Luke Kawa1/8/25

S&P 500 inches higher as speculative stocks get crushed

US stocks inched higher on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 up and the Nasdaq 100 treading water while the Russell 2000 retreated.

Most S&P 500 sector ETFs rose, with the exception of communication services, tech, and utilities.

Semi stocks slumped, with Advanced Micro Devices a notable decliner after a double downgrade by HSBC.

Oil majors Exxon and Shell retreated after warning that their quarterly earnings would be lower than previously anticipated.

Quantum-computing stocks faced intense selling pressure after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang suggested that it would take two decades before they were very useful. Rigetti Computing, IonQ, D-Wave Quantum, and Quantum Computing were all slammed.

Other high-flying, thematically oriented stocks like Cerence and SoundHound AI got hammered, as did heavily shorted companies like Plug Power.

Edison International, which operates a California-based utility, suffered its largest one-day decline since March 2020 as wildfires ravage the state. The stock was the worst performer in the S&P 500.

On the other end of the spectrum, eBay was the best-performing member of the benchmark US stock gauge as Meta begins to test allowing users to browse eBay listings on Facebook Marketplace in order to help remedy some antitrust concerns.

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Tasha Matsumoto

Stocks edge higher as investors shrug off an uptick oil prices

Stocks built on yesterday’s gains in spite of the ongoing conflict in Iran. A rise in oil propelled energy stocks higher.

(GERMANY OUT) White cows in a field, Connemara County Galway, Ireland

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Nvidia’s Jensen Huang says the chip designer is getting closer to selling AI chips to China

H200 sales to China are back 𝚘̶𝚗̶ 𝚘̶𝚏̶𝚏̶ 𝚘̶𝚗̶ 𝚘̶𝚏̶𝚏̶ 𝚘̶𝚗̶ 𝚘̶𝚏̶𝚏̶ 𝚘̶𝚗̶ 𝚘̶𝚏̶𝚏̶ 𝚘̶𝚗̶ 𝚘̶𝚏̶𝚏̶ on the menu.

Bloomberg headlines from Nvidia’s conference in San Jose on Tuesday indicate that CEO Jensen Huang said the chip designer has received purchase orders from Chinese customers, received licenses for many customers, and that it’s firing up manufacturing to sell these AI chips from the Hopper generation to buyers in the world’s second-largest economy.

The situation in China has changed, he added.

Earlier this month, the FT had reported the opposite: that Nvidia had asked TSMC to ramp down its production of H200 chips in order to produce Vera Rubin, its upcoming flagship generation.

The situation loosely remains that Nvidia wants to sell AI chips to China, Chinese buyers want them, but authorities in both DC and Beijing don’t seem to want Chinese companies to be able to get their hands on too many of these processors.

Shares of Nvidia are ending the day lower, and are off more than 3% from their Monday knee-jerk peak reached after Jensen said that the company’s Blackwell and Vera Rubin sales would total at least $1 trillion through 2027.

It’s another case of good financial news from Nvidia failing to give the stock anything more than a short-lived lift.

Crowd of businessmen with multiple expressions

Corporate America won't shut up about agentic AI, or AI in general

In fact, executives are saying the word “AI” more than they’re saying “earnings” on earnings calls.

Hyunsoo Rim, David Crowther2h

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Matt Phillips4h

Space, drone, and satellite stocks continue their Iran war-driven rally

Space, drone, and satellite stocks like Rocket Lab, Redwire, Intuitive Machines, AST SpaceMobile, and Planet Labs are outperforming both broader indexes and the thematic baskets of momentum stocks and shares with high retail sentiment with which they are often lumped.

There’s little clear news on the tape to attribute for the move higher. (Though the FAA did announce a streamlining of launch licensing rules that cover a number of these companies, including Rocket Lab and Firefly Aerospace, as well as Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s commercial space giant, SpaceX.)

More broadly, the outbreak of war with Iran has burnished the space, drone, and satellite sector in the eyes of investors, as the conflict underscores the importance of the three technologies to the future of defense. And in a world where nations are growing unsure of traditional alliances, countries across the board will look to boost their own capabilities. (Belgium just announced that it has selected Redwire, for example, to provide its first national security satellite system. Belgium!)

As Goldman Sachs analysts put it in a research note from January:

“Companies with native drone and satellite technology cultures like AeroVironment and Rocket Lab may find themselves particularly well positioned. And in Europe, a remilitarization of the Continent is underway that could require a $160bn investment over the next 5 years just to catch up with Russia.”

Since the start of the Iran war, most of these types of shares have handily outpaced the Nasdaq Composite Index. Rocket Lab, Redwire, and Intuitive Machines are all up more than 12% during that period, compared to a Nasdaq that’s just slightly in the red, as of shortly before 12 p.m. ET on Tuesday.

Jensen Huang GTC 2026 San Jose

Nvidia keeps giving Wall Street everything it wants — without getting rewarded

Yet another case of good financial news from Nvidia failing to generate an enduring positive reaction.

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