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Luke Kawa

Nvidia, AMD reportedly granted export licenses for chip sales to China in exchange for giving US government 15% of revenues

The Financial Times is reporting that Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices have formally secured permission to export AI chips tailored for China to the world’s second-largest economy. As part of the deal, the companies have agreed to send 15% of the revenues generated from these chip sales to the US government, per the FT, citing people familiar with the situation including a US official.

That part of this arrangement is highly unusual, and has been met with critiques from trade policy experts.

After the close on Friday, the FT reported that Nvidia had received an export license that would allow the chip designer to send its H20 processor to China once again.

In mid-July, both companies received assurances that they’d be granted export licenses to restore their access to what Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang calls a $50 billion data center market, sparking big rallies in their stocks.

In its second-quarter earnings report last week, AMD posted better-than-expected guidance for the current quarter, but noted that its license application was still under review and that this outlook did not include any revenues from MI308 sales to China.

Per Reuters, Chinese demand for Nvidia’s H20 chips is also so intense that the chip designer has already ordered an additional 300,000 chips from TSMC.

In their Q1 earnings reports, Nvidia and AMD took $4.5 billion and $800 million write-downs, respectively, related to the loss of their China business in light of export controls put in place in April.

Nvidia’s calendar 2025 sales estimates are up just 0.7% in the past month, suggesting that analysts have been slow to incorporate the impact of renewed access to the Chinese market into their forecasts. For AMD, however, estimates are up 3.6% over the same period, which may have been indicative of Wall Street expecting some boost from sales to China or may have also reflected optimism around its new line of AI chips.

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Luke Kawa

Strategy jumps as MSCI allows digital asset treasury companies to stay in global indexes

In a massive reprieve for Strategy, index provider MSCI is letting digital asset companies stay in its benchmarks, sending shares sharply higher in after-hours trading.

The index provider had floated a proposal in which firms where crypto holdings are more than 50% of assets would be excluded from its global indexes, but has decided not to proceed with this for now.

“MSCI has determined at this time not to implement the proposal to exclude digital asset treasury companies (‘DATCOs’) from the MSCI Global Investable Market Indexes (‘MSCI Indexes’) as part of the February 2026 Index Review,” per a statement.

Getting kicked out of key indexes would have caused funds to flow out of Strategy, the largest digital asset treasury company, and its peers.

“At this time,” of course, means the door is open to reconsidering this down the road, as MSCI plans on having a broader review and consultation on the treatment of DAT companies.

“Distinguishing between investment companies and other companies that hold non-operating assets, such as digital assets, as part of their core operations rather than for investment purposes requires further research and consultation with market participants,” according to MSCI.

markets
Matt Phillips

Rocket Lab surges to second straight record-high close

Retail favorite Rocket Lab closed at a new all-time high on Tuesday, continuing a remarkable run over the last month that has carried the launch services provider and aspiring Space X competitor up more than 70% over the last month (compared to its close of $49.06 on December 5).

Rocket Lab saw elevated options activity during its run-up today, with well over 3.5x the 90-day average in options volume changing hands over the course of the day.

Other space plays such as AST SpaceMobile and EchoStar surged today.

Despite being a money-losing company — it’s never turned an annual profit as a public company — Rocket Lab’s share price has soared nearly 1,500% over the last two years, generating tons of loyalty and enthusiasm among retail investors.

In fact, Goldman Sachs has made Rocket Lab the heaviest weighting in the latest iteration of its GS Memes basket of thematic stocks, just ahead of AST SpaceMobile, showing how enamored traders have become of such space stocks.

CHICAGO, IL - MARCH 05: Benny, the mascot for the Chicago Bulls entertains during a break between the Bulls and the Boston Celtics at the United Center on March 5, 2018 in Chicago, Illinois.

The S&P 500 closes at a record high

The Nasdaq 100 and Russell 2000 outperformed, rising 0.9% and 1.4%, respectively.

Tasha Matsumoto3h
markets
Max Knoblauch

JetBlue takes off on bullish options activity

Low-cost airline JetBlue is up more than 8% on Tuesday, on pace for its biggest daily gain since August. If the price momentum holds, Tuesday will mark JetBlue’s sixth-best trading day of the past 52 weeks.

The carrier is being propelled by bullish options activity, with more than 53,000 call options changing hands as of 12:14 p.m. ET, nearly 4x the 20-day average for a full session.

JetBlue closed up 4.6% on Monday, as traders appeared to price in medium-term oil supply relief due to the possibility of Venezuela’s reserves getting more developed amid tensions with the US.

markets
J. Edward Moreno

Moderna rallies after BofA raises its price target to $24 from $21

Moderna rose on Tuesday after Bank of America analysts raised their price target for the ailing biotech behind the COVID-19 vaccine, painting a rosy picture of the products in its pipeline.

BofA kept Moderna’s “underperform” rating but raised its price target to $24 from $21, which now accounts for “refreshed revenue builds for lead assets.” Analysts said the company’s cost-cutting measures, paired with potential new revenue from its investigatory oncology vaccines, could bring it back to profitability in the coming years.

Moderna is best known for being tapped by the US government to quickly develop a vaccine for COVID-19 in 2020, a product that remains its single source of revenue. The company has yet to bring new products to market and is now faced with a second Trump administration hostile to that product.

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