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Matt Phillips

Rocket Lab reports better-than-expected Q1 sales, stock rises

Retail favorite Rocket Lab rose late Thursday after reporting better-than-expected Q1 sales and offering upbeat sales guidance for Q2.

Here’s how the company did:

  • Q1 revenue of $200.3 million vs. Wall Street’s expectation for $189.7 million, according to FactSet.

  • An adjusted loss per share of $0.07 vs. the consensus estimate of a $0.07 loss.

  • Adjusted EBITDA of -$11.8 million vs. the analyst forecast of -$26.3 million.

  • Q2 sales guidance of between $225 million and $240 million ($232.5 million midpoint) vs. expectations for $205.3 million.

  • Q2 guidance for EBITDA between -$20 million and -$26 million (-$23 million midpoint) vs. the -$14.5 million analysts were penciling in.

Rocket Lab shares have surged roughly 2,000% over the last two years, as the company capitalized on investor enthusiasm for space.

Over the last year, Rocket Lab also rode growing excitement about companies that plan to use their ability to place clusters of satellites into low-Earth orbit and then sell data services to earthlings below — essentially the business model of Elon Musk’s Starlink.

Though it’s privately held for now, Musk’s space behemoth, SpaceX, remains the key source of excitement around the sector, enthusiasm that will likely grow as the company moves forward with plans for what’s likely to be the largest public offering ever.

Rabid space enthusiasm aside, Rocket Lab remains a money-losing company that’s burning a lot of cash, though Wall Street analysts think it could break even in 2027.

We’ll see. That projection hangs on the company’s ability to get its larger Neutron rocket into its commercial launch cycle sooner rather than later. And given that Neutron’s maiden launch — originally slated for 2025 — has been delayed to the fourth quarter of 2026, that’s by no means assured.

Separately, Rocket Lab also announced that it’s signed the largest launch services contract in its history with a “confidential customer.”

The multi-launch agreement includes five dedicated Neutron launches and three of the company’s smaller Electron rocket. The launches are expected to occur between 2026 and 2029. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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Luke Kawa

Nvidia to invest up to $2.1 billion in IREN in partnership that deploys as much as 5 gigawatts of its AI infrastructure

Another day, another massive Nvidia warrants deal in the AI ecosystem.

Shares of data-center company IREN spiked 20% in postmarket trading after reaching a pact with the chip designer to deploy up to 5 gigawatts of its AI offerings across data centers.

This means that IREN will effectively be building out data centers designed by Nvidia to optimize for its hardware.

As part of the arrangement, IREN issued Nvidia warrants that expire in five years that enable the company to buy up to 30 million shares at $70 apiece. If fully exercised, that would amount to a $2.1 billion investment into IREN.

On Wednesday, Nvidia announced an investment of $500 million in fiber optics firm Corning to accelerate its manufacturing capacity.

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Paige Oamek

Applied Optoelectronics sinks after Q1 sales miss, underwhelming Q2 revenue guidance

Applied Optoelectronics tumbled after-hours after the connectivity company reported lower than expected Q1 sales and underwhelming revenue guidance.

Here are the numbers:

  • Revenue of $151.1 million (estimate: $157.5 million).

  • Adjusted EPS of -$0.07 (estimate: -$0.05)

  • Adjusted gross margin of 29.1% (estimate: 30.37%)

The company helps servers in large-scale data centers relay information, partnering with companies like Microsoft and Amazon. Last month, the stock surged after news broke that a key hyperscale customer, following an initial order, had significantly increased its demand for AAOI's offerings.

For second quarter of 2026 the company expects:

  • Revenue in the range of $180 million to $198 million (compared to analyst estimates of $196.83 million).

  • Adjusted gross margin in the range of 29% to 30% (estimate: 31.42%).

In the press release, AAOI chief financial and strategy officer Dr Stefan Murry said:

"Our focus remains on ramping our capacity thoughtfully to meet the unprecedented demand and are confident in our ability to execute on our ambitious growth plans, while ensuring reliability, quality, and a dedication to excellence.”

Demand for photonics does not seem to be in question, but judging by Lumentum’s post-earnings call on Tuesday and Applied Optoelectronics’ commentary, securing supply is the challenge.

AAOI was up nearly 300% since the beginning of the year before this print.

markets
Paige Oamek

Airbnb beats on Q1 revenue, increases guidance for current quarter

Shares of Airbnb whipsawed in after-hours trading Thursday after the company beat Wall Street estimates on revenue and raised guidance for the year, but missed on earnings per share, citing "macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty."

Airbnb reported: 

  • Q1 revenue of $2.7 billion (compared to analyst estimates of $2.6 billion).

  • Adjusted EBITDA of $519 million (estimate: $483.2 million).

  • Adjusted diluted EPS $0.26 (estimate: $0.29)

  • Q2 revenue sales guidance of $3.54 billion to $3.60 billion, representing year-over-year growth of 14% to 16% (estimate: $3.4 billion) 

Investors were watching for initial impacts of the Iran war, gas prices, jet fuel costs, and cost of living increases on the company's finances and projections.

Despite the difficult terrain, the company said they were confident going forward. For 2026, Airbnb raised their guidance, stating they expect year-over-year revenue growth to accelerate to low to mid teens and an adjusted EBITDA margin of at least 35%.

"The upward revision to our revenue outlook reflects meaningful progress across our growth initiatives and improvements to monetization through a simplified fee structure and our insurance programs, which are expected to lift our full-year take rate. We remain optimistic about our continued momentum, even as we face tougher comparisons in the back half of this year against the rollout of Reserve Now, Pay Later in 2025 and current headwinds from the Middle East conflict."

Perhaps Wall Street is less certain about customers’ willingness to splurge on vacation given the state of things. According to the company, in Q1, roughly 20% of global booking value came from Reserve Now, Pay Later bookings.

markets
Matt Phillips

DraftKings rises after reporting better-than-expected Q1 numbers

Sports-betting company DraftKings rose in after-market trading Thursday after it reported better-than-expected Q1 sales and earnings. Here’s the rough outline of the results:

  • Q1 revenue of $1.65 billion vs. Wall Street’s $1.63 billion expectation, according to FactSet.

  • Q1 earnings per share of $0.03 compared with a consensus estimate of $0.01.

  • Q1 adjusted EBITDA of $167.9 million vs. $152.6 million expectation.

  • Maintained previous full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance of $700 million to $900 million, compared with estimates of $791.4 million.

  • Maintained previous full-year sales guidance of between $6.5 billion and $6.9 billion (midpoint $6.70 billion) and analysts’ estimates of $6.82 billion, according to FactSet.

Shares of traditional online sports gambling like DraftKings have struggled as prediction markets have emerged as a center of industry excitement.

The shift to such markets has been tricky for both DraftKings and rival FanDuel, the US leader in online sports betting — which have to manage pre-existing relationships with state gaming commissions that stand to be disrupted by prediction markets, which are regulated on the federal level by the CFTC.

DraftKings is down roughly 25% in 2026, while FanDuel parent Flutter Entertainment, which reported earnings yesterday, is down more than 50%.

markets
Luke Kawa

CoreWeave reports modestly better-than-expected Q1 results, revenue backlog nearing $100 billion

CoreWeave is whipsawing in after-hours trading as investors digest whether its Q1 results can justify its 86% rally since late March.

In Q1, the neocloud firm reported:

  • Revenue of $2.1 billion (compared to analyst estimates of $2 billion).

  • Adjusted EBITDA of $1.2 billion (estimate: $1.1 billion).

While its revenue beat was only a little north of 5%, the figure surpassed all of the 32 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

As of March 31, CoreWeave’s revenue backlog was a whopping $99.4 billion, up from $66.8 billion in the prior quarter.

“We surpassed 1 GW of active power and believe we are well on our way to more than 8 GW by 2030, having positioned our capital structure to scale with the opportunity ahead,” said CEO, cofounder, and Chairman Michael Intrator in a press release. “AI natives and enterprise customers are choosing CoreWeave because we sit between the models and the silicon, delivering the infrastructure, software, and expertise required to build and run AI at scale.”

At the end of the quarter, the company managed to close a unique debt deal backed by GPUs and what Meta is slated to pay for AI compute.

Since then, CoreWeave and its peers have been buoyed by a scramble for compute catalyzed by a seeming shortage for Anthropic, as the Claude developer aims to beef up its footprint amid complaints around usage limits.

CoreWeave reached a multiyear deal with Anthropic to help power Claude, and also expanded its AI compute sales pact with Meta by $21 billion.

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