Markets
Nia Warfield, Luke Kawa

Stocks slip ahead of Fed decision and megacap tech earnings

Stocks opened at their highs of the day and spent the rest of the session in a slow grind lower, finishing near their lows. Markets briefly perked up when China said it had come to an agreement with the US to continue their trade truce, before the gentle slide lower resumed.

The S&P 500 ended down 0.3%, the Nasdaq 100 gave back 0.2%, and the Russell 2000 underperformed with a 0.6% decline.

Performance among S&P 500 sector ETFs was mixed, with defensive groups like real estate and utilities leading the way higher while industrials fared the worst.

Gains were led by Corning, which jumped 12% after the glassmaker for smartphones and fiber-optic cables for AI data centers posted record second-quarter sales. Declines were led in part by Carrier and UPS, which fell 10%, with the shipping giant posting mixed Q2 results and warning of ongoing pressure in the US. Meanwhile…

Sarepta Therapeutics rose 14% after the Food and Drug Administration said it was clearing the way for the drugmaker to resume shipments of its gene therapy drug Elevidys to some patients.

SoFi Technologies shares jumped more than 6% after the personal finance company soared past Q2 expectations and hiked full-year guidance for 2025 revenue and earnings.

JetBlue shares jumped 7% after the airline posted a narrower-than-expected loss for Q2 and received approval for its “Blue Sky” alliance with United.

Stellantis shares dipped 1% after the Jeep maker said it would face a full-year tariff hit of about $1.7 billion.

UnitedHealth slumped 7% after it reported second-quarter earnings that missed expectations along with disappointing full-year guidance.

Uber shares dropped nearly 4% after Alphabet’s Waymo announced on Monday evening that it will launch its robotaxi service in Dallas in a partnership with rental car giant Avis. 

Spotify shares tumbled 11.5% after the audio streamer swung to a loss for the second quarter and gave a lighter-than-expected Q3 outlook.

Shares of PayPal fell almost 9% even after the payments company reported better-than-expected Q2 results and hiked its outlook for the year.

Tilray sank 17% after the cannabis company reported mixed Q2 earnings, including fewer sales than expected of alcoholic beverages like its Montauk beers.

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Tasha Matsumoto
19h
Tech drags down stocks; gold and silver plummet

Gold and silver sank amid Trump’s plans to nominate reputed inflation hawk Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair.

Public sculptures along the Clear Creek Trail in downtown Golden, Colorado.
Ben Walsh, Luke Kawa

Gold and silver plunge, suffering their worst losses since the 1980s

Gold and silver suffered their worst losses in decades on Friday, with the iShares Silver Trust falling more than 30% at one point during afternoon trading before recovering slightly.

After recently crossing $5,000 per ounce for the first time, gold’s dip was relatively muted compared to silver’s rout, but nevertheless eye-watering for a traditional safe haven asset. At one point, gold’s intraday dip exceeded 10%, its worst intraday drop since the 1980s and surpassing its declines seen during the 2008 financial crisis, per Bloomberg.

Silver’s drop was its worst in percentage terms since 1980.

Gold, and particularly silver, have been pushed higher recently by a storm of retail trader enthusiasm for the metals, as well as more traditional drivers of precious metals such as geopolitical risks and concerns over a fall in the dollar’s value due to trade wars and possibly waning central bank independence.

Leveraged ETFs that hold gold and silver futures have become increasingly popular trading vehicles amid the parabolic moves in precious metals prices, and likely contributed to the magnitude of the unwind today.

Case in point: look at silver futures for delivery in March. That’s the dominant contract held by the ProShares Ultra Silver ETF, which offers exposure to 2x the daily move in the shiny metal. Volumes exploded (and the contract rebounded modestly) right around 1:25 p.m. ET, which is when silver futures settled and around the time the ETF performed its daily rebalancing (which in this case, involved massive selling).

Max Knoblauch

Gaming stocks plunge following release of Google’s AI tool that can create playable, copyrighted worlds

Shares of major gaming companies are plunging on Friday as investors get a deeper look at the capabilities of Google’s new generative-AI prototype, Project Genie.

The tool allows users to “create and explore infinitely diverse worlds” with a text or image prompt. Users have already exposed its ability to realistically recreate knockoffs of copyrighted games from Nintendo and other gaming companies.

As users experiment with recreations of game worlds like Take-Two’s “Grand Theft Auto 6,” shares of major gaming companies are sinking. Unity Software, the maker of the popular Unity game engine, is down over 25%, while gaming platform Roblox is down about 9%.

Collision 2019 - Day One

D-Wave Quantum CEO on what’s next after the most eventful month in the company’s history

“If 2025 was the international year of quantum, 2026 is the international year of D-Wave Quantum,” said CEO Dr. Alan Baratz.

Luke Kawa1/30/26
markets
Matt Phillips

SoFi bests Wall Street’s Q4 expectations, shares rise

SoFi Technologies reported better-than-expected Q4 sales and earnings-per-share numbers Friday before market open, sending the shares higher in the premarket. 

The online lender reported: 

  • Adjusted Q4 earnings per share of $0.13 vs. the $0.12 consensus estimate collected by FactSet.

  • Adjusted revenue of $1.01 billion in Q4 vs. the Wall Street forecast for $977.4 million.

  • Q1 2026 adjusted net revenue guidance of approximately $1.04 billion vs. the $1.04 billion consensus expectation, according to FactSet.

SoFi shares rallied roughly 70% last year, as the company’s growing menu of financial products — including trading, wealth management, mortgages, credit cards, and cryptocurrency trading — showed signs of gaining traction beyond its traditional base of student borrowers. But the stock has stumbled in early 2026, falling nearly 7% in January through Thursday’s close, though most of that slump seems to have been reversed this morning.

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