markets

Matt Phillips1/15/25

SoundHound AI soars as speculative trade reignites

After an god-awful 35% drop to open 2025, SoundHound AI shares are getting a huge relief rally on Wednesday following a softer inflation report that sparked a massive drop in long-term interest rates and set off a surge in retail trading of highly speculative shares.

In fairness, the voice AI software company was due for a drop after rising more than 800% in 2024. But those gains shrank down to about 500% in the first few sessions of the year.

The question now is whether the rough start to the year has people ready to use today’s rally as an exit opportunity, or whether the rise could restore some of last year’s swagger among SoundHound holders, many of whom claim to be true believers in the company.

Judging from the charts, it’ll be a hot debate, with the stock just barely retaking its 50-day moving average Wednesday after falling sharply below it in recent days.

That drop suggested a serious break in the stock’s momentum. Time will tell if low interest rates can help shares get their mojo back.

More Markets

See all Markets

markets

AMD to “effectively guarantee” a loan to AI startup Crusoe that will be used to purchase its chips, The Information reports

Advanced Micro Devices will “effectively guarantee” a $300 million loan to data center company Crusoe from Goldman Sachs, according to The Information.

That is, Crusoe is taking out a loan to purchase AMD’s chips, and the chips that they’re purchasing are being used as collateral for that loan.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that this sounds an awful lot like a very common form of borrowing done by American families: borrowing money to buy a house, and having the home be collateral for the mortgage.

One big difference, of course, is that your home is expected to appreciate in value, while AI chips are expected to depreciate in value as they’re used.

(The silver lining, however, is that so far these processors haven’t lost value too quickly.)

Another difference is that AMD, per the report, has agreed to rent these chips from Crusoe if it can’t find customers for this compute, which helped reduced the interest rate Crusoe will pay on this loan.

Similarly, in September, Nvidia agreed to buy any of CoreWeave’s unused cloud computing capacity through April 13, 2032 for $6.3 billion.

Rather than get overly hung up on “circular financing” elements, I’d probably frame the issue here like this:

Everyone wants AI chips. AMD sells AI chips. And yet, in both this deal and the most high-profile one we know about (AMD’s pact with OpenAI), the chip designer seems to be having to have to go the extra mile to get companies to use its AI chips.

You might recall that as part of the OpenAI agreement, AMD issued warrants that enable the ChatGPT developer to receive 160 million shares, or about 10% of the company, if certain operational and stock price targets are hit over time.

Why is it so tough to get buyers on normal terms? My guess would be that this either says something negative about the financing environment for AI start ups, or the perception of AMD’s AI chips.

markets

Max Knoblauch2h

Rental car companies drop amid volatile demand following an “unacceptable” Q4 from Avis

Rental car company Avis shed roughly $1 billion in market cap on Thursday as its stock fell more than 23% following the company’s Q4 results, which CEO Brian Choi called “unacceptable.”

Avis’ adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization came in at $5 million on the quarter, a massive miss compared to the $145.4 million expected by Wall Street analysts polled by FactSet.

Avis said commercial rental days fell 11% in November, as thousands of flights were cancelled amid the government shutdown. That led Avis to reduce its fleet size in Q4, “the most difficult period to sell used vehicles.” The company also took a $500 million write-down on its EV fleet at year-end.

“When operational performance speaks for itself, we earn the right to focus on the bigger picture. This quarter, we didn't earn that right. We fell significantly short of guidance. That's unacceptable, and I have no excuses to offer,” said Choi on the company’s earnings call.

Avis said it expects lower earnings in the first quarter, as January was also impacted by weather-related flight cancellations. Rival Hertz was dragged down in the sell-off, dropping more than 14%.

markets

AppLovin gains amid report on its plans to launch a social networking platform

Ad tech company AppLovin has designs on starting a social networking platform of its own after it was unable to get its hands on TikTok’s US operations.

Shares are up today on the heels of a massive gain on Wednesday, though it’s unclear whether this has much to do with this potential foray or if traders are aiming to call a bottom in the stock after last week’s post-earnings tumble took shares below $360 for the first time since July.

These social plans were discussed in a podcast days ago, and the company has had a job posting for a software engineer to build this platform, though a Bloomberg headline on the subject was only shared this morning.

“We aim to build a completely new next-generation social media platform,” Chief Product and Engineering Officer Giovanni Ge said on the “Valley 101” podcast.

He described the course the company is charting as the opposite of Meta’s, which started by gathering eyeballs and then built advertising around it.

Presumably, such a venture would give AppLovin more digital real estate to run ads, and any data it collects from its users may be useful in offering better targeted ads on other apps.

Last April, CNBC’s Marc Faber reported that the ad tech firm had made an offer for TikTok, and that the Trump administration had been “fully aware” of its interest.

AppLovin’s post-earnings swoon last week, despite solid Q4 results and a better-than-expected Q1 outlook, came as investors have worried about competitive threats to its business from new AI entrants as well as Meta.

Max Knoblauch4h

Airline stocks fall as US-Iran tensions push oil prices up

President Trump on Thursday said “bad things will happen” if a “meaningful deal” is not reached between the US and Iran, escalating tensions between the two countries as well as the threat of a possible conflict.

“Now we may have to take it a step further or we may not. Maybe we are going to make a deal [with Iran]. You are going to be finding out over the next probably 10 days,” Trump said. West Texas Intermediate crude futures climbed more than 2% on Thursday morning.

Oil’s reaction sent airline stocks, which are sensitive to fuel costs, downward. JetBlue, Allegiant, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Alaska Air, and United Airlines all experienced a sell-off on Thursday morning. Other airlines including Frontier and Southwest Airlines also dipped.

markets

Super Micro jumps above 50-day moving average on elevated call activity

A jump in call activity has propelled shares of Super Micro Computer sharply higher, above their 50-day moving average.

As of 10:45 a.m. ET, call volumes of 114,333 are on track to handily surpass the 20-day average of 166,558 for a full session (a period that encompasses the release of its quarterly results earlier this month).

The action has a bullish tilt, with a put/call ratio of less than 0.16 compared to a 20-day average of 0.38. Call options that expire this Friday and next Friday with strike prices between $32 and $33.50 are seeing the most activity.

The AI server company’s post-earnings bounce had been short-lived, with shares returning to near a 52-week low before today’s surge.

Latest Stories

Sherwood Media, LLC produces fresh and unique perspectives on topical financial news and is a fully owned subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, Inc., and any views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any other Robinhood affiliate, including Robinhood Markets, Inc., Robinhood Financial LLC, Robinhood Securities, LLC, Robinhood Crypto, LLC, or Robinhood Money, LLC.

©2026 Sherwood Media, LLC