Markets
Nia Warfield, Luke Kawa

Chip stocks lead widespread rally

A big rally in chip stocks amid continued optimism on the AI boom coupled with smaller advances in most stocks made for another strong session on Wall Street.

The S&P 500 rose 0.6%, the Nasdaq 100 ended up 0.8%, and the Russell 2000 led the way with a 1.6% gain on Tuesday.

Tech was the best-performing S&P 500 sector ETF, but unlike Monday, gains were more widespread, with advancers in the S&P 500 outnumbering decliners by 218. Real estate, communication services, and consumer staples were the lone sectors to end negative.

The day’s gains were led by discount retailer Dollar General, which soared nearly 16% after crushing Q1 estimates and upping its forecast as more shoppers go bargain hunting. Rival Dollar Tree was also a standout performer, benefiting from its competitor’s solid showing and outlook. Declines were led by Neutrogena parent Kenvue, which sank 6% after the consumer health giant said seasonal demand is off to a slow start.

Elsewhere…

Broadcom set an intraday and closing record high after announcing that it’s started to ship some new AI hardware.

Shares of Nvidia-backed CoreWeave surged surged 25% in a strong follow-through to the already warm reception to its data center deal with Applied Digital on Monday.

Rocket Lab soared as much as 5% after the commercial space company (and retail favorite) received a pair of price target hikes: one from Deutsche Bank, to $27 from $24, and another from KeyBanc Capital Markets, which raised its target by a buck to $29. It then pared those gains to finish up just 0.5%

Similarly, Constellation Energy was up double digits in the premarket after striking a deal to sell power to Meta, but finished marginally in the red.

Bumble shares slid 6% after JPMorgan downgraded the women-first dating app to underweight (or a “sell” rating) as the platform faces slowing growth and hotter competition.

Pinterest shares climbed about 4% after JPMorgan upgraded the stock to “overweight” (buy) and lifted its price target to $40, citing deeper user engagement and momentum in its ad business.

Hims & Hers fell 3.5%, giving up all its gains after rising more than 17% in early trading following its announcement that it would acquire a European peer, Zava.

Nio finished modestly higher even as the Chinese luxury EV maker missed Wall Street’s Q1 revenue estimates and posted a much larger loss per share than analysts had forecast.

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markets
Luke Kawa

Infleqtion targets revenue growth of 23% in 2026, up from 12% in 2025

Quantum computing firm Infleqtion said it’s aiming to book $40 million in sales this year as it released its 2025 results after the close on Wednesday.

That would be an increase of roughly 23% compared to the $32.5 million in revenues the company generated in 2025, and would mark an acceleration from growth of 12% last year.

The seller of quantum sensors and computers went public via a SPAC in February after carrying a pre-money valuation of $1.8 billion (well below other pure-play peers like Rigetti Computing, IonQ, and D-Wave Quantum).

“We did $29 million in revenue in 2024, and then we announced that we did $50 million of booked and awarded business in 2025. I think that sets a good foundation for significant revenue growth going forward,” CEO Matthew Kinsella told us in February. “I’ve always deeply believed that we need to develop that muscle of commercialization.”

Luke Kawa
1h
Applied Digital Q3 results crush estimates

The AI data center operator just released its fiscal Q3 results.

INDONESIA-TECHNOLOGY-BUSINESS-ENVIRONMENT-AI
Tasha Matsumoto
1h
Stocks climb and oil plunges on US-Iran ceasefire

Stocks continued their six-day winning streak, their longest of 2026, as investors returned to risk.

Cowboy Riding a Bull - stock illustration
markets
Luke Kawa

Retail traders are selling everything but the Magnificent 7, per JPMorgan

JPMorgan strategist Arun Jain with the skinny on retail trading activity through 11:30 a.m. ET today:

“Retail investors are selling into today’s strength in both ETFs and Single Stocks. In ETFs, they are trimming their broad-based exposure — a major departure from their typical pattern.”

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF and ProShares UltraPro QQQ suffered particularly large outflows, per Jain.

The exceptions to the selling pressure are the Magnificent 7 stocks, he wrote, with Nvidia, Tesla, Meta, and Microsoft enjoying “small net purchases,” while Micron, TSMC, Exxon, and Chevron were the most dumped names.

Retail trading 4/8

Last week, Jain noted that retail traders had been “skipping the dips, selling into rallies, and positioning more defensively” with markets jittery amid the ongoing Mideast war.

markets
Luke Kawa

Avis shorts facing $1.1 billion in losses as car rental company racks up 155% gains in its recent rally

Whatever traders are doing with Avis — buying, or just renting — it’s causing short sellers an immense amount of pain.

Shares of the car rental company have traded violently on Wednesday, from up nearly 7% at their highs to down almost 4% at their lows, after a face-ripping rally of 155% over the previous 11 sessions.

Per exchange data, roughly half the shares were sold short as of mid-March. S3 Partners, which tracks higher-frequency measures, said that short interest as a share of float had recently been trimmed to about 43%, down from as high as 53% at the start of the year.

Per Matthew Unterman, managing director at S3, Avis shorts are down $1.1 billion on paper over the past 30 days.

This isn’t Avis’ first rodeo: shares went parabolic in Q4 2021 as part of a meme stock moment in which it briefly became the most valuable company in the Russell 2000 small-cap index.

In any event, cheers to u/Bright_Leopard_4326, who admonished other members of the r/ShortSqueeze subreddit for not paying enough attention to the potential for a boom in the stock 10 days ago, when shares were trading below $150.

AVIS short squeeze
Source: r/ShortSqueeze

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