Pharmaceutical Company Eli Lilly Headquarters

(Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Lilly Endowment unloads about $600 million in Eli Lilly stock during early October

The nonprofit still owns about 10% of the company, a stake now worth about $80.9 billion.

10/10/25 12:43PM

Lilly Endowment, a nonprofit associated with the founders of the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, has been on a selling spree this month.

The insider has sold more than 1 million shares of Lilly in October in a series of sales worth roughly $599 million, according to regulatory filings. Though the Lilly Endowment has been selling off steadily as the stock climbed over the past couple years, the last time it sold more than 1 million shares in a month was June 2024.

Lilly Endowment still owns about 10% of the company, a stake worth about $80.9 billion as of market close on October 9. At Lilly’s all-time high in August 2024, the nonprofit’s stake was worth $93 billion.

The organization supports various causes, primarily in “community development, education and religion,” its website says. Lilly Endowment did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement to Sherwood, a spokesperson for Lilly Endowment noted that it is required donate at least 5% of the value of its investments each year. It sells Lilly stock "to generate additional cash primarily to cover the required distribution amount," they said.

Lilly, which is up 10% for the year, has fared better than many of its pharmaceutical peers this year as the sector faces various headwinds. That’s largely thanks to its blockbuster diabetes and weight-loss drugs, Mounjaro and Zepbound.

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Stocks rebounded on news that Iran is drafting a protocol with Oman to “monitor transit” through the crucial Strait of Hormuz.

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AI server cluster maker Penguin Solutions takes flight

Small-cap AI server cluster maker Penguin Solutions surged Thursday after posting better-than-expected Q2 revenue and profit numbers Wednesday after the close, along with an increase in full-year sales and profit guidance.

The company, which was known as Smart Global Holdings until July 2024, has positioned itself as a provider of “end-to-end AI infrastructure solutions.”

Its Advanced Computing division designs and sells computers, cabling, and cooling systems, the server racks and clusters of racks AI data centers need. Its other main division sells flash and DRAM memory products.

It’s a pretty small company, with a fully diluted market cap of just over $1 billion and roughly 2,900 employees, according to FactSet.

The stock is volatile. Penguin dove during last year’s tariff tantrum that followed “Liberation Day” in April. Then it turned tail and doubled through early October amid a surge of call options activity, which tends to reflect retail interest. From the October peak, it then plunged by about 50%, before Thursday’s renaissance.

For what it’s worth, call options activity in Penguin is pretty busy today, too — relatively speaking — with roughly 2,625 traded as of 1:15 p.m. ET. That’s the most since early January, when the company last reported quarterly numbers. The average volume over the previous 25 trading sessions is about 325 calls a day, FactSet data shows.

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The company, which was known as Smart Global Holdings until July 2024, has positioned itself as a provider of “end-to-end AI infrastructure solutions.”

It’s a pretty small company, with a fully diluted market cap of just over $1 billion and roughly 2,900 employees, according to FactSet.

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Momentum returns to optics stocks as the release valve for AI optimism

Potentially imminent end to the war? Buy optics stocks.

Maybe not? Buy optics stocks anyway.

Effectively all the juice left in the AI trade is coming from optics (and memory) stocks. And the latter group is taking a bit of a breather today while the former continues to surge.

Shares of Ciena Corp., Lumentum, and Coherent are building on recent big gains and among the biggest gainers in the S&P 500 near midday, while Applied Optoelectronics is also surging on Thursday.

These companies all provide solutions that help information move around in data centers, and thus are key beneficiaries of the aggressive capex plans of hyperscalers. Nvidia has invested $2 billion apiece in Coherent and Lumentum in deals that also include purchase commitments.

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Space stocks rip during a topsy-turvy day for the equity market

Satellite-services-from-space stocks surged Thursday after reports that Amazon is in talks to buy Globalstar, which provides voice and connectivity services from its satellite network. It also can’t hurt that the general mood around space is ebullient, following the successful launch of Artemis II on Thursday.

Planet Labs and ViaSat also soared on the news.

The gains for EchoStar — seen as a backdoor play at pre-IPO SpaceX exposure — and Rocket Lab were more muted, perhaps because a deep-pocketed competitor like Jeff Bezos getting serious about space services could complicate the plans of the two largest commercial space launch companies.

Rocket Lab and SpaceX see launch services as key to their aspirations of being major providers of voice and data services from low-Earth orbit satellites.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s SpaceX is the dominant provider of such services, and the early rumors on the company’s planned IPO — expected to be the largest ever — suggest the market is very excited about the prospects for the industry.

Elsewhere in the space stock world, Intuitive Machines — a maker of space infrastructure that provides services to NASA for lunar missions — also rose.

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Rocket Lab and SpaceX see launch services as key to their aspirations of being major providers of voice and data services from low-Earth orbit satellites.

Elsewhere in the space stock world, Intuitive Machines — a maker of space infrastructure that provides services to NASA for lunar missions — also rose.

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Can Sandisk do the double?

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Sandisk and energy stocks soared while software names sank amid a broad sell-off in tech stocks.

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