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Matt Phillips

Rocket Lab dives as SpaceX receives FAA green light for additional Florida launches

Retail favorite Rocket Lab tumbled Wednesday, despite a dearth of direct news on the private space company that has positioned itself as a rival to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

There was a bit of SpaceX news, however, with the FAA giving the green light Wednesday for SpaceX to more than double the number of Falcon-9 rockets it launches from Florida.

It’s tough to attribute all of Rocket Lab’s sell-off to a relatively mundane bureaucratic update. (Some of the sell-off might simply be that momentum-driven retail favorites like Rocket Lab are taking another blow in a string of recent thwackings.)

On the other hand, the Falcon-9 will eventually be the chief competitor to Rocket Lab’s Neutron rocket currently being developed. So, the FAA approvals do allow SpaceX to extend its headstart a bit.

Though, there’s another potential way to read the FAA news...

Cynics like us think some of Rocket Lab’s recent outperformance — up 72% in 2025 — might be linked to traders betting the rift between President Trump and Elon Musk might cause the federal government to make life difficult for Musk and potentially benefit rivals like SpaceX.

If so, the additional flights approved by the FAA on Wednesday somewhat undercut that reasoning.

At any rate, Rocket Lab can afford to give up a few percentage points; it’s up more than 600% over the last year.

SpaceX gets a green light to more than double its Florida launches | TechCrunch

SpaceX gets a green light to more than double its Florida launches | TechCrunch

There was a bit of SpaceX news, however, with the FAA giving the green light Wednesday for SpaceX to more than double the number of Falcon-9 rockets it launches from Florida.

It’s tough to attribute all of Rocket Lab’s sell-off to a relatively mundane bureaucratic update. (Some of the sell-off might simply be that momentum-driven retail favorites like Rocket Lab are taking another blow in a string of recent thwackings.)

On the other hand, the Falcon-9 will eventually be the chief competitor to Rocket Lab’s Neutron rocket currently being developed. So, the FAA approvals do allow SpaceX to extend its headstart a bit.

Though, there’s another potential way to read the FAA news...

Cynics like us think some of Rocket Lab’s recent outperformance — up 72% in 2025 — might be linked to traders betting the rift between President Trump and Elon Musk might cause the federal government to make life difficult for Musk and potentially benefit rivals like SpaceX.

If so, the additional flights approved by the FAA on Wednesday somewhat undercut that reasoning.

At any rate, Rocket Lab can afford to give up a few percentage points; it’s up more than 600% over the last year.

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J. Edward Moreno

Nextdoor soars after Eric Jackson, architect of Opendoor rally, lays out bullish thesis

Nextdoor rose by more than 30% in premarket trading after hedge fund manager Eric Jackson, the architect behind the rally in Opendoor Technologies earlier this year, said he is long on the neighborhood social media platform.

In a thread on X, Jackson explained that Nextdoor has an undervalued opportunity to leverage AI, similar to Opendoor or Carvana, another company he has been bullish on. “Nextdoor checks every layer and is ready like them for a massive re-rating,” said Jackson, head of Toronto-based EMJ Capital, referring to other stocks he is bullish on.

Nextdoor generates revenue predominantly through advertising sales, and has not yet reported a profitable quarter since going public in 2021. As of market close on Tuesday, the company was down about 17% this year and 80% since its IPO.

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Hyunsoo Rim

Chewy’s Q4 forecast underwhelms, overshadowing solid Q3 results

Chewy tumbled as much as 6.7%, before paring its losses, in premarket trading on Wednesday after the online pet product retailer issued softer-than-expected Q4 guidance, which appeared to overshadow solid Q3 numbers.

In the third quarter, revenues rose 8.3% year over year to $3.12 billion, slightly above the $3.1 billion estimate compiled by Bloomberg, while adjusted earnings per share of $0.32 topped the $0.30 forecast. In a statement released today, CEO Sumit Singh said the company “continues to outperform the pet category and expand market share, with profits once again growing faster than sales.”

The company also revealed that it had 21.155 million active customers, up nearly 5% year on year, and that its autoship (recurring, subscription-like) sales made up nearly 84% of its total revenue.

However, Chewy’s Q4 outlook disappointed investors, as it expects $3.24 billion to $3.26 billion in revenue and $0.24 to $0.27 in adjusted EPS, both below Wall Street’s estimate of $3.26 billion and $0.29, respectively, per Bloomberg.

As of 8:35 a.m. ET, shares have pared back earlier losses and are up 0.66% in premarket trading, bringing year-to-date gains to 3.91%.

markets
Luke Kawa

China’s DeepSeek is using banned Blackwell chips to train its newest AI model, The Information reports

DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup whose chatbot built on the cheap turned the US tech world upside down in early 2025, is using “several thousand” of Nvidia’s top Blackwell chips to build its next model, per The Information.

The outlet cites six people with knowledge on the scheme, where the advanced chips, which are not allowed to be sold to China, make their way into the world’s second-largest economy piecemeal after servers are disassembled.

The Trump administration recently gave the go-ahead for Nvidia to send the H200, the best chips from its Hopper generation, to China. Though the US president teased discussing the possibility of permitting Blackwell sales ahead of his meeting with President Xi at the end of October, that item was not on the agenda.

DeepSeek said that its V3 model — the one that captured global attention earlier this year — was trained using Nvidia’s H800 GPUs, but some observers in the AI industry argued that the startup likely had access to more advanced compute. The White House and the FBI reportedly investigated this amid signs of chip smuggling.

Earlier this year, Singapore charged a group of men with fraud for allegedly routing servers containing Nvidia chips to Malaysia (with their ultimate destination unknown, but presumed to be China).

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