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Opendoor price target raised to a Wall Street high of $6 at Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley analysts raised their price target on Opendoor Technologies to the highest on Wall Street. However... they’re still not actually bullish on the online real estate company.

In a wide-ranging note on internet stocks as the Q3 earnings season heats up, analysts Brian Nowak and Matthew Cost (who covers Opendoor) wrote:

“While we see limited fundamental justification for OPEN’s recent outperformance, we also see the opportunity for a pivot back to home-buying (and significant operating leverage) should there be a stronger housing market recovery. Moreover, similar situations with other stocks have shown that higher valuations are not only often more sustainable than expected, but also create the opportunity for companies to raise capital and address challenges with the support of an enthusiastic shareholder base. With that in mind we mark our base case price target to market at $6.”

Morgan Stanley’s previous price target was $2. Analysts kept their “market perform” (or “hold”) rating on the company intact.

The obvious corollary here is GameStop, a company that has had a high value ascribed to the value of its cash based on the idea that CEO Ryan Cohen would be able to do a lot to transform the company with that money. Opendoor bulls are similarly enthused by the company’s turnaround prospects under its new management. Its biggest one-day gain on record came after news that cofounders Keith Rabois and Eric Wu were being added to the board of directors and that Shopify COO Kaz Nejatian was coming in to serve as CEO.

GameStop, without doing anything too revolutionary, has managed to turn around its business since its initial run as a meme stock, and has now strung together five consecutive quarters of positive operating cash flows for the first time in its history.

The sell side is pretty downbeat on Opendoor, with just one “buy” (or “buy equivalent), five “hold,” and five “sell” ratings among analysts tracked by Bloomberg.

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US airlines climb as oil plunges following Trump’s softer position on Iran intervention

West Texas Intermediate crude futures were down around 4.7% Thursday afternoon as President Trump appeared to soften his stance on further US strikes against Iran.

That sent US airline stocks climbing as investors priced in lower fuel costs. Shares of United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and American Airlines all rose about 3% on Thursday. Earlier this month, airline stocks were boosted when investors appeared to price in some medium-term relief on the possibility of Venezuela’s reserves becoming more developed.

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TSMC’s blowout quarter, guidance, and capex plans send AI to the sky

TSMC’s stellar Q4 results, bright Q1 guidance, and willingness to spend way more on capital expenditure than analysts had anticipated this year are giving a big jolt to the AI trade.

“We believe the strong 1Q26 guidance has likely surprised many investors to the upside,” wrote Needham analyst Charles Shi, who boosted his price target on the stock to $410 from $360 in the wake of these results. “Solid CapEx guidance should also lead to even stronger wafer fab equipment (WFE) outlook for 2026 and beyond.”

Beyond TSMC, the results are boosting other stocks tied to AI:

No single quarter of corporate earnings or guidance is sufficient proof against (or in favor of!) any kind of AI bubble, particularly when the biggest drivers of capex have consistently said the risk is spending too little rather than too much.

But TSMC is keenly aware of the potential downside of overextending itself into a future air pocket in demand, and has engaged in long-term planning and channel checks downstream to better understand the market for its products.

If TSMC’s capex plans aren’t executed well, it would be a “big disaster” for the company, CEO CC Wei said on the conference call.

But engaging with customers over their production needs for new wafers is being done “at least two to three years in advance,” he added.

“I spent a lot of time in the last three, four months talking to my customers and then my customers’ customers” to make sure that demand is real, said Wei, who came away “quite satisfied with the answer” and was shown “the evidence that the AI really helped their businesses.”

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Talen soars on new power plant purchases in giant grid feeding Data Center Alley

Talen Energy soared early Thursday after the Houston-based utility said it had bought power plants in the massive PJM exchange, which has seen rising consumer prices linked to AI infrastructure.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday on how the run-up in prices has been a growing political headache for data center developers.

Yesterday, PJM cut its forecast for peak summer of 2027 demand, suggesting that data center electricity demand going forward may have been overstated.

But Talen’s purchase of natural gas-fueled plants — one in Indiana and two in Ohio — for $3.45 billion in cash and stock suggests the company remains bullish on the AI build-out, especially within the 13-state PJM grid. The nonprofit power grid serves 67 million people from New Jersey to Kentucky, and includes key areas of relatively high data center density such as Ohio and Virginia.

Early Thursday, Talen shares were up by the most since last July. This reaction to the latest in a string of acquisitions suggests Talen executives have an incentive to stay on offense.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday on how the run-up in prices has been a growing political headache for data center developers.

Yesterday, PJM cut its forecast for peak summer of 2027 demand, suggesting that data center electricity demand going forward may have been overstated.

But Talen’s purchase of natural gas-fueled plants — one in Indiana and two in Ohio — for $3.45 billion in cash and stock suggests the company remains bullish on the AI build-out, especially within the 13-state PJM grid. The nonprofit power grid serves 67 million people from New Jersey to Kentucky, and includes key areas of relatively high data center density such as Ohio and Virginia.

Early Thursday, Talen shares were up by the most since last July. This reaction to the latest in a string of acquisitions suggests Talen executives have an incentive to stay on offense.

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Spotify increases its US subscription prices for the third time in 3 years

The cost to stream music and podcasts ad-free on Spotify is going up again in the US next month, marking the third price hike by the company since 2023.

The monthly cost of individual premium plans will increase from $12 to $13, while family plans will jump from $20 to $22. Spotify last raised US prices in July 2024 (and 2023 before that). This is the first price hike under the tenure of new co-CEOs Gustav Söderström and Alex Norström, who together replaced Daniel Ek earlier this month.

Spotify shares climbed about 3% after the market opened on Thursday, but has since fallen in early trading.

When it reported third-quarter earnings in November, the streamer said its global paid subscriber count had climbed to 281 million — 12% year-over-year growth. At the same time, ad-supported revenue fell 5.5% despite an 11% jump in monthly active users.

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