Markets
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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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Super Micro drops on shareholder lawsuit alleging securities fraud around China chip smuggling

Super Micro Computer fell more than 4.5% at one point in premarket trading Thursday on news that shareholders are suing the company, alleging securities fraud after its cofounder and two others were charged with illegally smuggling chips to China.

The lawsuit follows a US criminal indictment that was unsealed last week and accuses the company’s cofounder, sales manager, and a contractor of illegally diverting $2.5 billion worth of AI servers containing Nvidia chips to China, in violation of US export controls. The initial news sent the stock plunging 33% in a single day, wiping out billions in market cap.

While the company wasn’t named as a defendant in the Department of Justice indictment, it announced its cofounder’s resignation and stated that it’s been “cooperating fully with the government’s investigation and will continue to do so.”

According to the complaint filed in San Francisco federal court and viewed by Reuters, shareholders allege the company inflated its stock by overstating its business outlook, while concealing its significant reliance on China sales and “material weakness” in its compliance with export control regulations.

Super Micro sued by shareholders over China-related criminal case against co-founder, others

The lawsuit follows a US criminal indictment that was unsealed last week and accuses the company’s cofounder, sales manager, and a contractor of illegally diverting $2.5 billion worth of AI servers containing Nvidia chips to China, in violation of US export controls. The initial news sent the stock plunging 33% in a single day, wiping out billions in market cap.

While the company wasn’t named as a defendant in the Department of Justice indictment, it announced its cofounder’s resignation and stated that it’s been “cooperating fully with the government’s investigation and will continue to do so.”

According to the complaint filed in San Francisco federal court and viewed by Reuters, shareholders allege the company inflated its stock by overstating its business outlook, while concealing its significant reliance on China sales and “material weakness” in its compliance with export control regulations.

Toby Bochan
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Stocks rise amid optimism around US peace plan for Iran

Gains in technology supported the broader market rally.

Steer
markets
Max Knoblauch

JetBlue surges following report it is exploring potential merger partners

Shares of JetBlue spiked more than 15% midday Wednesday following a Semafor report that the airline is exploring merger partners.

The company has explored Washington’s regulatory temperature around a potential merger with United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and Alaska Air, per the report. When Semafor reached out to JetBlue regarding the exploration, it declined to comment.

JetBlue’s attempt to acquire budget rival Spirit was blocked by the Biden administration in 2024.

Exclusive: JetBlue explores potential merger partners

Exclusive: JetBlue explores potential merger partners

JetBlue’s attempt to acquire budget rival Spirit was blocked by the Biden administration in 2024.

markets
Matt Phillips

Sandisk, Micron dive as Google Research unveils AI algorithm to reduce memory demands

This might be an unfortunately memorable day for the memory trade.

Memory stocks Sandisk, Micron, Seagate Technology Holdings, and Western Digital sank Wednesday after Alphabet’s Google Research group published details of a new algorithm known as TurboQuant.

Per Google’s extremely technical release, TurboQuant is an algorithm that allows for a data technique called “vector quantization” to be used while addressing the issue of so-called “memory overhead,” allowing data in AI models to be compressed without reductions in accuracy or requiring retraining, while reducing the memory storage requirements at data centers.

And that outlook seems to be enough for the market to be sending memory stocks down for the day.

TurboQuant: Redefining AI efficiency with extreme compression

TurboQuant: Redefining AI efficiency with extreme compression

Per Google’s extremely technical release, TurboQuant is an algorithm that allows for a data technique called “vector quantization” to be used while addressing the issue of so-called “memory overhead,” allowing data in AI models to be compressed without reductions in accuracy or requiring retraining, while reducing the memory storage requirements at data centers.

And that outlook seems to be enough for the market to be sending memory stocks down for the day.

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