US stocks rally amid hopes of the government shutdown ending soon

Headline kind of explains the story here!

From the source:

Opendoor Technologies made its biggest-ever intraday comeback on Friday, from down more than 20% to closing flat, and surged on Monday as management revealed a dividend of tradable warrants (which will cause headaches for short sellers) along with the company’s Q3 results after the market closed on Thursday.

Getting insiders to buy more stock and have their incentives aligned with shareholders has been something that EMJ Capital’s Eric Jackson, the architect of the surge of retail interest in the online real estate company, has stressed. Jackson flagged his previous experience with Carvana — when CEO Ernie Garcia and many directors bought more shares of the company even as it was nose-diving — as giving him greater confidence in owning that name.

CoreWeave reported a strong sales beat in Q3, with bottom-line results to match.

• Revenue: $1.36 billion (compared to analyst estimates of $1.23 billion and guidance for $1.26 billion to $1.30 billion)

• Adjusted operating income: $217.15 million (estimate: $177.2 million, guidance: $160 million to $190 million)

Those figures exceeded every estimate among analysts polled by Bloomberg. And more strong sales seem to be in the pipeline: CoreWeave’s revenue backlog swelled to $55.6 billion at the end of the quarter, nearly double the $30.1 billion at the end of Q2.

If there’s a fly in the ointment, it’s that CoreWeave seems to be having a little trouble getting as much compute up and running as Wall Street had hoped for, with active power of 590 megawatts at the end of the quarter, while analysts were anticipating nearly 625 megawatts.

When I look at this chart of CoreWeave’s revenue backlog, and in particular how much is slated to be realized within the next 24 months, all I can think is, “That’s got to mean a lot of capex. And power.”

The neocloud had a busy quarter, reaching a $14 billion pact with Meta for AI compute, expanding its agreement with OpenAI, and signing a $6.3 billion deal with Nvidia for any unused cloud computing capacity, among others. CoreWeave’s recent attempt at vertical integration failed, as Core Scientific shareholders voted overwhelmingly against its proposed acquisition on October 30.

However, there’s much less drama around this quarter’s results than the last one. That’s because its lock-up period expired shortly after CoreWeave’s impressive Q2 results, catalyzing a wave of profit taking in the AI darling.

Rigetti Computing reported sales a bit shy of estimates along with a modestly smaller-than-expected loss.

For Q3, the quantum computing firm posted:

• Revenue: $1.9 million (compared to an analyst consensus estimate of $2.17 million)

• Adjusted earnings per share: -$0.03 (estimate: -$0.05)

The prospect of government support has been a major catalyst for the quantum space in recent months, including the US government deeming the technology an R&D priority, which was followed by a report that the Trump administration was in talks to accumulate equity stakes in Rigetti and its peers. That report, however, was quickly contradicted by separate reports.

Rigetti more than tripled from early September to its mid-October closing peak of $56.34, but has since sunk to the low $30s as the air comes out of many speculative, thematic pockets of the market.

Plug Power is little changed in after-hours trading after posting Q3 results a bit ahead of estimates.

The on-again, off-again meme stock and hydrogen fuel cell company reported:

• Revenue: $177.1 million (compared to estimates for $175.05 million)

• Adjusted earnings per share: -$0.12 (estimate: -$0.13)

In its Q2 results, Plug has set a goal of achieving gross margin breakeven on a run-rate basis as an exit rate for Q4 2025 (that is, ending the quarter in a position where revenues at least equal the cost of goods sold). This goal was not reiterated in the press release for Q3.

Plug popped double digits in premarket trading earlier today after announcing that it “has signed a non-binding Letter of Intent to monetize its electricity rights in New York and one other location and collaborate with a US data center developer.” However, that news was apparently overshadowed by another tidbit in the release: that Plug would be abandoning its pursuit of a $1.7 billion loan guarantee from the US Department of Energy (and along with it, projects that would have boosted its hydrogen production).

Shares of EV maker Rivian are up more than 6% on Monday, following the announcement Friday evening that it will award CEO RJ Scaringe a pay package of up to $4.6 billion over the next decade.

The news came a day after Tesla shareholders approved CEO Elon Musk’s $1 trillion pay package, and investors appear hopeful that the incentives will pay off for Rivian stock. Under the tenure of Scaringe, who is also Rivian’s founder, the company’s stock has dropped more than 90% from its peak in 2021.

To earn the full pay package, Scaringe will need to achieve stock price milestones of between $40 and $140, along with other undisclosed targets tied to cash flow and operating profit.