Software slump resumes after high-profile companies issue underwhelming outlooks

Micron is surging on Wednesday after a key executive said the company is getting its next-generation memory chips into customers’ hands ahead of schedule.

“We have been in high-volume production on HBM4. We’ve commenced customer shipments of HBM4 and we see shipment volumes ramping successfully this calendar Q1,” Chief Financial Officer Mark Murphy said at a conference hosted by Wolfe Research. “This is a quarter earlier than we mentioned during our December earnings call.”

HBM4 refers to the newest edition of high-bandwidth memory chips.

Micron has arguably been the laggard in bringing these chips to market compared to peers SK Hynix and Samsung, which may have caused the company to miss out on some high-profile customers (namely, Nvidia). But demand for these components is so intense, and running ahead of production, that finding willing buyers shouldn’t be much of a challenge even at ever-escalating prices.

Murphy added that he sees supply-demand tightness for high-bandwidth memory chips persisting beyond calendar year 2026.

Beta Technologies, the electric aircraft maker that went public in November, is soaring in early Wednesday trading. The stock climbed before markets opened following an upgrade from Jefferies from “hold” to “buy” with a $30 price target, reflecting a nearly 80% climb from its price as of Tuesday’s close.

Jefferies believes Beta shares are attractive after recent risk-off trading — the stock is down 40% since the beginning of the year.

Also appearing to boost optimism in Beta is an SEC filing on Tuesday that indicated Amazon owns a 5.3% stake in the company. The stake isn’t new: Amazon was listed as a 5% or greater shareholder in Beta’s November IPO.

Robinhood Markets remained down in premarket trading after delivering Q4 results Tuesday that fell short of some of Wall Street’s expectations, partly due to a slide in crypto trading.

Here’s what analysts had to say about the print:

Barclays: “Q4 came in softer than expected as lower take rates in options and crypto impacted transaction revenues, and lower [securities] lending in particular impacted [net interest income].”

Mizuho: “Prediction Markets were strong, but overall mixed quarter.”

Piper Sandler: “Bottom line, despite these ST headwinds which we laid out in our note last week, our LT thesis remains intact. If you can stomach the volatility, HOOD is the best way to play secular growth in retail trading and the closest FinTech platform we’ve ever seen to achieving ‘super app’ status.”

Zack’s Investment Research: “Crypto trading revenue fell 38% year over year in Q4, and January data showed another 57% decline in app-based crypto volumes. Unfortunately, that’s not a seasonal blip, that’s a structural slowdown in one of Robinhood’s historically highest-margin engagement drivers.”

Citizens JMP: “Slight revenue shortfall for Robinhood Markets but better expense performance, broadening business contribution, and a full roadmap should support strong growth again in 2026; reiterate our Market Outperform rating.”

The American labor market, ladies and gentlemen.

The January jobs report was a blockbuster, with nonfarm payrolls growth of 130,000.

Economists polled by Bloomberg expected nonfarm payroll growth of 65,000 for the month. Heading into this release, the event contracts trading closest to a coin flip were “above 50,000” and “above 60,000,” suggesting the masses were less optimistic than Wall Street.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

The unemployment rate dipped to 4.3%, while economists had anticipated it would hold steady at 4.4%.

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF extended gains in premarket trading following this release.

The employment gains were very narrowly focused on an industry basis: healthcare accounted for a whopping 123,500, or 95%, of the net job growth.

Both pillars of Unity Software’s business are under pressure from AI tools and new entrants, and its internal AI capabilities don’t seem to be keeping up.

Shares of the gaming engine and ad tech company are off more than 20% in premarket trading. Its solid Q4 results were overshadowed by weak Q1 guidance, with management calling for revenues to range from $480 million to $490 million with adjusted EBITDA from $105 million to $110 million. Wall Street’s estimates were $494 million and $112 million, respectively.

The company’s outlook suggests “a slower than expected ramp-up in its AI-powered ad-technology tool, Vector,” Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Mandeep Singh and Nathan Naidu wrote. “Slow uptake of Unity 6 subscriptions, with guidance seeing flat growth in 1Q, could drag on top-line gains.”

Unity was among the stocks that cratered in late January after the release of Google’s Project Genie, which was able to recreate knockoffs of popular games.

Separately, Unity and peer AppLovin have suffered amid fears that their ad divisions will be disrupted by startups utilizing AI agents.