.m. ET.

And that’s in large part because CEO Adam Foroughi said the real “fun” starts in Q4, when the company will open its self-service ad portal on a referral basis to onboard new advertisers and boost its footprint in areas outside of gaming, with a full-scale launch planned for the first half of 2026.

Here’s what Foroughi said (emphasis added):

“We think our advertisers are going to cause an onboarding moment that’ll be multiples bigger than what we were manually curating. Now it’s not necessarily true that we’re going to take our queue that’s built over the last year and just say, everyone, you’re in.

They’re still going to have to get invited to get into the platform. So it will be still curated onboarding. The reality is, Q4 is going to end up being a fun quarter. You’ve got the advertiser cohort that we didn’t have last Q4 that was growing in the quarter to the point where we reported huge numbers and then had huge numbers in Q1, but we’re going to have those advertisers primed and ready to go for the full Q4.

We’re going to have those advertisers inviting their friends onto our platform in Q4, and we’re going to be opening up international all at the same time. So there’s going to be a lot of fun moments, moments for us and our customers in this e-commerce or web-based category that’ll set sort of a new baseline for that business. And then obviously, then we will go through hopefully another inflection when we really truly open up the platform and try to get into a state where we’re more stable long-term.”

Morgan Stanley analyst Matthew Cost boosted his price target on the stock to $480 from $460. “We are fundamentally bullish on the self-serve initiative, which the company made clear will simplify onboarding and workflows, widen the funnel of non-gaming advertisers, open the product to international markets, and put the infrastructure in place to allow AI-generated ads and agentic support over time,” he wrote.

Bank of America analyst Omar Dessouky described the messaging around this catalyst as AppLovin loading a fourth-quarter “bazooka.” However, he also lowered his expected multiple for the company while keeping the price target unchanged thanks to a big boost to earnings estimates, citing “execution risk” associated with this launch.

More Markets

See all Markets
Luke Kawa
1h
Is Nvidia dead money, or a coiled spring?

The stock has done next to nothing for five months. Stellar Q3 results and guidance failed to inspire a rally.

A Slinky is a precompressed helical spring toy invented by Richard James in the early 1940s
markets
Ben Walsh

President Trump announces data center electricity deals at State of the Union

President Donald Trump said during Tuesday's State of the Union address that he's struck agreements with tech companies to pay more for electricity in areas where they build data centers.

The "rate payer protection pledges" are intended to insulate consumers from higher bills in regions where new, power-hungry data centers are built. The White House earlier told Politico that they plan meant that tech giants would "pay their own way" and offset their demand for power causing electricity bills for all ratepayers to increase.

Some tech companies are already trying to get out in front of the public's negative perception of their surging electricity use, and Trump's criticism of it. In January, Microsoft committed to paying up for its data-center electricity use. That move came after criticism from the President. As part of the plan, Microsoft said it would ask utilities and public commissions to charge it rates hight enough to cover the costs of both data center installation and usage, and support two-tier pricing systems where “Very Large Customers” (like data centers) get charged higher prices.

Coming in to the end of 2025, utilities with a footprint on the countries largest utility grid, the PJM interconnection which serves vast swathes of the Eastern seaboard and Great Lakes region, like Talen Energy, Constellation Energy, and Vistra saw their share prices surge as electricity auction prices hit record highs. So far in 2026, however, that trade has largely reversed.

Trump tries to get ahead of voters’ grumbling on AI data costs

Some tech companies are already trying to get out in front of the public's negative perception of their surging electricity use, and Trump's criticism of it. In January, Microsoft committed to paying up for its data-center electricity use. That move came after criticism from the President. As part of the plan, Microsoft said it would ask utilities and public commissions to charge it rates hight enough to cover the costs of both data center installation and usage, and support two-tier pricing systems where “Very Large Customers” (like data centers) get charged higher prices.

Coming in to the end of 2025, utilities with a footprint on the countries largest utility grid, the PJM interconnection which serves vast swathes of the Eastern seaboard and Great Lakes region, like Talen Energy, Constellation Energy, and Vistra saw their share prices surge as electricity auction prices hit record highs. So far in 2026, however, that trade has largely reversed.

markets
Max Knoblauch

Lucid reports Q4 earnings miss, revenue beat

Luxury EV maker Lucid reported its fourth-quarter earnings after the bell Tuesday. Shares fell more than 6% in after-hours trading.

The company posted an adjusted loss of $3.08 per share, wider than the $2.63 loss expected by analysts polled by FactSet. Lucid booked $522.7 million in revenue, beating the consensus estimate of $459.5 million.

Lucid issued a full-year 2026 production outlook of between 25,000 to 27,000 vehicles, representing 40% to 51% growth from 2025’s figures. Lucid downwardly revised its full-year 2025 production numbers from 18,378 to 17,840 vehicles due to internal validation issues.

The company maintained the timeline of its unnamed midsize SUV due to begin production later this year. That schedule puts it close to rival Rivian’s planned second-quarter release of its R2 SUV.

Lucid did not issue an update to its ongoing CEO search. The company has been led by interim CEO Marc Winterhoff for the past year, after it abruptly announced in its fourth-quarter 2024 report that then CEO Peter Rawlinson would step aside.

The stock has fallen to all-time lows this month and is down 98% from its high in 2021. Last week, the company announced it would lay off 12% of its US workforce in an effort to improve profitability.

markets
Matt Phillips

Tempus AI slides after missing Q4 EBITDA target

Cancer diagnostics company and sometimes retail shareholder favorite Tempus AI reported soft Q4 adjusted EBITDA numbers late Tuesday, sending shares lower in the after-hours session. 

It reported: 

  • Q4 revenue of $367.2 million vs. FactSet’s expectation of $362.8 million.

  • An adjusted loss per share of $0.04 vs. the $0.04 loss estimated.

  • Adjusted EBITDA of $12.9 million vs. expectations for $22 million, per FactSet.

Since going public in June 2024, Tempus has been a volatile stock that has both doubled — and cratered — on multiple occasions. That spectacle has at times captured the attention of retail traders who’ve tried to ride the waves.

Of late, the wave has been breaking bad, with shares down more than 30% since the stock hit a record high on October 8, 2025

Still, the company is now adjusted EBITDA positive. That, CEO Eric Lefkofsky told us last year, is the first milestone on Tempus’ journey to profitability, a mark that analysts think will take until at least next year for the company to hit.

Tasha Matsumoto
13h
Stocks bounce back powered by tech rebound

Tech rose amid AMD and Meta’s chip deal, and software stocks recovered as investors shook off yesterday’s dystopian AI report.

Anfernee Simons #2 of the Chicago Bulls dribbles during the second half of their NBA game against the Toronto Raptors at Scotiabank Arena on February 5, 2026 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Latest Stories

Sherwood Media, LLC produces fresh and unique perspectives on topical financial news and is a fully owned subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, Inc., and any views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any other Robinhood affiliate, including Robinhood Markets, Inc., Robinhood Financial LLC, Robinhood Securities, LLC, Robinhood Crypto, LLC, or Robinhood Money, LLC.
©2026 Sherwood Media, LLC