Markets
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Luke Kawa

GameStop pops as traders hope Ryan Cohen is borrowing Saylor’s strategy

A picture can be worth a thousand words. In this case, all of those are “buy.”

There’s always a tweet (behind any GameStop rally), and shares of the operationally challenged video game retailer are up about 3% in premarket trading after GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen posted a photo with Michael Saylor to X.

Saylor runs Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), the largest corporate holder of bitcoin. The warm market response to Cohen’s tweet suggests that traders are hoping that Cohen uses some of GameStop’s $4.6 billion in cash and cash-like securities to take a page from Saylor’s playbook. (That playbook has one rule: buy bitcoin).

GameStop and Strategy don’t make money from their actual business operations. Whereas GameStop has been able to generate income by cosplaying as a T-bill fund, Strategy has been at the other end of the risk spectrum, benefiting from the value of the bitcoin it holds on its balance sheet rising by about $14 billion.

GameStop’s foray into the crypto realm was largely ineffectual. In January 2022, news broke that the video game retailer had been staffing up for a non-fungible token (NFT) platform. That was launched in July of that year, effectively top-ticking enthusiasm for ownership of this form of digital art. Ryan Cohen became CEO in September 2023, and this marketplace was closed to trading by early February 2024.

Cohen’s leadership is integral to major shareholder and cheerleader Keith Gill’s bull case for the company.

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Max Knoblauch

Carvana tumbles on report from short seller Gotham City Research

Used car retailer Carvana is down more than 16% on Wednesday, with shares on pace for their worst day since April.

A new report from short seller Gotham City Research, which had teased its publication in a post on X earlier in the day, appears to be dragging shares down. In the report, Gotham alleges Carvana’s 2023-24 earnings were overstated by more than $1 billion. (For perspective, Carvana’s earnings in those two years totaled just over $550 million.)

Gotham’s report also alleges that Carvana’s earnings are “far more dependent” on auto loan companies DriveTime and Bridgecrest than the market currently takes into account and that DriveTime’s subsidies fuel over 73% of Carvana’s earnings before interest and taxes. In its post teasing its findings, Gotham said Carvana would “age as one of the biggest Corporate Scandals of America over time.”

Per the report:

“We see problems with accounting, disclosure, and business practices that will lead to regulatory trouble. At best, we believe CVNA is far less profitable than believed, as a standalone business. At worst, CVNA is more like Tricolor, rather than Amazon. Either way, shares face massive downside risk to the share price.”

Carvana did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bottleneck

Wall Street thinks the next bottleneck in AI is chip equipment

Buying snarls in AI has so far led to big gains; analysts say semiconductor equipment stocks, known as semicaps, are where things will clog up next.

Matt Phillips37m
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Matt Phillips

Corning reports better-than-expected Q4 results

Glassmaker Corning, which saw its shares explode higher Tuesday after announcing an up to $6 billion deal to supply fiber-optic equipment for Meta AI data centers in coming years, issued its Q4 numbers before the start of trading Wednesday.

The company reported:

  • Non-GAAP core earnings per share of $0.72 vs. consensus expectations of $0.71 from analysts, according to FactSet.

  • Core sales of $4.41 billion vs. a $4.36 billion consensus estimate from analysts.

The company expects Q1 2026 core sales of $4.2 billion to $4.3 billion, compared to a consensus estimate of $4.26 billion from Wall Street, with core EPS between $0.66 and $0.70, the midpoint of which is a penny higher than the Street’s estimate of $0.67.

Investors traded the stock, which rose 16% on Tuesday after the Meta news, down 3.4% before markets opened. Through the end of Tuesday’s session, shares had nearly doubled over the last six months.

markets
Matt Phillips

GE Vernova, cornerstone of AI energy trade, dips after Q4 profit trails estimates

GE Vernova, which makes turbines used in power plants and has been a cornerstone in the AI power trade, is falling after posting a mixed bag of Q4 results on Wednesday morning.

  • Adjusted EBITDA of $1.16 billion fell short of the $1.25 billion estimate from analysts polled by Bloomberg, dragged down by a loss in its wind business.

  • Total revenue came in at $10.96 billion vs. the $10.21 billion consensus expectation from analysts polled by FactSet.

  • GE Vernova gave full-year 2026 sales guidance of between $44 billion and $45 billion vs. a consensus estimate of $42.13 billion.

  • New orders came in at $22.2 billion vs. expectations for $18.28 billion.

GE Vernova is up some 400% over the last two years, but the majority of those gains were booked by August 2025. Since then, the shares have been largely range-bound, and are down a bit after this morning’s report.

markets
J. Edward Moreno

Starbucks jumps after same-store sales beat estimates in Q1

Starbucks rose as much as 9% in premarket trading and continued to soar when the market opened on Wednesday after it reported financial results that beat Wall Street estimates on same-store sales for its fiscal Q1, with management projecting better-than-expected results for that key metric for the full fiscal year.

For the last three months of 2025, Starbucks reported:

  • $9.9 billion in revenue, higher than the $9.6 billion analysts were penciling in.

  • Same-store sales growth of 4%, significantly higher than the 2.3% analysts polled by FactSet had estimated. This marks the second consecutive quarter where that key metric was positive.

  • Adjusted earnings per share of $0.56, less than the $0.59 the Street was expecting.

The sales beat is a sign that CEO Brian Niccol’s turnaround plan, which includes ideas like the “bearista cup” and extending seasonal drink periods, may be moving the needle. “It is clear from our top-line results that our ‘Back to Starbucks’ plan is working and our turnaround is taking hold,” Niccol told analysts Wednesday morning.

Starbucks’ China business saw comparable-store sales grow by 7% after years of stagnant sales. The company said in November that it would sell a 60% stake in its China sector to Boyu Capital. “China was a standout,” Niccol said.

The company also shared its first financial outlook since suspending its forecast in October 2024. For its fiscal year ending in September, Starbucks guided for same-store sales to rise by at least 3%, more than the 2.83% growth that Wall Street was projecting. Management also expects annual adjusted earnings per share in a range of $2.15 to $2.40, compared to the $2.35 analysts were estimating.

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