Intel slumps after Q1 guidance disappoints

Taiwan Semiconductor ticked higher in premarket trading on Tuesday after the chipmaker reported a 30% jump in sales for the first two months of 2026, compared to the year before.

A key supplier for AI industry giants like Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, TSMC saw its combined January and February revenue grow to NT$718.9 billion ($22.6 billion), per its monthly revenue report, published early on Tuesday morning.

The company notched NT$317 billion in February alone, growing 22% from a year ago and decelerating from January's 37% year-on-year growth. For the coming full Q1, analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg are anticipating growth of 33% — suggesting a strong March will be needed to meet that figure.

Charles Shum, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, notes that the modest weakness in the first two months is more likely down to softer performance in smartphones and PCs, rather than cooling AI-chip demand, as soaring memory prices put pressure on shipments.

On Tuesday, Oracle will announce its third-quarter earnings, and all eyes are on the company’s massive AI data center build-out. Last month, the company told investors that it plans to raise $45 billion to $50 billion to fund its ambitious capex plans.

With so much new spending, the company is reportedly looking to make steep job cuts —  thousands of positions across the company — and may be freezing hiring in its cloud division.

Shares of Oracle are down by more than 20% since the start of the year. The stock is down about 56% from its 52-week high of $345.72.

The company’s big bet on AI is causing some concerns among investors, and Oracle has recently seen a wave of lowered price targets from analysts:

• Jefferies: to $320 from $400.

• Scotiabank: to $215 from $220.

• Deutsche Bank: to $300 from $375.

• Baird: to $200 from $300.

On Friday, shares dropped sharply on reports that OpenAI had pulled out of a planned expansion of the Stargate data center in Abilene, Texas. But OpenAI has since clarified that the decision to back out of plans for the expansion was just the result of shifting capacity to other data center sites under construction.

The company will announce its earnings after market close on Tuesday.

FactSet’s survey of analysts shows they expect earnings per share of $1.70 and revenue of $16.9 billion for Oracle’s third quarter. Cloud revenue is expected to be $8.76 billion, and all eyes will be on Oracle’s capex, which is expected to be $14 billion.

Here’s something kind of strange.

If all goes as planned, investors in the most basic kind of investment available — your plain-vanilla, low-cost S&P 500 Index fund, such as SPDR S&P 500 ETF — will soon get a form of pre-IPO exposure to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, one of most sought-after stakes in the private markets.

That’s because one of the new companies that will be added to the S&P 500 (via additions announced on Friday) is EchoStar, the indebted satellite services company that owns Dish Network.

EchoStar — which along with Vertiv Holdings, Lumentum, and Coherent will go into the index on March 23 — is also set to become a not insignificant owner of class A common stock in SpaceX.

SpaceX is said to be targeting an over $1 trillion valuation for an IPO this June. EchoStar has struck deals for shares that would give it a roughly 2.8% stake in SpaceX, analysts say.

SpaceX sold that stake to pay EchoStar for part of the roughly $20 billion cost of prized spectrum assets. The company first struck a spectrum deal with SpaceX in September, before it expanded in November. Investors have since seemed to view the company as a way to gain backdoor exposure to Musk’s hot, privately held space company.

That excitement continues, but it should be noted that even though EchoStar struck a deal for SpaceX shares, company officials say that stock is not yet in its coffers and it won’t be until its SpaceX deals close.

Speaking to analysts after the company’s earnings call on March 2, EchoStar CEO Hamid Akhavan said:

“Until the closing, we don’t have actually the — that SpaceX’s equity. So that is not something that we can make any plans on till we actually get the equity. We have a right to it, but we don’t have the — we actually don’t have that equity yet. So we’ll see how that plays out.”

No closing date was offered when the initial deal with SpaceX was announced in September, with EchoStar releases saying only the “closing of the proposed transaction will occur after all required regulatory approvals are received and other closing conditions are satisfied.”