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Hyunsoo Rim6/25/25

QuantumScape has never made any revenue, but its stock is up 35% this morning after claiming to have hit major milestone

QuantumScape, a $2.4 billion market cap (as of last night) development-stage company working on solid-state battery tech for EVs, jumped 35% after the closing bell on Tuesday following the company’s announcement that it had reached a “major milestone” in scaling up production of its ceramic battery separators.

The separator is QuantumScape’s core product — and its new breakthrough integration is faster, more energy efficient, and takes up less space compared to earlier methods, the company said.

Founded in 2010 by a group of Stanford scientists, QuantumScape went public in 2020 after it had secured a $380 million investment from Volkswagen — still its largest shareholder — along with backing from Bill Gates and top venture firms. The company initially set out to make full lithium metal EV batteries that offer “greater energy density, longer life, faster charging, and greater safety” than conventional batteries. The plan sent shares soaring after its Nasdaq debut, giving the company a market cap of more than $47 billion at its December 2020 peak.

But as turning lab results into real-world production proved slower than expected — and many automakers delayed similar ambitions — QuantumScape shifted its focus. Last July, the company said it would stop making full batteries and focus instead on manufacturing the separator, while licensing its technologies to Volkswagen’s EV battery unit, PowerCo, which will handle battery production.

Despite Tuesday’s surge, the stock remains down 95% from its all-time high. The company has never made any revenue.

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Matt Phillips4h

Corning reports better-than-expected Q4 results

Glassmaker Corning, which saw its shares explode higher Tuesday after announcing an up to $6 billion deal to supply fiber-optic equipment for Meta AI data centers in coming years, issued its Q4 numbers before the start of trading Wednesday.

The company reported:

Non-GAAP core earnings per share of $0.72 vs. consensus expectations of $0.71 from analysts, according to FactSet.
Core sales of $4.41 billion vs. a $4.36 billion consensus estimate from analysts.

The company expects Q1 2026 core sales of $4.2 billion to $4.3 billion, compared to a consensus estimate of $4.26 billion from Wall Street, with core EPS between $0.66 and $0.70, the midpoint of which is a penny higher than the Street’s estimate of $0.67.

Investors traded the stock, which rose 16% on Tuesday after the Meta news, down 3.4% before markets opened. Through the end of Tuesday’s session, shares had nearly doubled over the last six months.

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Matt Phillips4h

GE Vernova, cornerstone of AI energy trade, dips after Q4 profit trails estimates

GE Vernova, which makes turbines used in power plants and has been a cornerstone in the AI power trade, is falling after posting a mixed bag of Q4 results on Wednesday morning.

Adjusted EBITDA of $1.16 billion fell short of the $1.25 billion estimate from analysts polled by Bloomberg, dragged down by a loss in its wind business.
Total revenue came in at $10.96 billion vs. the $10.21 billion consensus expectation from analysts polled by FactSet.
GE Vernova gave full-year 2026 sales guidance of between $44 billion and $45 billion vs. a consensus estimate of $42.13 billion.
New orders came in at $22.2 billion vs. expectations for $18.28 billion.

GE Vernova is up some 400% over the last two years, but the majority of those gains were booked by August 2025. Since then, the shares have been largely range-bound, and are down a bit after this morning’s report.

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J. Edward Moreno5h

Starbucks jumps after same-store sales beat estimates in Q1

Starbucks rose as much as 9% in premarket trading and continued to soar when the market opened on Wednesday after it reported financial results that beat Wall Street estimates on same-store sales for its fiscal Q1, with management projecting better-than-expected results for that key metric for the full fiscal year.

For the last three months of 2025, Starbucks reported:

$9.9 billion in revenue, higher than the $9.6 billion analysts were penciling in.
Same-store sales growth of 4%, significantly higher than the 2.3% analysts polled by FactSet had estimated. This marks the second consecutive quarter where that key metric was positive.
Adjusted earnings per share of $0.56, less than the $0.59 the Street was expecting.

The sales beat is a sign that CEO Brian Niccol’s turnaround plan, which includes ideas like the “bearista cup” and extending seasonal drink periods, may be moving the needle. “It is clear from our top-line results that our ‘Back to Starbucks’ plan is working and our turnaround is taking hold,” Niccol told analysts Wednesday morning.

Starbucks’ China business saw comparable-store sales grow by 7% after years of stagnant sales. The company said in November that it would sell a 60% stake in its China sector to Boyu Capital. “China was a standout,” Niccol said.

The company also shared its first financial outlook since suspending its forecast in October 2024. For its fiscal year ending in September, Starbucks guided for same-store sales to rise by at least 3%, more than the 2.83% growth that Wall Street was projecting. Management also expects annual adjusted earnings per share in a range of $2.15 to $2.40, compared to the $2.35 analysts were estimating.

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Intel jumps amid report it will play a role in manufacturing Nvidia GPUs in 2028, CFO purchases $250,000 in company stock

Intel is surging this morning amid one confirmed vote of executive suite confidence in the company and a rumored one that could be much more significant.

Starting with the latter, Taiwanese industry outlet DigiTimes reports that Intel will play a role in Nvidia GPUs for the Feynman generation, the successor to the upcoming Vera Rubin generation, which is expected to be released in 2028. Specifically, the report says that Nvidia will “partially utilize” Intel for the I/O die, or the part of the module that facilitates communication, as well as for about 25% of packaging. The remainder would be handled by TSMC, which is also slated to retain its role in manufacturing the Feynman architecture’s brains.

In September, Nvidia announced a $5 billion investment in Intel as part of a pact to develop data center and PC products. This report, if confirmed, would make a significant enhancement of this partnership.

And as for the support from inside the house: a filing released after the close on Tuesday showed that Intel Chief Financial Officer David Zinsner bought nearly $250,000 in company stock on Monday. That purchase came as shares tumbled more than 20% after management issued guidance for Q1 that came in below Wall Street’s view.

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