Quantum computing stocks soar

Quantum stocks are going gangbusters in early trading on Thursday, with Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum, IonQ, and Quantum Computing all up at least 5.5% as of 10:10 a.m. ET.

Surprisingly, most of these gains are taking place on relatively light volume (and a dearth of news) so far, though Rigetti and Quantum Computing are both enjoying elevated call demand, having already outstripped Wednesday’s call volumes traded a little over half an hour into the session.

The quantum space has benefited from a number of fresh deals with governments and affiliated agencies over the past month, with hopes of more to come, as the Trump administration recently highlighted quantum technology as an R&D budgetary priority for fiscal 2027.

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Luke Kawa46m

Chip stocks post record outperformance of software companies in never-before-seen divergence

One session in 2026 brings one thing we’ve never seen before in markets: a massive divergence between the two big parts of the technology sector.

The VanEck Semiconductor ETF absolutely trounced the iShares Expanded Tech Software ETF today, with the former gaining 3.7% leaving while the latter dropped 2.9%.

The 6.6-percentage point gap is the biggest outperformance for SMH versus IGV on record, going back to December 2011.

Since these two are both parts of a broader technology whole, it’s rare to have one up a ton while the other gets shellacked. The rolling one-year correlation of daily returns for these two ETFs was about 0.8 heading into today.

There have been only three sessions (including today) where the chip stock ETF was up at least 1.5% while the software ETF was down 1.5% or more. We’ve never seen SMH gain 2% while IGV fell 2% before Friday’s session. And there’s been only one session where the reverse happened (November 11, 2024).

The opening trading day of 2026 was phenomenal for the AI picks and shovels trade, while very poor for their more downstream peers.

How and why did this happen? Who knows really, but this looks like the kind of thing where a couple major funds decide to keep their total AI exposure stable but lean into a hardware-over-software tilt when adjusting their positioning at the start of the year, which kicks off intraday momentum that forces everyone else along for the ride.

Tasha Matsumoto, Luke Kawa

49m

S&P 500 snaps losing streak, buoyed by chip stocks

The AI trade was back on as traders dove headlong into a “new year, same AI-fueled rally” thesis.

CHICAGO, IL - JANUARY 14: Benny, the mascot for the Chicago Bulls, performs during a break between the Bulls and the New Orleans Pelicans at the United Center on January 14, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois.

Retail favorites beat out the broader market for third straight year

Retail traders’ favorite stocks best the market for third-straight year

Maybe the “dumb money” knows something.

Matt Phillips57m

Luke Kawa3h

AI downstream stocks tumble even as their picks and shovels peers soar

While the AI picks and shovels stocks are enjoying a strong start to 2026, the same can’t be said for the companies more downstream in this theme — even most of the hyperscalers.

The S&P 500’s biggest losers today include:

AppLovin, which is beloved by Wall Street for its heavy use of large language models to deploy code as well as its AI ad-targeting engine.
Cybersecurity companies CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks, which utilize AI tools to help combat increased AI-fueled vulnerabilities.
Other AI-linked software companies like Palantir, Adobe, ServiceNow, and Salesforce.
Among the hyperscalers, only Alphabet and Oracle are trading in the green on Friday, while Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft are all down between 1.5% and 2.5% as of 1:38 p.m. ET.

Why the 1929 stock market crash still matters, almost a century later

Andrew Ross Sorkin’s new book, “1929,” follows the foremost financiers of the era through the market’s darkest days and the aftermath that created Wall Street as we know it.

Matt Phillips5h

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