(Zhang Xiaotian/Getty Images)

Stocks stall, small-caps tumble on hot inflation print

Some fun in single stocks, a listless day for major indexes, and awful price action in small-caps.

8/14/25 3:25PM

A hotter-than-expected reading of July’s producer price index put stocks, and particularly small-caps, on the back foot to start the day.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 managed to bounce back, with the former closing marginally higher and the latter fractionally lower, while the Russell 2000 fell more than 1% on the day.

Healthcare and financials were the best-performing S&P 500 sector ETFs, while materials was at the bottom of the leaderboard with a decline of 1%.

Amazon continued to be a standout positive performer among megacaps, with analysts applauding its expansion into free same-day grocery delivery nationwide for Prime members.

Palantir dipped as Andrew Left, head of short-selling firm Citron Research, said he was betting against the company in light of its lofty valuation.

CoreWeave tanked 15% ahead of its lockup expiry, which allows major shareholders to begin potentially taking profits following the IPO as of now.

Bumble also cratered 15% after two major shareholders — Blackstone and the dating app’s founder and CEO, Whitney Wolfe Herd — announced that they were selling what amounted to roughly one-fifth of shares outstanding.

Intel popped late in the day on a Bloomberg report that the Trump administration was mulling the potential for the government to take a position in the embattled chip company.

TeraWulf posted a massive gain, up nearly 60%, after announcing multibillion-dollar AI hosting deals and news that Alphabet would acquire an 8% stake in the company.

Chinese gaming company NetEase slumped almost 4% after posting underwhelming second-quarter earnings.

Max Knoblauch7m

Airlines climb as market prices in medium-term oil supply relief amid US-Venezuela tensions

US airlines are climbing on Monday, despite higher oil prices amid escalating US-Venezuela tensions following the US’s capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.

The price action follows a weekend of disrupted travel for airlines, as the FAA ordered carriers to avoid large swaths of Caribbean airspace following US strikes. The agency’s restrictions expired on Sunday.

Delta Air Lines, which reached an all-time high on Monday, said it had "proactively added more than 2,600 seats through extra flights across its Caribbean network for Monday, Jan. 5." The carrier expects flights to the region to normalize by Tuesday. American Airlines said it’s added about 7,000 extra seats to temporarily boost its capacity.

While crude futures rose on the US-Venezuela tensions (West Texas Intermediate crude futures were up 1.7% Monday afternoon), the market appears to be pricing in some medium-term relief due to the possibility of Venezuela’s reserves getting more developed. US oil companies are similarly rising in Monday trading.

Matt Phillips2h

Duolingo jumps following BofA upgrade

Duolingo shares are down over 60% since hitting their peak last May, as slowing quarterly growth in key metrics like daily active users prompted analysts to sharply cut their long-term estimates for the company’s growth potential.

“We disagree,” Bank of America analysts wrote in a note Monday upgrading the stock to “buy” — from “neutral” — and slapping a $250 target on the stock.

They elaborated:

“Why? Because Duolingo’s value proposition extends beyond education into entertainment — a market investors have largely ignored. With gamified mechanics that rival top casual games and a growing portfolio of fun-first courses like Chess and Music, Duolingo taps into the large audience of mobile users seeking engaging ways to fill idle time. This dual positioning creates a long growth runway.”

In other words, they think addictiveness of the app has more in common with games like Roblox or the various iterations of Microsoft’s “Candy Crush” saga than the market currently understands. And that means that Duolingo can, perhaps, sustain higher long-term growth than investors seem to grok. In short, they argue that Duolingo deserves a more game-like valuation, which it will get as it surprises on growth in the coming years.

“We note that Duolingo’s financial forecast is similar to Roblox, but its multiple is significantly lower, despite its high mix of annual subscription customers,” they said.

Bank of America’s target for the shares is 30% higher than where the stock was trading Monday morning, despite the fact that Duolingo shares were having their best day in about three months. But even if it were to hit $250, the stock will still be more than 50% below its record closing high of $540.68 set last year on May 14.

“Why? Because Duolingo’s value proposition extends beyond education into entertainment — a market investors have largely ignored. With gamified mechanics that rival top casual games and a growing portfolio of fun-first courses like Chess and Music, Duolingo taps into the large audience of mobile users seeking engaging ways to fill idle time. This dual positioning creates a long growth runway.”

“We note that Duolingo’s financial forecast is similar to Roblox, but its multiple is significantly lower, despite its high mix of annual subscription customers,” they said.

Matt Phillips5h

Intel rises in early trading after upgrade

Melius Research gave Intel a lift in early trading with an upgrade to “buy” from “hold,” based partly on optimism that the partially nationalized American chipmaker will find a corporate partner to use its next-generation chip-making process, which is known as 14A.

According to the Fly on the Wall, Melius analysts see a “good chance” that Nvidia and Apple kick the tires on the new technology by 2028-29.

Melius’ new $50 price target for the stock implies a gain of roughly 20% from current levels.

Intel is coming off an astounding year. Why this analyst sees more gains ahead

Melius’ new $50 price target for the stock implies a gain of roughly 20% from current levels.

Max Knoblauch5h

Comcast sinks as it completes the spin-off of most of its cable channels

Shares of cable juggernaut and Peacock parent Comcast sank more than 6% in premarket trading on Monday.

Driving the move was the completion of a separation of most of its cable channels into a separate entity trading as Versant Media.

The spin-off, which you can blame for the MSNBC to MS NOW rebrand (and any resulting logos), was first announced in late 2024. Comcast’s cable channels, including USA Network, Golf Channel, Oxygen, and E!, have all moved under the Versant umbrella, along with digital brands like Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango. Comcast will retain NBC, Peacock, and Universal under the new structure.

Comcast isn’t the only cable giant trying to separate itself from cable. The media bidding war target of the moment, Warner Bros. Discovery, announced last year that it would perform a similar split.

Luke Kawa6h

Crypto stocks surge as bitcoin refuses to go down in 2026

We’re on our fifth day of 2026 and bitcoin has gone up in every single one of them, rising about 6% in the process.

The crypto asset is working on its longest streak of gains since October, propelling bitcoin-adjacent stocks higher in premarket trading on Monday, including:

Strategy, even as it announces a $17.44 billion unrealized loss on its crypto holdings in Q4.
Other digital asset treasury companies like Strive Inc. and Trump Media & Technology Group.
Miners MARA Holdings, Riot Platforms, and Hut 8.
Bitcoin miners turned data center stocks IREN and Cipher Mining.
Trading platforms Coinbase and Robinhood Markets.

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)