Energy Sector gains keep market in the green

Loading up on LNG at the Sabine Pass terminal along the Texas-Louisiana border (Julia Naue/Getty Images)

Energy sector gets a lift from Europe’s pledge to buy some $750 billion in US oil and gas

Analysts are pretty skeptical this is possible.

7/28/25 9:48AM

Energy shares are outperforming and helping keep the S&P 500 in the green early Monday, after the EU said European companies would purchase some $750 billion in US energy products like oil and gas over the next three years as part of a preliminary EU-US trade agreement announced over the weekend.

Cheniere Energy and Venture Global, producers of liquified natural gas, rose on the news, as did oil and gas explorers APA Corporation, EOG Resources, and Diamondback Energy.

But some of the initial strong gains in such US energy stocks have ebbed away, as there is a lot of skepticism that the EU would be able to meet such a large goal for imports of US energy.

One opinion piece from Reuters called it “delusional.” Bloomberg said it looked “hard to reach,” and quoted one analyst who said called the number “meaningless, as it’s unachievable not only because EU demand cannot grow that much, but also because US exporters cannot supply that much either.”

It’s also important to note that despite the handshake photo op, nothing that US President Donald Trump or European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said over the weekend is actually a written, binding agreement, which would be the traditional definition of an actual deal.

Matt Phillips1h

Palantir continues its recent bull run as BofA analyst hikes target to $215

Palantir was less than 3% from its all-time closing high price in early trading Tuesday, with shares continuing a run that has carried them up nearly 20% since a recent low on September 5.

There’s no major news on the stock, but the defense and AI software company did collect a price target hike from Bank of America’s analysts. They slapped a $215 price objective on the shares, a roughly 18% premium to where the stock currently trades and the highest among the published price targets tracked by FactSet.

In their note, BofA’s analysts focused on the company’s usage of “forward deployed engineers” or FDEs, Palantir software workers who collaborate closely with clients to help organize, refine, structure, and connect the various pipelines of data that companies want to work with Palantir’s AI software. (I recently wrote a bit about them here.)

BofA’s stock scribes wrote:

“We see the AI FDEs as an accelerator of growth. By successfully implementing these breakthrough capabilities inhouse, the company will benefit from increased demand, scalability and empowered engineers that can focus on the most complex problems. We think more customers will be attracted to buy Palantir’s operating system (vs build their own) to accelerate the implementation of AI agents that extend their own unique abilities and core expertise. Additionally, these AI FDEs will allow Palantir engineers and the customers themselves to continue to create new use cases.”

BofA’s stock scribes wrote:

“We see the AI FDEs as an accelerator of growth. By successfully implementing these breakthrough capabilities inhouse, the company will benefit from increased demand, scalability and empowered engineers that can focus on the most complex problems. We think more customers will be attracted to buy Palantir’s operating system (vs build their own) to accelerate the implementation of AI agents that extend their own unique abilities and core expertise. Additionally, these AI FDEs will allow Palantir engineers and the customers themselves to continue to create new use cases.”

Luke Kawa2h

Bank of America explains why Nvidia almost has to invest in OpenAI and Intel

Nvidia is in the business of giving tech bigwigs the tools to try to create God, and in the process, the chip designer has made more money than God.

Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya believes the company is poised to generate hundreds of billions in free cash flow over the next few years as it benefits from the AI boom. Management has to do something with all that money, which helps explain recent investments in OpenAI and Intel, in his view.

“Unlike the old days, investing in other public assets has become difficult given lack of strategic fit and the burdensome regulatory process,” he wrote. “Hence the only other alternative (beyond returning to investors) is to invest in the ecosystem to expand the size of the addressable opportunity that could multiply future benefits, or accelerate time to market for new products, and/or for geopolitical benefits (such as recent INTC investment).”

Investing in its customers is just another way of investing in its own success. And investing in the likes of Intel is a way to add some depth to its product shelf, and perhaps curry some political favor in the process.

Nvidia has been doing this up and down the supply chain, with investments in Applied Digital, Arm Holdings, CoreWeave (which is acquiring Core Scientific), and Nebius Group.

To re-up my previous thoughts on Nvidia’s “House of GPUs,” this degree of implicit vertical integration and platform deepening can be best understood as CEO Jensen Huang trying to ensure that all the possible near-term demand for AI that can be met is met through Nvidia, one way or another.

And accelerating time to market may not be the most desired outcome; as long as Nvidia’s offerings continue to be considered market-leading, advancing too quickly may effectively short-circuit the length of product cycles.

Matt Phillips2h

SoundHound AI soars on deal to power Red Lobster phone orders

SoundHound AI jumped Tuesday after announcing a partnership with Red Lobster for an AI-powered phone ordering agent for takeout that will roll out across all the seafood chain’s locations.

The stock, which was a big favorite of retail shareholders last year when it delivered gains of 835%, has had a far rougher 2025. It was down as much as 60% back in April, but has clawed back to cut its year-to-date loss to roughly 7%.

Red Lobster Partners With SoundHound AI To Power Phone Ordering Across All Locations - SoundHound AI

Matt Phillips3h

Firefly Aerospace dives after first earnings report

Firefly Aerospace, a Texas-based midcap builder of space launch vehicles, dove in early trading Tuesday after posting its first quarterly report since its August IPO.

Results were worse than expected. Sales dropped 26% to $15.5 million. And the company posted an adjusted loss per share of $5.78, compared to a loss of $4.60 per share last year.

Firefly Aerospace shares tumble after it posts widening loss, declining revenue

Luke Kawa3h

Plug Power has nearly doubled in seven sessions on no fundamental news

Plug Power’s romp higher on heavy volumes continues apace.

Nearly 30 million shares have changed hands as of 9:27 a.m. ET, making Plug the second-most-traded stock on US exchanges and propelling the stock up double digits.

There’s little in the way of fundamental news to speak of behind Plug’s recent surge, which has seen shares nearly double since September 12.

If the stock ends higher today, it will mark 10 straight day of gains for the hydrogen fuel cell company, its longest winning streak on record.

Outside of the explosion in volumes in mid-May (after the stock had hit its lowest level in over a decade) and Plug’s meme stock moment in 2014, this is the hottest five-day average for volumes in the stock ever.