Stocks rebound as investors’ risk appetite resumes

If American Eagle has seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of Sydney Sweeney.

The jeans seller posted adjusted earnings of $0.84 per share, ahead of the $0.71 expected by analysts polled by FactSet. It booked $1.76 billion in fourth-quarter revenue, versus the $1.74 billion consensus.

Shares initially climbed more than 5% after-hours before paring gains to about 2%.

“Compelling new product collections, supported by fresh marketing campaigns, led to higher demand trends in the quarter,” said CEO Jay Schottenstein.

American Eagle said it’s expecting same-store sales to grow by high single digits in the first quarter.

Marketing controversy has proved to be a powerful mover of denim for AE. In its third-quarter earnings call in December, AE said its partnership with Sydney Sweeney — together with a Travis Kelce partnership — had garnered more than 44 billion impressions. The retailer hit meme stock status last July when it initially launched its “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans” campaign.

As of Wednesday’s close, American Eagle shares had climbed 120% since the Sweeney ad first landed.

The intense drubbing in South Korean stocks, with the benchmark Korean index (KOSPI) falling nearly 20% in its first two trading days of the week following a Monday holiday, represented a serious threat to the hottest AI trade: memory stocks.

South Korea’s market is dominated by two high-bandwidth memory giants: SK Hynix and Samsung.

After Tuesday’s tumble, US investors seemingly said enough is enough: it’s a buy-the-dip opportunity.

US memory stocks like Micron, Sandisk, Western Digital, and Seagate Technology Holdings are posting massive gains on the day. The advance comes amid positive commentary at a Morgan Stanley conference on demand for memory chips.

Even more interestingly, the iShares MSCI South Korea ETF is up big today despite the KOSPI falling 12% overnight, its largest drop on record. The ETF’s outperformance of the South Korean equity gauge is the largest since 2008, as the global financial crisis raged.

The daily performance of these two can differ materially since they trade at different times and don’t track precisely the same things. US investors are making the bet that a potential break in this momentum trade and the potential for an unwind of retail leverage in South Korean markets be damned, big drops in memory stocks are meant to be bought.

Satellite-services-from-space play AST SpaceMobile surged Wednesday after receiving price target hikes from analysts at Deutsche Bank and UBS amid a broader bounce in retail trading.

Shortly after 1 p.m. ET, the shares were on track for their best daily gain since late January, putting them up 30% for the week — AST reported mixed earnings after the close Monday — and up more than 40% for the year.

In recent years, the stock has been a favorite of smaller traders who’ve ridden AST’s 250% gain in 2024 and 244% gain in 2025. And the fact that the stock sprang back to life this week may mean that after a couple of dazed days following the outbreak of war between the US (and Israel) against Iran, retail speculators are dip-buying once again.

That’s consistent with signals coming from the performance of Goldman Sachs’ themed baskets of stocks Wednesday, where some of the biggest gainers are meme stocks — which include AST SpaceMobile — nonprofitable tech, and bitcoin-sensitive equities.