Tech powers stocks to another record close

Shares of Rocket Lab are surging after announcing an $8 billion acquisition of satellite communications operator Iridium Communications, helping lift a broader basket of space-related stocks as investors piled back into the sector.

Planet Labs, AST SpaceMobile and Redwire all traded higher alongside Rocket Lab, extending gains in an industry that has drawn enhanced investor attention in recent months in light of the strategic importance that governments place on space and satellite communications infrastructure.

In a presentation, Rocket Lab’s management called the purchase “a shortcut” for its satellite communications business.

Under the terms of the agreement, Iridium shareholders will receive $27 in cash and Rocket Lab stock, valuing Iridium at $54 per share. Backed by a $3.6 billion bridge loan committed by Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo, Rocket Lab absorbs Iridium’s globally licensed spectrum and an active base of 2.5 million subscribers.

Rocket Lab has also remained one of the most active launch providers in the sector. The company completed its 12th launch of the year last week, maintaining one of the highest launch cadences among commercial space companies.

Today's rally helps offset a brutal stretch for the group. Rocket Lab shares had fallen over 35% over the prior month, while Planet Labs stock was down more than 40% and AST SpaceMobile stock was down around 30% over the same window.

Comcast rose on the news that the telecom behemoth is spinning off NBCUniversal and Sky from its cable portfolio. 

Comcast initially jumped up to 17% in early trading, with the deal leaving management to focus on its core verticals of cable, wireless, and business services. 

NBCUniversal and Sky will form a new publicly traded company, similar to Versant Media, the holding company of CNBC and MS NOW that Comcast officially spun off in January. Bravo, one of the most lucrative properties that remained at Comcast, will remain part of NBCUniversal in the deal. The Universal theme parks and studios will also come with the new spinoff entity, along with Telemundo and Peacock.

Mike Cavanagh, the co-CEO of Comcast, will become the CEO for NBCUniversal, according to CNBC. 

The spinoff will be completed in about a year, according to a Comcast company statement. Its shareholders will also own shares in NBCUniversal, according to the same statement.

The former memestock BlackBerry surged on blowout earnings this week — and the bull case has nothing to do with phones. 

• Q1 Revenue: $152.9 million, up 26% from a year ago 

• EPS: 4 cents, the fourth time in five quarters that BlackBerry posted a net profit

• Shares of the stock are up nearly 180 percent over the past year. 

• Cars on QNX: 275 million, nearly every maker except Tesla

When you think of Blackberry, you probably picture the clunky QWERTY keyboard and yearn for the pre-AI slop era. But for many traders, that nostalgic memory could have been getting in the way of evaluating a rising star. 

In its first quarter earnings on Thursday, the cell-phone-turned-B2B-enterprise-software-company blew past estimates with revenue up 26% and a 44% EPS beat after back-to-back 30%+ beats before that. The company hiked its full-year profit forecast to 16 cents to 20 cents per share with revenue between $594 million and $621 million. 

“The market still misdefines BlackBerry,” analyst Suthan Sukumar of Stifel said Tuesday in a note to clients. “This is…a mission-critical software layer in the physical AI stack and a dominant partner to silicon leaders like NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and AMD powering the build-out from cloud to edge, across cars, robots, factories, and medical devices.” 

QNX, BlackBerry’s real-time operating system — runs inside of 275 million cars worldwide. “There's more software going into a car these days than ever before, CEO John Giamatteo told Bloomberg on Friday. “That's really where we shine as a company.” 

Modern autos generate terabytes of daily data, from tire pressure to monitoring driving behavior, and QNX is the foundation beneath all of it. The system is safety-certified, that’s engineer talk for does what it's told, every time, whereas AI systems make predictions based on probabilities. 

“As intelligent machines become increasingly autonomous and operate around people, the requirements for safety, security, reliability, and real-time determinism become even more important,” said Giamatteo on Thursday’s earnings call. “Unlike probabilistic AI systems, QNX technology is deterministic and safety-certified, which is exactly why it is so hard to replicate and why customers trust it for systems where failure is not an option.”

About 20% of QNX revenue now comes from non-car segments. Use in robotics, medical devices, drones, and industrial automation are growing. In June, NVIDIA announced Halos for Robotics and QNX is in the stack. Per QNX’s own research, 85% of robotics engineers expect software’s role in their field to increase over the next three to five years. 

Similarly, analysts say the global military drone sector is expected to surpass $25 billion in 2026 and more than double by 2032. QNX is already deployed in unmanned aerial systems as well as used in military-grade encrypted communications.

What does the Street think now? 

• Raised from $4.75 to $9.50 at Raymond James

• Raised from $10 to $13 at CIBC 

• Coverage initiated with Buy at $12 at Stifel 

On Friday, when Bloomberg asked if consumers could swap out iPhones for the nostalgic keyboard again, Giamatteo said “I don't think you'll see us get back into the phone game anytime soon.”

BlackBerry shed its consumer identity years ago. What’s left is a profitable B2B software company that’s already embedded in tech infrastructure from cars to robots to drones. As physical AI scales, the demand for trusted safety-certified software is likely to grow.

From flipping burgers to being flipped by retail traders:

It seems Wendy’s may now be a meme stock?

Shares are up over 30% in early trading, with the ticker being the most mentioned on the WallStreetBets subreddit over the past 12 hours, per SwaggyStocks.

As of 9:03 a.m. ET, more money had changed hands trading Wendy’s stock in the premarket than Microsoft, Palantir, Apple, Amazon, or Meta.

(I’m no doctor, but I think pairing this with a short-lived meme stock of 2025, Krispy Kreme, could result in negative health outcomes.)

User u/ElegantCombination43 recently tried to stir up support by posting in r/wallstreetbets that redditors “need to save Wendy’s before it’s too late,” adding that “we’ll all be out of a job” if it goes bankrupt.

On Tuesday morning, the fast food chain announced a C-Suite shuffle, hiring Steve Cirulis from Potbelly to serve as chief financial officer and chief strategy officer.

Wendy’s could certainly use a shot in the arm to bolster its operations: trailing 12-month sales and adjusted earnings per share for Wendy’s are flat and lower, respectively, since the end of 2023.

Anyhow, Wendy’s fries are superb and second to none. Don’t @ me.