Mascot Clark the Cub poses before a Spring Training game between the Chicago Cubs a the Seattle Mariners at Sloan Park

Clark the bear, mascot of the Chicago Cubs (John E. Moore III/Getty Images)

Stocks retreat from records

The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 all closed lower.

Stocks slid from yesterday’s highs, as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 dipped and the Russell 2000 underperformed. Gold and oil also took a tumble. Consumer staples was the only sector ETF to finish positively, with PepsiCo popping on an earnings beat after international growth offset weakness in North America.

Stocks that moved higher:

Delta Air Lines climbed after its third-quarter earnings beat on both sales and profit and it forecast for a strong final quarter, also sending United Airlines up.
Tilray flew higher after reporting strong results in its alcohol and distribution businesses, sending other cannabis stocks like SNDL Inc. and Canopy Growth up as well.
Serve Robotics rocketed higher after the maker of sidewalk delivery robots announced a partnership with DoorDash to roll out autonomous robot vehicles across the US, starting with Los Angeles.
Nvidia traded higher after reportedly receiving US government approval to ship some AI chips to the UAE.
Satellite services provider AST SpaceMobile continued to get a lift from its announcement earlier this week that it has signed a deal with telecom giant Verizon to provide some cellular broadband services from its satellites by 2026.
Meta is considering building a dedicated TV app to expand the reach of Instagram’s video content, according to comments by Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, at a Bloomberg conference.

Stocks that moved lower:

Ferrari sank after unveiling its first electric car, while simultaneously scaling back its electrification plans until 2030 to focus on its gas-powered and hybrid lineup.
Tesla fell after the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened another investigation of the automaker’s self-driving software after 58 reports of traffic violations.
Novo Nordisk slipped as the Ozempic and Wegovy maker is acquiring liver disease drugmaker Akero Therapeutics for up to $5.2 billion.

Luke Kawa7h

Applied Digital whipsaws after posting quarterly revenue beat in Q1

Shares of Applied Digital are gyrating down and up and down again in postmarket trading after the company reported better-than-expected results for its fiscal Q1, the three-month period ended August 31.

The data center company, which counts Nvidia and CoreWeave among its major share and warrant holders, booked $64.2 million in revenues (estimate: $46.1 million) with an adjusted diluted loss per share of $0.03 (estimate: loss of $0.13).

“With hyperscalers expected to invest approximately $350 billion into AI deployment this year, we believe we are in a prime position to serve as the modern-day picks and shovels of the intelligence era,” Chairman and CEO Wes Cummins said.

The options-implied move for the stock on earnings is a whopping 17.6%, per Bloomberg data.

Applied Digital is also one of the components in the Roundhill Meme Stock ETF, which relaunched this week.

Matt Phillips8h

AST SpaceMobile soars again, up 80% in October

Another day, another giant gain for satellite services provider AST SpaceMobile, which continues to get a lift from its announcement earlier this week that it has signed a deal with telecom giant Verizon to provide some cellular broadband services from its satellites by 2026.

Retail enthusiasm for the stock, despite the fact that it has posted growing losses over the last four years, is high, helped out by a fair amount of online boosterism.

JPMorgan analysts have AST on their list of “most hyped stocks on social media,” which they included in their “Retail Radar” note published Thursday. A quick glance at r/WallStreetBets or volumes of call options — which hit their highest level in over a year yesterday — would seem to confirm retail participation.

It’s been a good trade. AST SpaceMobile is up more than 2,500% over the last two years, a rally that has created more than $20 billion in stock market wealth. To the moon, indeed.

$8.5T

Matt Phillips11h

Analysts at consulting firm Pantheon Macroeconomics estimate that the stock market’s enthusiasm for all things AI has added some $8.5 trillion to aggregate US household wealth since late 2022. They wrote:

“The S&P 500 returned about 70% between the start of ChatGPT mania around the end of 2022 to the end of Q2 2025, with roughly half of those returns generated by the ‘magnificent seven’ tech stocks, a very rough proxy for the stock market boost from AI euphoria.

We estimate that translates into a lift to household wealth held in stocks of about $8.5T.”

As my colleague Luke Kawa recently wrote, stock market wealth seems to be underpinning US consumer spending, especially among the richest Americans. Some of that spending may retrench if AI is indeed a bubble — as some have recently mooted — and eventually pops.

Matt Phillips

12h

Analysts break down what’s driving SoFi’s recent surge

Part of the rally is related to the federal government’s retreat from student lending. But there’s more to it.