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Stocks dip in widespread pullback

The S&P 500 fell 0.4%, the Nasdaq 100 gave back 0.3%, and the Russell 2000 was at the bottom of the pack with a decline of about 1%.

Nia Warfield, Luke Kawa

After stocks ended last week with their best day in months, they took a breather today, ending near session lows. 

The S&P 500 fell 0.4%, the Nasdaq 100 gave back 0.3%, and the Russell 2000 was at the bottom of the pack with a decline of about 1%.

Within the S&P 500, there were 299 more losers than gainers, the most broadly negative day in over a month.

Defensive pockets of the stock market were among the hardest hit, with consumer staples, healthcare, and utilities S&P sector ETFs all down more than 1%.

Seagate was among the day’s bright spots, up about 3% after Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated its “buy” rating on the chipmaker and stuck a $175 price target on the stock. Meanwhile, Keurig Dr Pepper shares tumbled 11% after announcing an $18 billion acquisition and a planned split-up of its coffee business from other drinks. Elsewhere…

Home goods retailers Wayfair, RH, and Williams-Sonoma all dipped lower following President Trump’s Friday post on Truth Social threatening to impose tariffs on US furniture imports.

CSX shares fell 5.2% after Warren Buffett told CNBC that his railroad, BNSF, would not acquire the company, following months of buyout rumors.

American Eagle slid 2.6% after Bank of America downgraded the stock and cut its price target, warning that the retailer’s Sydney Sweeney boost won’t be enough to offset tariffs.

Canadian cannabis companies Tilray, Canopy Growth, and SNDL rallied as momentum around cannabis rescheduling picks up.

Nvidia shares were up as much as 2% before finishing the day up 1% after the chipmaker formally unveiled the Jetson Thor, a platform for physical AI and robotics that it calls a “robot brain.”

Rocket Lab rose 6.4% after the aerospace manufacturer announced plans Friday to expand its US manufacturing base to produce parts for sensitive national-security-related missions.

Roblox closed up 6.2% following a weekend that reportedly saw more than 45 million concurrent players on the popular gaming platform, a record.

Aehr Test Systems soared 35.6% after the semiconductor testing equipment maker said a major hyperscaler has ordered even more of its systems to appraise their AI processors.

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Roblox surges as a new brainrot game climbs the engagement charts

A game that has players grab “brainrots” like “Aura Farma” and “Rainbow 67” and run away with Tsunamis is climbing the Roblox engagement charts and getting the attention of Wall Street analysts.

Morgan Stanely on Tuesday lowered its price target for Roblox from $170 to $155, but said that the platform’s risks are fully discounted and that it should continue to benefit from hit games. On Monday, BMO Capital directly cited the emergence of one such hit: “Escape Tsunami For Brainrots!”

That title, a top five experience on the gaming platform according to engagement tracking service RoMonitor, averaged more than 40 million visits from Saturday to Monday. Less than a month old, the game has landed just in time, emerging after analysts last month warned that 2025 viral hits like “Grow a Garden” and “Steal a Brainrot” (yes, it’s different) are past their peaks.

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Nvidia stock shrugs off report that Chinese customers will only be able to buy H200 AI chips “under special circumstances”

The Information is reporting that Chinese customers won’t be able to get their hands on as many Nvidia H200 AI chips as they want.

Per the outlet, the “Chinese government this week told some tech companies it would only approve their purchases of Nvidia’s H200 AI chips under special circumstances, such as for university research and development labs,” citing two people with direct knowledge of the situation.

On December 8, US President Donald Trump said Nvidia would be allowed to sell these chips, the most advanced in its Hopper generation, to China. This was shortly followed by a report from the Financial Times that Chinese regulators were “discussing ways to permit limited access to the H200,” as the world’s second-largest economy has been keen on boosting its domestic chip industry. Last week, Bloomberg reported that “Chinese officials are preparing to allow local companies to buy the component from Nvidia for select commercial use,” with imports beginning “as soon as this quarter.”

Call it information fatigue, because the market doesn’t seem to care about this latest report, with shares making fresh highs for the day not even 10 minutes after this news hit the wires. Or perhaps when it comes to AI development, it’s not hard to come up with “special circumstances” to justify access to powerful chips.

The report adds that Chinese officials have told companies to only buy these chips if “necessary” — without really defining what “necessary” means.

It’s not the first time traders shrugged off reporting from The Information on Nvidia. Shares finished up 1% on January 7, the day the outlet reported that Beijing was suspending purchases of the H200 pending a decision on what the import restrictions would be.

600✈️ < 793✈️

Boeing shares are up more than 2% on Tuesday after the plane maker reported 160 commercial jet deliveries in the fourth quarter, sending its full-year total to 600. That’s a 72% improvement from the company’s disastrous 2024, when it delivered 348 jets amid safety probes and a lengthy strike.

As expected, Boeing was out-delivered by its European rival Airbus for the seventh year in a row. Airbus reported 793 annual commercial handoffs for the year.

Boeing’s 193-jet delivery gap on the year improves on its performance vs. Airbus in 2023, when it delivered 207 fewer jets than its chief competitor.

markets

Intel jumps to new 52-week high on upgrade

Intel jumped early Tuesday, hitting a 52-week high soon after the open, as Keybanc analysts upgraded the stock to “overweight” and put an above-consensus $60 price target on the shares, suggesting an upside of 25%.

They also upgraded Advanced Micro Devices to “overweight” and put a $270 target on the shares, a ~23% premium from where they’re trading.

markets

Companies are still facing ransom demands from Oracle’s business software data breach, the WSJ reports

A hack that stole sensitive data in Oracle’s business software — which may have started as early as last July, but wasn’t disclosed by the company until October — is still generating ransom demands, per reporting by The Wall Street Journal.

The number of affected organizations seems to be rising, with executives at Harvard University, Canon USA, Mazda, American Airlines unit Envoy Air, and Logitech all receiving emails demanding millions in exchange for the release of data in recent months.

An online extortion group known as Cl0p had been identified as the source of the breach on Oracle’s E-Business Suite, with the hackers reportedly leveraging a security flaw that did not need any fake or stolen sign-in credentials, and leaving responsible teams “zero-days” to fix the vulnerability. By the time Oracle issued software patches in October to prevent further attacks, more than 100 companies were estimated to be affected by the data breach, per the WSJ.

The number of affected organizations seems to be rising, with executives at Harvard University, Canon USA, Mazda, American Airlines unit Envoy Air, and Logitech all receiving emails demanding millions in exchange for the release of data in recent months.

An online extortion group known as Cl0p had been identified as the source of the breach on Oracle’s E-Business Suite, with the hackers reportedly leveraging a security flaw that did not need any fake or stolen sign-in credentials, and leaving responsible teams “zero-days” to fix the vulnerability. By the time Oracle issued software patches in October to prevent further attacks, more than 100 companies were estimated to be affected by the data breach, per the WSJ.

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