Markets

S&P 500 slumps into the close for first three-day losing streak since reciprocal tariff announcement

US stocks stumbled into the close, unable to hold onto solid daily gains and ending virtually unchanged.

The S&P 500 and Russell 2000 finished the session marginally in the red, while the Nasdaq 100 mustered a 0.2% advance. It’s the first three-day losing streak for the benchmark US stock index since the S&P 500 fell four days in a row following the unveiling of reciprocal tariffs on April 2.

Utilities were far and away the worst-performing S&P 500 sector ETF; consumer discretionary and tech were the only ones that advanced.

Key S&P 500 gainers included Coinbase, United Airlines, and Moderna. Renewable stocks Enphase and NextEra led the day’s losses after President Trump’s tax-and-spending bill cleared the House, putting clean energy tax benefits at risk. Elsewhere…

Advance Auto Parts surged 58%, erasing its year-to-date losses after the retailer reaffirmed its full-year guidance, despite the 25% auto parts tariff that went into effect earlier this month.

Urban Outfitters shares popped nearly 23%, hitting a fresh all-time high after the trendy retailer posted record Q1 earnings results and strong sales across all its banner brands.

Peloton shares jumped nearly 12% Thursday after the fitness tech company saw more bullish options activity than a full-day total for 90% of sessions this year.

Nike shares jumped over 2% after news broke that the sneaker and apparel retailer plans to push price hikes into effect by June 1.

Palantir also rose after its Department of Defense contract was upsized by $800 million.

Hims & Hers sank nearly 8% after rival pharmacy benefit manager Cigna said it would cap copays for its popular GLP-1 weight-loss drugs at $200.

Quantum stocks had a massive session, with IonQ, D-Wave, and Rigetti Computing all up more than 20% and Quantum Computing up double digits as the cohort fully erased losses suffered in early January when Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said it would likely be decades before the technology would be “very useful.”

Navitas Semiconductor more than doubled on the day after announcing a collaboration with Nvidia on data center infrastructure.

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Opendoor soars as co-founders Keith Rabois and Eric Wu added to board of directors, Shopify COO Kaz Nejatian appointed as new CEO


Opendoor Technologies is soaring after announcing that two of the online real estate company’s co-founders, Keith Rabois and Eric Wu, have been added to its board of directors. Rabois will serve as Chairman.

The company said Wu and Rabois’ VC firm are buying $40 million in Opendoor stock via a private investment in public equity (PIPE) financing.

In addition, Opendoor has poached Shopify COO Kaz Nejatian to serve as its new CEO after Carrie Wheeler resigned in mid-August.

“Literally there was only one choice for the job: Kaz. I am thrilled that he will be serving as CEO of Opendoor,” said Rabois.

The company touted that it’s “going into founder mode” with these additions in its press release, with lead independent director Eric Feder championing this injection of “founder DNA.”

That exact phrase, “founder DNA,” was used by Eric Jackson, architect of the initial rally and social interest in Opendoor, as he openly campaigned for these very two individuals to be added to the board.

This underscores how far the company is willing to go in embracing a new strategy of listening to its investors (particularly the most prominent one, it seems!) as management aims to engineer a fundamental turnaround in its business to match the optimism embedded in its stock price.

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“Pokemon” trading cards skyrocketing in value and GameStop’s collectibles business taking off are two sides of the same coin


The Wall Street Journal’s fantastic piece “The Hot Investment With a 3,000% Return? Pokémon Cards” includes this vignette:

“...the cards caught fire among amateur investors during the pandemic. As some investors banded together to spark the GameStop meme stock mania, a more fringe group of traders, also stuck at home and armed with cash from government stimulus, began scooping up Pokémon cards.”

And the connection between “Pokemon” cards and the video game retailer is in fact even closer than that:

GameStop’s collectibles business played a big role in why it smashed Q2 revenue expectations! Sales in this segment exceeded $227 million, while the two analysts that provided forecasts had an average estimate of $170.4 million. Fiscal year to date, sales of collectibles make up 25.8% of its revenues, up from 16.4% at this time last year.

The company significantly expanded its footprint in the “Pokemon” trading card world in 2024 by launching in-store buying and selling of individual cards, and introduced Power Packs,” which include one card graded at 8 or above by the Professional Sports Authenticator, in its most recent quarter.

As a 35-year-old man who still plays Pokemon (Nuzlockes are peak math + strategy entertainment!), thinks the release of Pokemon Go marked the peak for Western civilization, and considers Christmas 1998 to be the second-best day of his life because it’s when he got Pokemon Red, I personally view the outperformance of Pokemon cards as being indicative of the power of nostalgia coupled with a drop-off in child rearing by millennials, leaving more room for discretionary purchases and investments.

And the nostalgia business seems like a great place to be.

“...the cards caught fire among amateur investors during the pandemic. As some investors banded together to spark the GameStop meme stock mania, a more fringe group of traders, also stuck at home and armed with cash from government stimulus, began scooping up Pokémon cards.”

And the connection between “Pokemon” cards and the video game retailer is in fact even closer than that:

GameStop’s collectibles business played a big role in why it smashed Q2 revenue expectations! Sales in this segment exceeded $227 million, while the two analysts that provided forecasts had an average estimate of $170.4 million. Fiscal year to date, sales of collectibles make up 25.8% of its revenues, up from 16.4% at this time last year.

The company significantly expanded its footprint in the “Pokemon” trading card world in 2024 by launching in-store buying and selling of individual cards, and introduced Power Packs,” which include one card graded at 8 or above by the Professional Sports Authenticator, in its most recent quarter.

As a 35-year-old man who still plays Pokemon (Nuzlockes are peak math + strategy entertainment!), thinks the release of Pokemon Go marked the peak for Western civilization, and considers Christmas 1998 to be the second-best day of his life because it’s when he got Pokemon Red, I personally view the outperformance of Pokemon cards as being indicative of the power of nostalgia coupled with a drop-off in child rearing by millennials, leaving more room for discretionary purchases and investments.

And the nostalgia business seems like a great place to be.

markets

Oracle’s hyperscaler competitors lag after the cloud computing giant’s blowout revenue forecast

Oracle’s forecast for mind-blowing revenue growth through its fiscal 2030 is lifting most AI-adjacent stocks today.

However, the ones being left behind in this rising tide, falling or lagging well behind Morgan Stanley’s basket of AI tech beneficiaries (up 5.8% as of 12:22 p.m. ET), are its fellow hyperscalers.

Microsoft and Alphabet, which also have massive cloud divisions, are positive — but only just. Amazon, whose cloud revenue growth was deemed a disappointment relative to peers this quarter, is down 2.8%. Meta is down 1.2%.

This suggests, at the very least, that traders aren’t mapping Oracle’s outlook for Nvidia-like revenue growth onto the other major cloud players or one of their biggest customers.

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