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Luke Kawa12/18/25

Micron’s earnings, soft inflation, and OpenAI valuation chatter revive speculative AI trade

The three biggest news events since markets closed yesterday are all helping spur a big bounce-back for the more speculative companies tied to AI:

Micron’s eye-popping Q2 guidance reaffirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt how hot AI demand continues to run in the near term.
While the data is undoubtedly messy, core CPI inflation decelerated by much more than anticipated in November. Lower rates are a clear positive for more marginal companies levered to the AI theme, whose stocks trade with a higher embedded risk of default and whose bonds have also been suggesting more credit risk as of late.
OpenAI reportedly getting its hands on more money (and commanding a higher valuation in the process) provides some semblance of valuation support for these firms and also a better fundamental foundation as well: more cash in CEO Sam Altman’s pockets means more cash he has to make good on commitments to OpenAI’s many suppliers.

Put together, the key news items since Wednesday’s close are producing massive gains for the likes of Bloom Energy, Cipher Digital, POET Technologies, CoreWeave, IREN, and Nebius.

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Tasha Matsumoto

Stocks close at new records, led by chip stocks, as April jobs report surprises to upside

Stocks posted their sixth consecutive weekly gain as April payrolls quelled economic fears.

UNITED STATES - JUNE 12: Basketball: finals, Closeup of Chicago Bulls Michael Jordan victorious with wife Juanita and trophy after game vs Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles, CA 6/12/1991

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Akamai climbs to highest level since 2000 after reportedly securing Anthropic as a customer

Akamai’s billion-dollar AI infrastructure customer is Anthropic, Bloomberg reported on Friday. The cloud services company extended gains to trade up over 25% following the news.

On Thursday, the company announced a seven-year, $1.8 billion commitment from a “leading frontier model provider.”

Anthropic has been on a mad scramble to boost compute capacity after facing widespread complaints about Claude usage limits and seeing OpenAI position its accumulation of computing power as a competitive advantage.

In a little over a month, Anthropic has struck or expanded deals with CoreWeave, Amazon, Google, Broadcom, as well as xAI (through SpaceX).

As part of that xAI pact, Anthropic announced that it would be increasing usage limits for paying customers.

Akamai Technologies jumps on $1.8 billion cloud infrastructure deal

Akamai Technologies jumps on $1.8 billion cloud infrastructure deal

Anthropic has been on a mad scramble to boost compute capacity after facing widespread complaints about Claude usage limits and seeing OpenAI position its accumulation of computing power as a competitive advantage.

In a little over a month, Anthropic has struck or expanded deals with CoreWeave, Amazon, Google, Broadcom, as well as xAI (through SpaceX).

As part of that xAI pact, Anthropic announced that it would be increasing usage limits for paying customers.

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Helena Cheng14h

NuScale Power falls on disappointing drop in Q1 sales

NuScale shares are dropping in the early trading session after it released Q1 earnings yesterday after the bell that are failing to rejuvenate any excitement in the once high-flying, early-stage nuclear energy company.

The company announced Q1 revenue of just $560,000, well below the $10.5 million estimate, with sales down materially year over year thanks to old licensing and design deals that have since been completed.

The lack of financial progress has made NuScale Power more of a momentum-driven way to play the intersection of clean energy and AI infrastructure, particularly as hyperscalers and data center operators search for long-term power sources.

“The demand for reliable, carbon-free power has never been greater, and NuScale is the only SMR technology provider with a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved design, an established supply chain and NPM components currently in production for commercial use to meet this essential need,” said John Hopkins, NuScale president and CEO. “We are building the infrastructure that this pivotal moment requires.”

Analysts at Goldman Sachs trimmed their price target to $9 from $10 in the wake of this report.

The company ended this quarter with cash, cash equivalents, and short- and long-term investments of $1.0 billion. The stock has dropped more than 25% year to date.

“Retail-driven momentum and short squeeze dynamics remain a dominant force in the market today,” says Citadel Securities

Retail has flipped from aggressive put buying to call buying, per Citadel Securities.

2021 Times Square New Year's Eve Celebration

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Max Knoblauch15h

Nintendo falls, will hike Switch 2 price amid memory crunch

Gaming giant Nintendo reported the results for its fourth quarter, which ended in March, on Friday morning. Its US-traded ADR fell nearly 4% in premarket trading.

Most notably, Nintendo announced it will raise the price of its Switch 2 console in the US by $50 to $499.99 in September. Investors have been waiting for Nintendo to join its rivals Sony and Microsoft in boosting the price of its flagship console, but the company had thus far been unwilling to do so this early in the Switch 2’s life cycle.

Nintendo shares have fallen about 45% over the past 12 months, as the company has been hit by tariffs and costs have increased due to AI’s memory demand and higher global shipping rates amid the war in Iran.

For its fiscal 2026, Nintendo reported:

2.313 trillion yen ($14.8 billion) in total revenue, compared to estimates of 2.31 trillion yen ($14.78 billion) from Wall Street analysts polled by FactSet.
19.86 million Switch 2 sales, compared to its 19 million forecast.

For the fiscal year ahead (which will end in March 2027), Nintendo forecast 16.5 million Switch 2 sales. The company is guiding for 2.050 trillion yen ($13.1 billion) in sales for the full year, compared to Wall Street estimates of 2.5 trillion yen ($16.1 billion).

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