AppLovin logo displayed on the screen of an iPad (Sheldon Cooper/Getty Images)

Not Lovin’ It

Short sellers’ reports sink AppLovin

The stock has erased its 2025 gains.

2/26/25 10:35AM

AppLovin is sinking in early trading on Wednesday after short-selling firms Fuzzy Panda Research and Culper Research announced short positions in the stock, alleging that its AI ad-tech breakthroughs are a farce.

The short-selling firms teamed up to investigate the company and published separate reports on their findings.

Culper summarizes its short thesis in two bullets:

The company’s mobile gaming results are being juiced by “the systematic exploitation of app permissions that enable advertisements themselves to force-feed silent, backdoor app installations onto users’ phones... each illicit install translates directly to profit.”
The company is gaming Meta’s advertising platform in a way that allows it to “take credit for the sale” and claim better results on its ad campaigns.

Fuzzy Panda’s report also alleges that AppLovin is “stealing data from Meta in their e-commerce push” and that “Apple, Google, and Meta all have a vested interest in putting a stop to it.”

AppLovin is one of the many companies felled by the rout in momentum stocks. Shares had rocketed higher after reporting earnings earlier this month, but with today’s losses they’ve given back all of that advance as well as all their 2025 gains.

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Another record high for stocks as tech heavyweights put market on their shoulders

All of the gains on Monday are attributable to Nvidia and Apple.

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Chinese EV maker Nio sinks as a surge of orders for its new SUV create a 6-month backlog

Shares of Nio are falling Monday on the bittersweet news that its latest SUV (the ES8, priced to compete with Tesla’s Model Y) is too popular.

According to Chinese media reports, up to 50,000 ES8 orders may have been placed in the vehicle’s first 36 hours, surpassing Nio’s 40,000-vehicle production cap for this year.

Customers now ordering the ES8 won’t receive their vehicle for 24 to 26 weeks, or six months.

Nio CEO William Li said that the ES8’s production capacity will reach 15,000 units by December.

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Customers now ordering the ES8 won’t receive their vehicle for 24 to 26 weeks, or six months.

Nio CEO William Li said that the ES8’s production capacity will reach 15,000 units by December.

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Nvidia jumps on plans to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI as part of data center expansion

Shares of Nvidia vaulted on the news, as CEO Jensen Huang says the new project would involve 4 million to 5 million GPUs.

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Moderna rises after RFK Jr. vaccine panel’s less-draconian-than-expected Covid recommendation

While ACIP’s vote means less people may be able to access Moderna’s vaccine than before, it’s less severe than the outright ban some were expecting.

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US toys with making the world’s worst investment

Argentinian government bonds are up big today on reports that the US is considering some sort of a bailout for the chronically messy Latin American economy currently led by Trump-allied right-wing populist Javier Millei.

The country’s foreign minister knocked down previous reports that Argentina was negotiating a $30 billion loan with the US.

But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent just came out saying that “all options” are being considered to stabilize the country’s currency, which plunged as Millei’s attempt to radically remake the economy with deep spending and tax cuts has shown signs of sputtering amid a series of government corruption scandals. Bessent even went so far as to say Argentina is a “systemically important” US ally, using a term of art that’s often bandied about when bailouts are in the offing.

For the record, lending Argentina US taxpayer money seems a bad idea.

The country has defaulted on foreign loans nine times, giving it one of the world’s worst credit histories. In fact, it’s defaulted three times since 2000, including in 2019, after the last attempt to “reform” the country lured in foreign lenders once again.

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