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Corporate America’s profit machine kept churning this quarter

The crude-oil sell-off hurt. But the numbers were still good.

Matt Phillips

The Q3 earnings season is nearly done and dusted, with Walmart’s report in the bag today.

Results from big retailers — Target comes tomorrow — are traditionally are seen as more or less the end of the earnings crucible, though late reporter Nvidia’s numbers after the close Wednesday have understandably assumed a new prominence as the symbolic end of the earnings parade.

All told, the earnings results are what we thought they were: a slowdown from the breakneck pace of Q2, but nothing drastic.

They were up about 5%, and just a smidge better than the expected 4%. (They almost always are better than expected, due to corporate executives’ tendency to underpromise and overdeliver in order to help engineer a favorable share-price reaction.)

The giant profits produced by companies in the S&P 500 information-technology sector — buoyed by Apple, Microsoft, and Broadcom — and communication-services sector — which includes Alphabet and Meta — have been the key contributors to bottom-line growth this quarter.

Meanwhile, the downturn in crude-oil prices and energy-sector profits has been the drag on results in Q3. US crude dropped nearly 25% from where it was in September 2023, and Q3 earnings shrank roughly 25% for companies in the S&P 500 energy sector compared to the same period in 2023.

Of course, given the insane scale of Nvidia’s bottom line, the chipmaker’s report will make a mark on the final numbers for the index.

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Infleqtion targets revenue growth of 23% in 2026, up from 12% in 2025

Quantum computing firm Infleqtion said it’s aiming to book $40 million in sales this year as it released its 2025 results after the close on Wednesday.

That would be an increase of roughly 23% compared to the $32.5 million in revenues the company generated in 2025, and would mark an acceleration from growth of 12% last year.

The seller of quantum sensors and computers went public via a SPAC in February after carrying a pre-money valuation of $1.8 billion (well below other pure-play peers like Rigetti Computing, IonQ, and D-Wave Quantum).

“We did $29 million in revenue in 2024, and then we announced that we did $50 million of booked and awarded business in 2025. I think that sets a good foundation for significant revenue growth going forward,” CEO Matthew Kinsella told us in February. “I’ve always deeply believed that we need to develop that muscle of commercialization.”

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Retail traders are selling everything but the Magnificent 7, per JPMorgan

JPMorgan strategist Arun Jain with the skinny on retail trading activity through 11:30 a.m. ET today:

“Retail investors are selling into today’s strength in both ETFs and Single Stocks. In ETFs, they are trimming their broad-based exposure — a major departure from their typical pattern.”

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF and ProShares UltraPro QQQ suffered particularly large outflows, per Jain.

The exceptions to the selling pressure are the Magnificent 7 stocks, he wrote, with Nvidia, Tesla, Meta, and Microsoft enjoying “small net purchases,” while Micron, TSMC, Exxon, and Chevron were the most dumped names.

Retail trading 4/8

Last week, Jain noted that retail traders had been “skipping the dips, selling into rallies, and positioning more defensively” with markets jittery amid the ongoing Mideast war.

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Avis shorts facing $1.1 billion in losses as car rental company racks up 155% gains in its recent rally

Whatever traders are doing with Avis — buying, or just renting — it’s causing short sellers an immense amount of pain.

Shares of the car rental company have traded violently on Wednesday, from up nearly 7% at their highs to down almost 4% at their lows, after a face-ripping rally of 155% over the previous 11 sessions.

Per exchange data, roughly half the shares were sold short as of mid-March. S3 Partners, which tracks higher-frequency measures, said that short interest as a share of float had recently been trimmed to about 43%, down from as high as 53% at the start of the year.

Per Matthew Unterman, managing director at S3, Avis shorts are down $1.1 billion on paper over the past 30 days.

This isn’t Avis’ first rodeo: shares went parabolic in Q4 2021 as part of a meme stock moment in which it briefly became the most valuable company in the Russell 2000 small-cap index.

In any event, cheers to u/Bright_Leopard_4326, who admonished other members of the r/ShortSqueeze subreddit for not paying enough attention to the potential for a boom in the stock 10 days ago, when shares were trading below $150.

AVIS short squeeze
Source: r/ShortSqueeze

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