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Luke Kawa

CoreWeave tumbles as top shareholder Magnetar dials down position, puts on huge collar trade

CoreWeave is getting trounced along with most other high-beta growth companies in early trading on Tuesday, as its top shareholder as well as some of its executives continued to take profits in the name they’re finally allowed to sell.

Last Thursday, Magnetar Financial, its subsidiaries, and insiders sold $94.4 million (or 915,339 shares) of the AI cloud computing company. Magnetar had previously unloaded about 1.5 million shares earlier in August after the post-IPO lockup period expired.

The firm also entered into a series of derivatives transactions last week designed to protect the value of its CoreWeave position by:

  • Selling 600,000 call options that expire on March 20, 2026, with a strike price of $175 and buying just as many put options with the same expiry and a strike price of $70 on Thursday;

  • Selling 801,000 call options that expire on March 20, 2026, with a strike price of $160 and buying just as many put options with the same expiry and a strike price of $70 on Wednesday.

This is known as a “collar” trade. Magnetar spent about 22% more on the put options than it generated in premiums by selling the calls.

Ahead of the lockup expiry, Bank of America analyst Brad Sills warned of a “near term overhang” for the stock because of the potential for this selling to occur, and indeed it has.

Elsewhere, filings show that CoreWeave CEO Michael Intrator sold about $7.8 million (or 82,455 shares) on Wednesday, while General Counsel and Corporate Secretary Kristen McVeety exercised a stock option and also sold nearly $30 million (or 311,796 shares), all of her direct stake in the company. She maintains an indirect position of 95,000 shares through a grantor-retained annuity trust.

Note: These insider trades were part of a prescheduled 10(b)5-1 program, and as such were not discretionary in nature.

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American Eagle posts stronger-than-expected Q4 earnings and revenue

If American Eagle has seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of Sydney Sweeney.

The jeans seller posted adjusted earnings of $0.84 per share, ahead of the $0.71 expected by analysts polled by FactSet. It booked $1.76 billion in fourth-quarter revenue, versus the $1.74 billion consensus.

Shares initially climbed more than 5% after-hours before paring gains to about 2%.

“Compelling new product collections, supported by fresh marketing campaigns, led to higher demand trends in the quarter,” said CEO Jay Schottenstein.

American Eagle said it’s expecting same-store sales to grow by high single digits in the first quarter.

Marketing controversy has proved to be a powerful mover of denim for AE. In its third-quarter earnings call in December, AE said its partnership with Sydney Sweeney — together with a Travis Kelce partnership — had garnered more than 44 billion impressions. The retailer hit meme stock status last July when it initially launched its “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans” campaign.

As of Wednesday’s close, American Eagle shares had climbed 120% since the Sweeney ad first landed.

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Investors are itching to buy the dip in memory stocks

The intense drubbing in South Korean stocks, with the benchmark Korean index (KOSPI) falling nearly 20% in its first two trading days of the week following a Monday holiday, represented a serious threat to the hottest AI trade: memory stocks.

South Korea’s market is dominated by two high-bandwidth memory giants: SK Hynix and Samsung.

After Tuesday’s tumble, US investors seemingly said enough is enough: it’s a buy-the-dip opportunity.

US memory stocks like Micron, Sandisk, Western Digital, and Seagate Technology Holdings are posting massive gains on the day. The advance comes amid positive commentary at a Morgan Stanley conference on demand for memory chips.

Even more interestingly, the iShares MSCI South Korea ETF is up big today despite the KOSPI falling 12% overnight, its largest drop on record. The ETF’s outperformance of the South Korean equity gauge is the largest since 2008, as the global financial crisis raged.

The daily performance of these two can differ materially since they trade at different times and don’t track precisely the same things. US investors are making the bet that a potential break in this momentum trade and the potential for an unwind of retail leverage in South Korean markets be damned, big drops in memory stocks are meant to be bought.

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