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Online Crafts Retailer Etsy Lays Off 11 Percent Of Workforce
The Etsy mural is seen at its NYC headquarters building (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Etsy tumbles as consumers prefer cheap products to personalized

The brief momentum in AI-enhanced artisanal selling recommendations sputtered.

Etsy’s fourth-quarter revenue miss on declining holiday sales sent the stock tumbling by more than 7% in the premarket.

The online marketplace reported a record $852.2 million in quarterly revenue ahead of market open on Wednesday, eking out a 1.2% gain from a year before but missing forecasts of $861.9 million, according to analysts polled by Bloomberg.

The volume of sales on the company’s marketplaces, which include secondhand clothing site Depop and musical instrument retailer Reverb, fell 6.8% year over year to $3.74 billion, missing estimates of $3.86 billion and marking a third year of declining holiday sales for the company.

The Etsy marketplace itself saw particularly steep declines, with sales down 8.6% from a year earlier. Investors had hoped the site’s AI-powered “gift mode,” which suggests presents from the site’s listings based on the occasion and recipient’s interests, might help reinvigorate holiday sales. The feature, released early last year, helped fuel a brief surge in the company’s stock after showing early signs of success in Q3 results.

The sales miss comes as Etsy’s sales and shares have come under pressure in recent years amid surging popularity for ultracheap retailers like Temu and Shein, with the stock losing about 80% of its value since a pandemic-era peak in 2021. In response, Etsy has aimed in recent quarters to differentiate itself as a strictly handmade marketplace, but an uncertain economic outlook and inflation-weary consumers have remained a challenge. As it turns out, people aren’t keen to make discretionary purchases like personalized art or a hand-knit scarf when their budgets are already stretched.

Going forward, the company expects total gross merchandise sales to decline by a similar year-over-year rate in the first quarter, with “several factors” that should align for improved performance afterward, according to the company’s new CFO Lanny Baker, who offered no details on what those factors might be.


Kelly Cloonan is a journalist who has written for Business Insider and Fast Company.

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Micron jumps after rare double upgrade by BNP Paribas Exane, which lifts price target to Street high of $270

Micron, the best-performing member of the VanEck Semiconductor ETF this year, is jumping on Monday thanks to converting its biggest doubter on Wall Street into its biggest fan.

BNP Paribas Exane analyst Karl Ackerman went through with a rare double upgrade of the memory chip specialist to “outperform” from “underperform.” In the process, he more than doubled his price target on the stock to $270 — the highest among analysts surveyed by Bloomberg — from $100, which had previously been the lowest price target on the Street.

“We now fully embrace high-bandwidth memory (HBM) as a sustainable, separate growth vector, and we beleive we are in the early innings of a memory supercycle,” he wrote.

Separately, analysts at Evercore ISI also boosted their price target on Micron to $137 from $100.

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IonQ soars after announcing “significant advancement in quantum chemistry simulations”

IonQ is ripping higher in early trading after the quantum computing company announced “a significant advancement in quantum chemistry simulations.”

In particular, this demonstration, performed in collaboration with a major automotive manufacturer, was more accurate than classical computing in calculating “nuclear forces at critical points where big changes occur.”

Knowing how different compounds behave and respond to force has potentially very useful commercial applications because it helps us discern how those materials can best be designed and utilized for different purposes.

“This research demonstrates a clear path for quantum computing to enhance chemical simulations that are foundational to decarbonization technologies,” said Niccolo de Masi, chairman and CEO. “Our work goes beyond academic benchmarks. It demonstrates a practical capability that can be integrated into molecular dynamics workflows used across pharmaceuticals, battery, and chemical industries.”

IonQ is the most commercially advanced pure-play quantum computing company, generating over $52 million in revenues over the past 12 months, well more than D-Wave Quantum, Rigetti Computing, and Quantum Computing combined.

Now, is this the reason why IonQ (and its peers) are on a tear today? Maybe. There’s a big rebound in most speculative pockets of the market after Friday’s tariff threat induced a tumble.

At the very least, this is a useful excuse. Traders have been exceedingly happy to bid up shares of quantum computing companies on their long-term potential, often (ironically) through short-term call options.

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Rocket Lab may be “alternative to SpaceX in the making,” says Morgan Stanley

Rocket Lab surged early Monday after Morgan Stanley analysts lifted their price target on the stock to $68 from $20, making them the high bidder among analysts covering the popular, but still money-losing, commercial space launch company.

The $68 target — right around where the shares are currently trading — is the highest among the 17 analysts tracked by FactSet.

And while Morgan Stanley analysts couldn’t bring themselves to upgrade the stock to a “buy,” leaving their rating at “equal weight,” they gave the stock a pretty bullish review, writing:

“We see a potential alternative to SpaceX in the making. The company is mirroring SpaceX’s footsteps in a number of respects, including scaling up rocket lift capacity, embracing booster reusability, and ultimately moving out on a constellation of its own (ala Starlink). Meanwhile, successive Electron launches and a growing manifest reinforce the company’s already-impressive track record. The market, in our view, is now taking valuation cues for RKLB from SpaceX’s implied valuation, which has grown from a reported ~$100bn at the end of 2021 to ~$400bn today.”

Rocket Lab shares have emerged as a favorite of retail traders this year, thanks to their gain of more than 150%. The stock is up roughly 600% over the last 12 months.

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