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Alex Karp Palantir CEO
Palantir boss Alex Karp (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Palantir plunges as Trump trades unravel

Assets including Palantir, Tesla, bitcoin, and others that soared following Trump’s victory in last year’s presidential elections have crashed in recent weeks.

Palantir is again flirting with its deepest daily drop since last May — last Thursday’s drop of 10.7% came close — amid a growing sell-off in so-called Trump trades, assets including Palantir, Tesla, bitcoin, and others that soared following his victory in last year’s presidential elections but have crashed in recent weeks.

Palantir’s drop on Monday came with relatively little news to explain it. But in recent weeks, the shares have come under pressure following reports of planned deep cuts to defense spending (Palantir’s top customer is the US government) as well as on going stock sales by company insiders.

More broadly, the data analytics and AI software company’s plunge is part of a broader breakdown in momentum stocks and a reversal of prices for Trump-related assets since the market topped back on February 19.

Such companies often have political, ideological, or financial ties to the administration. Palantir’s single largest shareholder is Republican megadonor Peter Thiel, who has a stake in the company worth more than $6 billion. Tesla CEO Elon Musk was an outspoken Trump supporter before taking on a role as the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency. Other companies, like federal immigration contractor GEO and Taser maker Axon, were expected to benefit from increased focus on immigration enforcement. And bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were supposed to be a big beneficiary of administration policies.

But growing investor concerns about the impact of tariff policy, deterioration of consumer sentiment, and rising chatter about a potential economic downturn, as well as a somewhat lackluster approach to crypto from the administration, seem to have taken much of the excitement out of those bets.

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Investors just made a mammoth $133 billion flip from cash to stocks, per Goldman Sachs

It’s a dash from cash, with investors taking billions in dry powder and pouring that money into the stock market.

“We saw strong net flows into global equity funds last week, led by stronger inflows into US and EM equity funds (+$71 billion vs $2 billion in the previous week) — more than 35x-ed the flows,” wrote Goldman Sachs’ Gail Hafif, Brian Garrett, and Lee Coppersmith. “While equity flows increase, money market fund assets fell by $62 billion. This is the 3rd largest level in our dataset (!).”

Goldman cash to stocks flows

The trio is bullish on US stocks, seeing “the case for contained selloffs coupled with relief rallies as the most likely path forward in the near term.”

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Moderna extends rally on positive cancer vaccine results

Moderna has more than doubled since it announced on Tuesday that its cancer vaccine reduced the risk of relapse or death for melanoma patients.

The five-year data from a Phase 2b trial showed that Moderna’s vaccine, when used with Merck’s blockbuster treatment Keytruda, reduced the risk of recurrence or death by 49% compared with Keytruda alone. The news gave investors hope that Moderna, which is best known for quickly developing a COVID-19 vaccine, may soon have another lucrative product in its portfolio.

Last week, Moderna said it expects to report total 2025 revenue of $1.9 billion, on the high end of its latest guidance of between $1.6 billion and $2 billion, amid better-than-expected vaccination rates. As demand for the COVID-19 vaccine, its sole revenue-generating product, has tanked, the company has aggressively cut costs and focused on expanding its portfolio.

The combination of positive announcements early in the year has made Moderna the second-best performer in the S&P 500 Index in 2026, behind newfound AI darling Sandisk.

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POET Technologies tumbles after announcing $150 million direct share offering

POET Technologies is tumbling in early trading Thursday after the optical communications company announced that it’s raising $150 million through the sale of about 20.7 million shares in a registered direct offering.

It’s an opportunity for management to cash in on the stock’s more than 30% rally year to date (as of Wednesday’s close).

“With a substantial base of cash, we plan to accelerate our pursuit of targeted acquisitions, add to our capabilities and talent base, vertically integrate our products with differentiated components, and expand operations to pursue revenue opportunities across the board, in order to bring long-term value to shareholders,” Executive Chairman and CEO Dr. Suresh Venkatesan said.

POET’s last offering came in late October, after which shares nearly halved in less than a month amid a broad drawdown in speculative, volatile stocks beloved by retail traders.

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Oracle gains amid report that the TikTok deal is poised to close this week

Oracle is gaining in premarket trading as Semafor reports that China and the US have signed off on the sale of TikTok’s US operations to a consortium in which the software giant is one of the three leading investors.

The transaction is poised to close this week, per the report, citing people familiar with the situation.

In mid-December, Oracle booked a huge gain after the CEO of TikTok owner ByteDance indicated that he’d signed contracts with Oracle and the other major investors leading this consortium, private equity firm Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-backed tech investment company MGX.

If, as previous reporting suggested, the transaction values TikTok’s US operations at about $14 billion, that would mark a fairly low price tag for a lot of eyeballs and ad dollars. This pact will also afford Oracle’s cloud business an opportunity to deepen its preexisting relationship with TikTok.

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