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Robinhood, new S&P 500 leader, the subject of favorable analyst chatter

Robinhood Markets briefly touched a new all-time intraday high in early trading after the newly minted — and now top-performing — member of the the S&P 500 received some favorable write-ups from Wall Street analysts.

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions. I own stock as part of my compensation.)

Piper Sandler analysts highlighted momentum in the company’s prediction markets business thanks to the rollout of contracts on college and profession football, noting that the event contracts business was running at a $200 million annualized rate so far in September. They raised their price target on the shares to $140 from $120.

“Prediction Markets (aka event contracts) present significant upside opportunity for Robinhood,” Piper Sandler’s Patrick Moley wrote.

Elsewhere, Citi analysts raised their Q3 and full-year 2025 estimates and upped their price target on the shares to $135, but kept a “neutral” rating on the stock.

“While HOOD continues to see solid momentum across the platform, we believe the stock is pricing in much of the growth potential in our view. Given current valuations and where we are in the retail cycle (closer to the highs than the lows from an activity perspective from our viewpoint), we prefer to wait for a more reasonable entry point at present.”

The stock has clearly had a heck of a run.

Through yesterday’s close, Robinhood was up nearly 240% in 2025. Since it was added to the S&P 500 on Monday, it’s now the top performer among the blue chips, trouncing previous leaders Seagate Technology Holdings and Palantir.

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Warner Bros. shares jump as Paramount Skydance reportedly preps a $71 billion bid with Arab sovereign wealth funds

Shares of HBO and CNN parent Warner Bros. Discovery are climbing on Tuesday on a report that rival Paramount Skydance is prepping a $71 billion bid for the entertainment giant.

According to Variety, Paramount would front $50 billion for the deal, with $7 billion each coming from three Arab nations’ wealth funds (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE).

Variety reports that each fund would receive a minority stake in Warner Bros. as well as “an IP, a movie premiere, a movie shoot.” Warner Bros. Discovery shares jumped 6% following Variety’s report, before paring its gains after Paramount called the news “categorically inaccurate.”

WBD is said to have already rejected three previous offers from Paramount. The company previously set a deadline of November 20 (this Thursday) to hear bids from interested parties — a group that reportedly also includes Comcast and Netflix.

The Saudi Arabian wealth fund, PIF, made headlines in September when it struck a $55 billion take-private deal for the gaming giant Electronic Arts — the largest leveraged buyout in corporate history.

Variety reports that each fund would receive a minority stake in Warner Bros. as well as “an IP, a movie premiere, a movie shoot.” Warner Bros. Discovery shares jumped 6% following Variety’s report, before paring its gains after Paramount called the news “categorically inaccurate.”

WBD is said to have already rejected three previous offers from Paramount. The company previously set a deadline of November 20 (this Thursday) to hear bids from interested parties — a group that reportedly also includes Comcast and Netflix.

The Saudi Arabian wealth fund, PIF, made headlines in September when it struck a $55 billion take-private deal for the gaming giant Electronic Arts — the largest leveraged buyout in corporate history.

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Analyst: Sandisk a candidate for S&P 500 after surge

Despite having a rough day today as investors flee risky stocks, Sandisk has had a ridiculous run since it was spun off from its former parent, Western Digital, in February at a valuation of roughly $5 billion.

It’s now worth more than $30 billion, thanks to a more than 400% surge over the past three months alone.

The company makes a kind of chip known as NAND flash memory, which retains data when electrical power is turned off. That attribute made them a mainstay in battery-powered consumer products like phones and cameras.

But surging demand for data storage products related to the AI investment boom — which has supercharged shares of hard disk makers like Western Digital and Seagate Technology Holdings — has also pushed up prices for NAND flash chips, setting off the explosion in Sandisk shares.

In fact, TheStreet.com reports that analyst Melissa Roberts of brokerage firm Stephens is arguing in a note Tuesday that the price surge “makes Sandisk a natural candidate for promotion to the S&P 500 in the next round of index changes.” Inclusion in the index usually bumps a stock because index funds have to buy it.

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Microsoft, Nvidia investing in Anthropic; Anthropic to buy $30 billion in Azure computing capacity

Well, this is the Platonic ideal of a circular AI deal.

In a joint press release, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Anthropic (maker of the Claude genAI) announced a strategic partnership that includes a slew of 10- and 11-digit investment plans:

  • Anthropic will purchase $30 billion of computing capacity from Microsoft’s Azure.

  • Anthropic’s commitment includes up to 1 gigawatt in computing capacity that will be served through Nvidia’s Grace Blackwell and (yet to be released) Vera Rubin systems.

  • Microsoft is investing up to $5 billion in Anthropic.

  • Nvidia is investing up to $10 billion in Anthropic.

That’s revenues for Microsoft and Nvidia, and two high-profile investors for Anthropic.

Bank of America analysts have argued that these circular-seeming deals are a way for leaders in the space to beef up their potential addressable market that “could multiply future benefits.”

Anthropic announced its foray into data centers last week with plans for $50 billion in custom-built locations in partnership with Fluidstack. The company is targeting $70 billion in revenues by 2028, which would help it support this capex binge.

Despite the massive numbers being tossed around here, Anthropic said that Amazon’s AWS would remain its primary cloud provider, per Bloomberg.

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