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Max Knoblauch2h

JPMorgan downgrades Roblox, says hits like “Steal a Brainrot” are past their peak

Shares of kid-focused gaming platform Roblox fell about 3% in premarket trading on Friday following a downgrade by JPMorgan to “neutral” from “overweight.”

As part of the firm’s 2026 outlook, analyst Cory Carpenter cited key headwinds that could dampen Roblox’s prospects next year. Among them: the need for more viral hits like “Grow a Garden” and “Steal a Brainrot,” which Carpenter says are past their peaks.

According to JPMorgan, further engagement hits could also come from Russia’s ban of the platform (the bank noted that Russia’s ban could affect up to 10 million daily active users, as it’s a top five market) and the facial age estimation rollout coming next month, which Roblox has said may “negatively impact platform engagement in the short term.”

Also looming for Roblox and the entire gaming industry is Take-Two’s expected mass hit “Grand Theft Auto VI.” Per Carpenter, the rollout of the Fornite and Unity Software partnership could also create more noise for Roblox.

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Matt Phillips17m

Citi initiates coverage of Planet Labs with “buy” rating

Planet Labs was up after aerospace and defense analysts at Citi initiated coverage with a “buy/high risk” rating and $19 price target.

The stock is up more than 40% this week, after a strong earnings result that spotlighted the company’s growing opportunity in linking its core business of capturing daily images of the planet with AI technologies.

Citi analysts noted the potential for a positive flywheel effect for Planet Labs as it deepens its focus on integrating AI into its offerings:

“AI is accelerating the conversion of pixels to decisions, where Planet’s daily scan and deep archive offer a uniquely large training corpus and broad-area foundation for automation. AI-enabled solutions (MDA/GMS/AMS) are gaining traction with customers such as NATO and the U.S. DoW, validating the approach of integrating AI into broad-area monitoring products... These AI moves create a compounding advantage: more coverage generates more training data, which improves models, which in turn increases product utility and addressable demand.”

The stock has also caught the attention of some of the retail trading crowd, with call options activity spiking on Thursday as traders rode the market reaction to the results.

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Max Knoblauch31m

After a good night’s rest, investors decide they liked Rivian’s AI Day event, sending the stock surging

Wall Street didn’t seem to care very much about Rivian’s AI news when it dropped yesterday, but today is a new day.

Shares of the EV maker are up more than 16% on Friday morning, with call volumes already at about 70% of their 20-day average just 20 minutes into the trading session. The price action propelled Rivian stock to its highest level since January 2024.

Following Rivian’s Thursday event, in which it said it would replace Nvidia chips with its own and hinted at a robotaxi plan, Needham & Co. sharply hiked its price target on the company from $14 to $23. Analyst Chris Pierce wrote that the AI event “strengthened [Needham’s] conviction in RIVN’s longer term autonomy roadmap and points of differentiation vs legacy OEMs.”

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J. Edward Moreno1h

Fermi drops after tenant terminates $150 million contract

Fermi fell in early trading on Friday after it disclosed that its first tenant for its planned Project Matador power grid site has terminated its $150 million contract.

Fermi, which was cofounded by former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, plans to build nuclear energy infrastructure to power data centers. In September, Fermi announced that it had entered into a nonbinding letter of intent with a tenant to lease a portion of Project Matador. That contract was terminated on Thursday, Fermi said in a Friday regulatory filing.

Fermi, which currently generates no revenue, said it is talking to other potential tenants for the Project Matador Site and “remains confident that it will be able to meet its expected power delivery schedule at Project Matador as the demand for behind-the-meter power for AI remains robust over the near and long term.”

Fermi, which went public in October, is now down more than 70% since its IPO. Last month the company had its first quarterly earnings report, in which it reported steeper-than-expected losses.

J. Edward Moreno

Weed stocks rally on reports that Trump admin is close to reclassifying marijuana

It’s not the first (or second or third) time that the Trump administration has been rumored to be considering reclassification.

Jar full of marijuana buds

markets

Nvidia gains after report that there’s so much demand from China it’s considering boosting H200 output

Shares of Nvidia caught a bid in premarket trading after Reuters reported that the chip designer has told customers in China that it is considering adding more capacity to produce H200 chips in light of a deluge of demand.

The report cites two sources briefed on the matter, one of whom added that Nvidia is “leaning toward adding new capacity,” per Reuters.

The outlet recently reported that Alibaba and ByteDance were eager to buy H200 chips, which were previously subject to export curbs and banned from being sold to the world’s second-largest economy. US President Donald Trump announced an end to these export restrictions on Monday, in exchange for 25% of the proceeds from their sale going to the US government.

The chip designer’s stock jumped on that revelation, but pared gains following a report from the Financial Times that “regulators in Beijing have been discussing ways to permit limited access to the H200,” according to two people familiar with the matter.

If Nvidia wants to boost H200 production, it’ll face stiff competition for memory and packaging from both other chip designers as well as internally from its own new top offering, Blackwell.

The H200 is the top chip from Nvidia’s Hopper line, the generation preceding Blackwell. Analysts indicate it’s more powerful than anything Chinese buyers can get their hands on from domestic sources.

It’s also certainly much more advanced than the H20, a nerfed version of the premier Hopper offering. That chip had an on-again, off-again relationship with China: it was tailor-made for sale there, but then subject to export restrictions. Once those were lifted, China pushed its tech champions to forgo purchases of these processors, preferring they buy from domestic alternatives, and major purchases “never materialized,” per Nvidia CFO Colette Kress.

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