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Luke Kawa

It sucks to be close to OpenAI right now

There’s a common thread between what’s ailing some different parts of the AI trade right now:

A high-profile relationship with OpenAI is a millstone around your neck. The ChatGPT maker is seemingly getting bested by Google’s Gemini 3 (and knows it) while burning a lot of cash, with no end to the red ink in sight.

Such millstone-afflicted parties include:

  • Investing conglomerate SoftBank has tumbled 9.9% and 10.8% in its two most recent trading days in Japan. SoftBank is a useful way to express a view on how OpenAI is doing because the Masayoshi Son-led firm is poised to own about 11% of the company, and increases in its valuation have been a big driver of SoftBank’s growth in net income. SoftBank sold its entire $5.8 billion stake in Nvidia in October, likely to finance what it owes OpenAI to build its position in that privately held company.

  • Oracle has the dubious distinction of getting battered across two different asset classes thanks to OpenAI. Remember: traders loved Oracle’s massive cloud-revenue backlog in the abstract. When the specifics were revealed and much of that sales pipeline was down to a $300 billion deal with OpenAI, that was when the stock peaked. More recently, credit default swaps tied to Oracle’s debt have also widened significantly, as the company’s infrastructure build-out is launching to fulfill demand from OpenAI, a customer that’s considered to be significantly less creditworthy.

  • The AI chip business of Advanced Micro Devices had a major breakthrough in October, securing a deal to sell multiple generations of its flagship GPUs for “tens of billions” in revenue. But... OpenAI was once again the customer. This was quickly followed by a separate announcement that 50,000 of its AI chips would be deployed in data centers run by Oracle starting in the second half of next year, likely de facto representing a further enmeshing of its relationship with OpenAI.

  • Microsoft has a tighter partnership with and bigger equity position in OpenAI than SoftBank. On the other hand, it also has its own successful core business, which significantly dilutes any OpenAI “signal,” so to speak. It’s the second-worst publicly traded hyperscaler in November, down almost double digits and trailing only Oracle.

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Luke Kawa

Opendoor surges on news that it’s being re-added to Russell indexes

Shares of Opendoor Technologies are spiking after the company announced it’s been selected for inclusion in the Russell 3000 Index.

Being added to indexes often brings along with it flows from funds that track those benchmarks.

“Inclusion in the Russell 3000 Index typically means membership in either the large-cap Russell 1000 Index or the small-cap Russell 2000 Index, as well as in relevant growth and value style indexes,” per the press release.

These additions will be effective after June 26.

What a difference a year makes: Opendoor was removed from the Russell 2000 at about this time last year because its share price had failed to hold $1. The flows associated with getting booted from the Russell 2000 was cited as a reason for elevated short interest on the stock, which one Redditor (u/gregw134) argued made Opendoor an attractive buy — months before its parabolic surge.

Since then, the company has picked up a horde of investors (the so-called “$OPEN ARMY”), overhauled its management ranks, and appears to be on the precipice of breaking even.

Eric Jackson, the architect of the explosion in retail attention on Opendoor, shouted out that Redditor’s research in an interview with Sherwood News:

“That was a great post. It was a really thoughtful post. Really, really detailed. I think I buy into probably 90% to 95% of what he’s saying. And I didn’t know about the whole ETF unloading, kicking it out of the Russell 2000, as a potential reason why it dipped down to $0.50 a couple of weeks ago.”

It’s also a strong session for stocks geared to the real estate market in general, with the fever in long-term bond yields seemingly well and truly broken.

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IREN rallies after securing GPUs to boost run-rate revenues to $4.4 billion

IREN jumped postmarket on Tuesday after management announced that they’d secured supply to make good on their recent deal with Nvidia.

The data company reached a $1.6 billion agreement with Dell for air-cooled Blackwell systems to service its AI cloud contract with the chip designer announced earlier this month.

The stock has pared much of its gains in early trading on Wednesday.

This previously revealed partnership will see IREN build out data centers designed by Nvidia to optimize for its hardware. Some of that compute will then be utilized by Nvidia, which also received warrants to invest up to $2.1 billion in IREN.

Once these systems are up and running in early 2027, IREN said that its annualized run rate would rise to $4.4 billion from $3.7 billion.

“Securing capacity and accelerating commissioning are our top priorities in a market where time-to-compute is everything,” IREN cofounder and CEO Daniel Roberts said in a statement. “Our relationship with Dell ensures access to hardware at the scale and speed the market demands.”

markets
Claire Yubin Oh

Zscaler plummets after revenue guidance falls short of estimates

The market has deeply ingrained software-phobia right now, as traders are highly sensitive to anything software-related giving off any whiff of AI-related weakness. So, it’s not a huge surprise to see Zscaler down more than 20% in premarket trading on Wednesday after the cloud security company gave a softer customer growth outlook than expected, despite reporting solid results for its fiscal Q3.

Zscaler announced better-than-expected results across its key metrics for the quarter ended April 30, 2026, including revenue of $850 million (topping analyst estimates of $835 million, compiled by Bloomberg), annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $3.53 billion (vs. the $3.51 billion expected), and adjusted earnings per share of $1.08 (vs. expectations of $1.01).

But Zscaler’s ability to continue its winning streak is the main question — and as far as the company’s early guidance for new customer additions, its future looks bleaker than expected. The security firm now anticipates total ARR and revenue growth of 16% to 17% for fiscal 2027. In the nearer term, Zscaler also expects Q4 revenue to fall between $875 million and $878 million, with its upper limit below Wall Street estimates of $879 million.

Bloomberg Intelligence analysts noted that Zscaler’s fiscal 2027 ARR growth figure “suggests muted new customer additions are likely to weigh on the top line,” adding that the company “lacks identity security for AI agents in the suite, which may limit larger order closings.” Mizuho, RBC Capital Markets, and Evercore ISI analysts, similarly focusing on future guidance, also lowered their price targets for the stock following the call.

Separately, Citi analysts, who spoke to the company’s management following the results, suggested that new customer growth could provide some upside, as new logo growth wasn’t factored into the 2027 baseline. However, they also noted disruptions to the sales organization from two leadership changes, though the Zscaler’s CEO and CFO seem confident that those impacts will be absorbed, and don’t expect disruptions at the “quota-bearing level.”

Peers CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks also sank around 2% before the bell on Wednesday.

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Stocks climb to new records amid peace prospects; chip stocks rally

Hopes of an imminent peace deal with Iran and reports that the US Navy has restarted shepherding vessels through the Strait of Hormuz sent stocks higher and oil prices lower.

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