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Data center stocks knocked back amid China stress

The buy-everything-data-center-related trade is having a rough ride Tuesday, with Goldman Sachs’ themed basket of AI data center stocks dropping 1.5% in early trading after soaring more than 3.5% to start the week.

That’s partially because some suppliers of bits and bobs needed to fit out the hangar-like concrete structures selling computing power for AI are still exposed to risks of the China-US trade war, which seems to be flaring anew.

For instance, while most of the switches and routers Arista Networks sells are made in Malaysia, Vietnam, and Mexico, it also gets some products directly from China. The company is also reliant on supplies of some critical metals, exports of which China is clamping down on.

Such actions, the company has previously warned, could lead to disruptions to supplies of components it needs, manufacturing delays, and inventory shortages.

Other related stocks slumped in early trading, including hard disk data storage makers Seagate Technology Holdings and Western Digital — also exposed to Asian supply chains — and server maker Dell.

Chip giants Nvidia and Broadcom were also down more than 3% each after Advanced Micro Devices announced a new deal to deploy its chips in Oracle data centers.

While previous announcements to that effect lifted the AI sector as a whole, the AMD deal wasn’t enough offset the pall cast by the renewed China stress.

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Traders are pricing in a big swing in AI chip market share to Broadcom from Nvidia

The story within the AI trade lately has been: Google’s a winner, and OpenAI is a... well, to be kind, non-winner.

Companies closely tied to the former, like Broadcom, which codesigns the TPUs that Gemini 3 was trained on, have benefited from their relationship with the hyperscaling search giant. Conversely, Nvidia, which sells to both Google and OpenAI but is besieged with worries about how custom chips might impact its AI market share (and profitability), has been selling off.

“NVDA stock is now trading at its widest ever ~40% discount to AVGO’s current 42x forward PE versus historical -10%/+7% discount/premium over the past 1/2 yrs, respectively,” Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya wrote. “In other words, consensus has already implicitly shifted at least 10+ points of (2H26E/27E) AI market share towards AVGO, conceptually.”

The abrupt shift in valuation amid this divergent price action is reversing course on Monday: Nvidia’s up about 1.5% as of 10:55 a.m. ET, while Broadcom is off 2.6%.

Air taxi companies are in the red as Goldman initiates coverage on Archer, Joby, and Beta

Goldman Sachs initiated coverage of the major US air taxi companies on Monday, including Joby Aviation, Archer Aviation, and Beta Technologies. All three are trading down as the bank’s first notes hit investor inboxes.

Though Joby “appears to be in pole position” on certification, analyst Anthony Valentini gave the stock a “sell” rating and a $10 price target — 30% below the value of Joby’s stock at Friday’s close. Valentini wrote that it’s unclear where competitors stand in the process.

Goldman gave Archer a “neutral” rating and an $11 price target, highlighting the company’s ability to cut spending. Beta Technologies, which went public last month, received a “buy” rating and a $47 price target.

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Crypto-adjacent stocks drop to start the week

Crypto-adjacent shares slid in early trading along with unprofitable tech company shares, as animal spirits ebbed to start the US trading week.

Goldman Sachs’ basket of bitcoin-sensitive stocks — heavily weighted toward Coinbase and treasury companies like MARA Holdings and Strategy — was down more than 3% early, reflecting another tumble in bitcoin overnight, though bitcoin prices stabilized a bit in early US trading. Robinhood Markets — shares of which have at times taken cues from the price of crypto, which is traded on the brokerage app — was also down.

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company.)

It would take a talented druid and a flock’s worth of bird entrails to the divine precisely what’s driving the downdraft. But S&P’s recent assessment of the vulnerability of Tether’s stablecoin, USDT — the world’s largest of these supposedly safer forms of crypto — to the bitcoin sell-off might be playing a role.

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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.