Markets
markets
Luke Kawa

Here’s the best explanation we have for why Opendoor suddenly crashed

Opendoor Technologies is having a session for the ages. The stock, which was up nearly 120% at its peak, was halted for volatility shortly after 3:00 p.m. ET after paring half of those gains in a matter of minutes. Shares were volatile after resuming trading and are up about 30% on the day as of 3:38 p.m. ET.

(First of all, it’s insane that a stock that was up more than 50% on the day and approximately a zillion percent in the trailing week was halted for downside volatility.)

Bearing in mind that nobody knows anything, least of all me, here’s a stab at what was going on that drove the halt in shares of Opendoor:

The five-minute stretch near 3 p.m. is the point in time when there has been the most motivated selling in Opendoor all day: approximately 42% of transacted volume took place on the bid side, per Bloomberg data. The bid is the highest price a buyer is willing to pay, the ask is the lowest price a seller is willing to accept (and is higher than the bid), so when we see activity on the bid, it points to motivated selling. In this case, it’s likely pointing to profit-taking on a name that’s run ridiculously hard, ridiculously fast.

It is no surprise to me that breaching $4.50 was what caused the stock’s losses to crescendo.

We’ve spent today talking about gamma squeezes and I specifically highlighted the $4.50 strike earlier as critical: there was zero open interest in the contract before today, and it is the most traded options contract by volume by far, trading more than double any other contract. This arguably makes it the most critical point for the stock.

Gamma is highest when an option is at the money: aiming to lock in profits on these exceptionally profitable wagers means the same dynamics that were pressing the stock higher in recent sessions conspired to make the reverse occur by creating a situation where a large amount of deltas (that is, the underlying stock!) would be unloaded.

More Markets

See all Markets
markets
Luke Kawa

iRobot files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy just 11 days after its record one-day gain

Last one to leave the Roomba, please turn off the lights.

iRobot, maker of robotic vacuums and other cleaning products, announced that it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sunday as part of a restructuring agreement that would see 100% of the company’s equity interests be acquired by its secured lender and its primary contract manufacturer, Shenzhen PICEA Robotics Co., Ltd. and Santrum Hong Kong Co., Limited.

In a press release, the company said that this move “will delever the Company's balance sheet and enable iRobot to continue operating in the ordinary course, pursue its product development roadmap, and maintain its global footprint.”

Shares of iRobot recently booked their biggest one-day gain on record, rising 74% on December 3 on the heels of a Politico report that the Trump administration was planning on going “all in” to boost the robotics industry.

That report spurred a wave of buying from traders who were presumably looking to get exposure to the theme, enticed by the name of a company that has “robot” in it, and less than fully versed on its financial position. Back in March, management had warned investors that “there is substantial doubt about the Company's ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least 12 months.”

Volumes exceeded 228 million on Dec 3, also far and away a daily record for the stock.

Toby Bochan, Luke Kawa
12/12/25
Markets end the week in the red as Broadcom and Oracle concerns drag the entire AI trade down

The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 were all negative on Friday.

The lunchbox
markets
Matt Phillips

Data center trade deep in the red

The data center trade is seeing its steepest sell-off since the market rout that was ignited by President Donald Trump’s Rose Garden tariff announcement back in April.

Goldman Sachs’ themed basket of AI data center shares was down more than 6% at around 12 p.m. ET, putting it on track for its worst day since the tariff announcement.

Losses hammered seemingly every form of input needed for the sprawling concrete server warehouses at the heart of the investment boom.

Hardware makers including data storage companies like Sandisk, Western Digital, and Seagate Technology Holdings, as well as DRAM maker Micron — some of the best-performing stocks in the S&P 500 this year — were taking a licking, as were networking stocks Cisco and Arista Networks and data center builders such as Vertiv Holdings and electrical and mechanical contractor Emcor.

Optimism for all things AI has seemed to evaporate throughout the week, as the stock market greeted lackluster quarterly numbers from Oracle and Broadcom with jittery sell-offs and concern about growing debts that could crater cash flows.

Those worries seem to be spreading to ancillary beneficiaries of the AI boom on Friday, gouging a chunk out of charts that retail dip buyers have not — at least so far — stepped in to buy as we head into the weekend.

markets
Luke Kawa

Oracle denies Bloomberg report that it’s delaying some data centers for OpenAI to 2028 from 2027

Getting a multi-hundred-billion-dollar backlog for cloud computing revenues from data center projects is easy. Building them is hard.

Oracle extended declines to as much as -6.5% on the day on the heels of a Bloomberg report that the cloud giant has pushed back the completion dates for some of the data centers it’s building for OpenAI to 2028 from 2027, citing people familiar with the work. Oracle denied this report, telling Reuters that there have been no delays to any sites required to meet its contractual commitments and that all milestones remain on track.

Shares had fully pared their report-induced drop ahead of Oracle’s reply, but remain in the red for the day.

Bloomberg said the reported postponement was attributed to labor and material shortages.

Oracle has been spending more on capex than Wall Street had anticipated, leading to higher-than-expected cash burn. Management boosted its full-year capital spending plans by $15 billion after reporting Q2 results earlier this week.

Oracle’s cloud infrastructure sales came in short of estimates in its fiscal 2026 Q2, a signal that markets already had reason to doubt its ability to quickly turn its humungous RPO (that is, remaining purchase obligations) into revenues.

Traders also seem to be of the mind that potential delays to data center completions are going to limit sales for what goes into them.

Some of the bigger losers since the Bloomberg headline hit the wires include:

markets
Luke Kawa

Broadcom’s post-earnings tumble is weighing on Google’s entire AI ecosystem

Broadcom’s post-earnings plunge is prompting a sharp pullback in Google-linked AI stocks, which had been on fire thanks to the warm reception to Gemini 3.

The stocks getting hit hard:

A basket of these Google-linked AI stocks compiled by Morgan Stanley is suffering one of its worst losses of the year. This brisk retreat also follows the release of GPT-5.2 by OpenAI.

Latest Stories

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.
©2025 Sherwood Media, LLC