markets

Matt Phillips10/15/25

Bloom Energy, Rocket Lab, and Oklo all notch records as momentum stocks romp

Momentum stocks rallied on Wednesday, with fuel-cell-based power provider Bloom Energy and other stocks popular among retail traders notching record highs.

The iShares MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETF was handily outperforming plain vanilla indexes in early trading. And Goldman Sachs’ basket of High Beta Momentum Shares, which includes Bloom Energy, was up nearly 4% shortly before 11 a.m. ET.

Other momentum favorites romped in early trading: space launch and aspiring satellite services company Rocket Lab touched a record high, along with Oklo, an AI-aligned aspirational provider of fission nuclear reactors. (Oklo is not only losing money, but it isn’t expected to report any sales until 2028, according to FactSet.)

Bloom, for one, is up more than 1,000% over the past 12 months. Chatter on the stock has picked up recently on r/WallStreetBets, as has call options activity.

Wall Street analysts covering the shares are along for the ride. UBS raised its price target to $115 from $110 and kept a “buy” rating on the stock on Tuesday. BMO raised its target to $97 from $33, while keeping its rating at “market perform” (basically a “hold”).

The company reports earnings on October 28 after the bell.

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Tasha Matsumoto

Stocks eke out a gain as inflation remains mild

The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 all posted weekly gains.

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - DECEMBER 23: Benny the Bull, the Chicago Bulls mascot, dresses as Santa Claus in the game against the Milwaukee Bucks during the second half at the United Center on December 23, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois

markets

Luke Kawa12/5/25

Microsoft is in talks to shift its custom chip business to Broadcom from Marvell, The Information reports

The Information’s profile of custom chip specialist Broadcom includes this tidbit:

“And now Microsoft is also in talks to design future chips with Broadcom, which would involve Microsoft switching its business from Marvell, another maker of custom chips, according to one person involved in the discussions.”

Shares of Marvell Technology briefly dipped into the red after this report hit the wires, but then pared that drop to trade modestly higher. The company codesigns the Maia line of ASICs for Microsoft that are custom-built for Azure. Microsoft is its second-biggest hyperscaler client, behind Amazon.

Marvell tumbled on a ho-hum earnings report earlier this week before going on to surge after CEO Matt Murphy offered a $10 billion revenue target for its upcoming fiscal year, which was above analysts’ expectations.

Perhaps this is a bit of Information fatigue, given how Microsoft was quick to deny a report from the outlet earlier this week about how the tech giant lowered its sales targets for AI products.

markets

Luke Kawa12/5/25

Memory stocks soar as AI supporting cast repairs damage from steep November declines

There’s not much rhyme or reason to it, but memory stocks are ending the week with a stellar showing.

Shares of high-bandwidth memory specialist Micron, hard disk drive sellers Seagate Technology Holdings and Western Digital, and flash memory company Sandisk are all rising today.

Three of these stocks dropped about 20% in November as credit risk seeping into AI and a downturn in speculative momentum stocks weighed on the theme, with Sandisk faring the worst.

Micron, Western Digital, and Seagate have all since rebounded strongly and are about 5% or less from reclaiming all-time highs, while Sandisk has made up the least ground.

While GPUs (and, more recently, TPUs) get most of the headlines, data centers also need a boatload of memory chips that store information and feed it to those processors.

markets

Nia Warfield12/5/25

Ulta soars as Q3 beat sparks flood of price target hikes

Ulta’s latest makeover is happening on Wall Street. Shares leapt Friday morning as analysts hiked their price targets after the beauty retailer topped Q3 estimates and raised its full-year outlook after the bell Thursday.

Earnings came in at $5.14 per share, handily beating analyst expectations of $4.64. Revenue also topped estimates at $2.86 billion, compared with the $2.72 billion expected. Ulta has benefited from resilient beauty spending, even as consumers pull back elsewhere and hunt more aggressively for discounts.

Ulta now expects full-year net sales of about $12.3 billion, up from a prior forecast of $12.0 billion to $12.1 billion. The retailer also lifted its earnings outlook to $25.20 to $25.50 per share, up from $23.85 to $24.30 previously. This marks Ulta’s second straight quarter of hiking its sales and profit forecast. Analysts are taking note:

Goldman Sachs maintained its “buy” rating and raised its price target to $642 from $584.
DA Davidson maintained its “buy” rating and raised its price target to $650 from $625.
JPMorgan maintained its “outperform” rating and raised its price target to $647 from $606.
Baird maintained its “outperform” rating and hiked its price target to $670 from $600.
Telsey Advisory maintained its “outperform” rating and raised its price target to $640 from $610.
Piper Sandler maintained its “outperform” rating and raised its price target to $615 from $590.
Canaccord Genuity maintained its “neutral” rating and raised its price target to $674 from $654.

markets

Max Knoblauch12/5/25

Southwest cuts its earnings outlook on lost revenue due to government shutdown

Another big four airline has put a price tag on the 43-day government shutdown.

Southwest Airlines on Friday said lower revenue due to a temporary decline in demand during the shutdown, together with higher fuel costs, will ding its annual earnings before interest and taxes by between $100 million and $300 million. The carrier lowered its full-year EBIT outlook to $500 million, down from a prior range of $600 million to $800 million.

According to Southwest’s filing, bookings have returned to previous expectations following the end of the shutdown. Its shares dipped down about 1% in premarket trading.

The carrier joins Delta Air Lines in assigning a cost to the government closure. Earlier this week, Delta said the shutdown would cost it $200 million in the fourth quarter.

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