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Luke Kawa

Semiconductor stocks soar on telegraphed trade truce with China

Semiconductor stocks, which were sold hard when US-China trade tensions flared up earlier this month, are being scooped up again in earnest after top officials from both countries indicated that positive discussions this weekend had cleared the runway for the world’s two largest economies to reach a deal.

The VanEck Semiconductor ETF fell nearly 6%, its worst one-day drop since April, on October 10 when President Trump said he was mulling a “massive increase” on imported Chinese goods, later floating the potential for levies of 100%. It’s up nearly 2% as of 9:04 a.m. ET, with the likes of Micron, Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia, and Broadcom outperforming. Intel — with roughly 30% last year’s sales coming from billings in China — also rose on the news.

Other stocks in the group doing well are wafer fab equipment makers Applied Materials and Lam Research, which had recently drawn the ire of US lawmakers because of their exposure to China — their most important market. Cadence Design Systems, an electronic design automation company that’s seen restrictions on its China business imposed and then removed this year, is also up.

“With tariffs and trade threats back and forth the last few weeks escalating on the China rare earth threats it appears a much broader trade framework/deal could be on the table this week between US and China which would be a huge groundbreaking moment for the tech sector and markets,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives wrote. “This continues to be a lingering overhang on tech stocks that could be removed as the far reaching impact around the AI Revolution from chip production, Nvidia/AMD sales into China, software IP complexity, TikTok, and rare earth restrictions are all on the table in this game of high stakes poker between Trump and Xi.”

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Matt Phillips

Exxon and Chevron surge as oil rises; gold keeps getting clobbered

Exxon and Chevron jumped again on Friday, the two largest positive contributors to the S&P 500 as of midday, even as the broader market remained mired in the red.

The two giant US energy companies are also on track to notch another in a series of new all-time highs as well Friday, and for obvious reasons.

Energy continues to be the bright spot for the S&P 500 since the start of the Iran war. (It is the only gainer of the 11 separate sectors that compose the blue-chip index, rising more than 7% in March.)

But energy’s gain has come with pain elsewhere. Since rising gas prices work mechanically as a tax on other forms of consumer spending, staples stocks have been hit hard, with the sector down more than 6% this month alone. Meanwhile, the inflationary pressure pushing the Fed away from further rate cuts continues to hit precious metals and miners. SPDR Gold Shares ETF and iShares Silver Trust futures both fell further on Friday; they’re down roughly 10% and 15% for the week, respectively, and producers like Newmont and Freeport-McMoRan also continue to drop.

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David Crowther

Investors have been drawn to software stocks since the Iran war started — Figma has been an exception

Since the Iran war started, risky assets have been in the crosshairs. Stocks have sold off as oil prices spiked, the odds of rate cuts later this year have been slashed, and even the usual safe havens like gold and silver have been unreliable ports in the growing storm.

One port of refuge, however, has been in software stocks. As noted by my colleague Matt Phillips recently, a number of high-profile software names — the same ones that some pundits doomed to obsolescence because of AI just a few short weeks ago — have held up well. Design company Figma, however, has not been one of those names.

Figma’s stock has dropped 19% since the close of trading on February 27, while the iShares Expanded Tech Software ETF has gained 2%.

Though still notching very respectable top-line growth, with sales up 40% last year, Figma is far from the “cash cow” stage of its life — perhaps why it’s been hit harder than peers such as Adobe, Workday, or Salesforce. Indeed, on a GAAP basis, Wall Street still expects the company to lose $477 million this year, as heavy stock-based compensation weighs on its profitability.

Figma’s pain was then compounded when Google announced a major update to Stitch on Wednesday — a product described as “an AI-native software design canvas that allows anyone to create, iterate and collaborate on high-fidelity UI from natural language.”

Debate is still raging on Reddit and other social media platforms as to whether Stitch, or other vibe-coding platforms and tools, will meaningfully eat into Figma’s core business. One user said that it “offers very little to experienced designers. It removes the tools Figma offers and delegates everything to AI. Figma at least has all the capabilities plus AI for people who want to use AI.” Another — complaining about the newly prohibitive cost of credits in Figma’s own AI-powered tool, Figma Make — was more bearish on Figma’s usefulness, saying that the number of credits the designer would need to use would cost $16,000 under Figma’s new pricing model.

For now, investors aren’t giving Figma the benefit of the doubt, with the stock down 12% in the last two days alone.

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Matt Phillips

Chip-smuggling charges against Super Micro cofounder boost rival server maker Dell

Dell is up in early Friday trading after rival Super Micro Computer plunged on news that one of its cofounders had been charged by US prosecutors with allegedly illegally smuggling AI chips to China.

Dell, Super Micro, and HP Enterprise are all what’s known as “system makers”: they sell ready-to-roll rack servers, storage systems, and the other hardware that’s needed to fill all those data centers that hyperscalers are so desperate to build.

Dell and Super Micro both sell systems built around Nvidia GPUs, so the US government’s allegations against key personnel tied to Super Micro could jeopardize the company’s access to Nvidia products and give Dell a leg up in that crucial AI-related server market.

Super Micro dives after cofounder charged with allegedly smuggling AI chips to China

Super Micro dives after cofounder charged with allegedly smuggling AI chips to China

Dell, Super Micro, and HP Enterprise are all what’s known as “system makers”: they sell ready-to-roll rack servers, storage systems, and the other hardware that’s needed to fill all those data centers that hyperscalers are so desperate to build.

Dell and Super Micro both sell systems built around Nvidia GPUs, so the US government’s allegations against key personnel tied to Super Micro could jeopardize the company’s access to Nvidia products and give Dell a leg up in that crucial AI-related server market.

markets
Matt Phillips

Planet Labs soars after earnings beat and positive analyst commentary

Planet Labs held on to huge post-earnings gains early Friday as analysts that cover the retail favorite issued largely upbeat reviews of its Q4 report released Thursday after the bell. Here’s some of their commentary on the satellite services company:

Wedbush (rating: “outperform,” price target: $40): PL is seeing major tailwinds in the geopolitical space, continuing to drive mission-critical demand globally. Total RPO came in at ~ $852 million (up ~106% y/y) with backlog of ~$900+ million (up ~79% y/y) highlighted by 9- figure deal with the Swedish Armed Forces which was the third 9-figure Satellite Services contract over the past 12 months totaling $500+ million across Sweden, Japan, and Germany, with management noting on the call that both deal count and average size in the satellite services pipeline has grown appreciably.”

Citizens (rating: “market perform,” price target: N/A): “In our view, Planet’s solid performance in the quarter and the significant revenue acceleration implied for FY27 reflect the company’s success in shifting to a satellite services model and leaning (heavily) into the needs of Defense & Intelligence segment customers. We believe this is the correct area of focus (for management and investors) and view some of the flashier announcements around Project Suncatcher (space-based data centers), or more recently, AI enabling a renaissance within Planet’s Civil and Commercial businesses as somewhat of a distraction.”

Clear Street (rating: “buy,” price target: $34): “While F2026 revenue grew 26%, non-defense verticals have lagged. Management signaled an inflection point, with use cases such as maritime awareness data poised towards gaining traction across finance, insurance, and supply chain, supported by a more tailored approach with LLM partnerships like Anthropic (private).”

There’s a reason the stock has built a strong retail following: it had already surged more than 500% over the past year, even before jumping another 20% after last night’s earnings.

markets
Hyunsoo Rim

Super Micro dives after cofounder charged with allegedly smuggling AI chips to China

Super Micro Computer plunged over 25% in premarket trading on Friday after cofounder Yih-Shyan “Wally” Liaw, another worker, and a company contractor were charged by US prosecutors with allegedly conspiring to sell $2.5 billion worth of AI servers containing Nvidia chips to China, in violation of US export controls.

Super Micro was not named in the DOJ indictment, which was released on Thursday.

Prosecutors say the three charged suspects, including Liaw, used a pass-through company to place orders, making it appear the servers were meant for “legitimate commercial activity” while obscuring their actual “China-based end customers.”

Between 2024 and 2025, the pass-through company purchased roughly $2.5 billion worth of servers from Super Micro, including more than $510 million worth of US-assembled servers with Nvidia GPUs diverted to China between late April and mid-May 2025 alone, per the indictment.

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