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Synopsys rises on WSJ report of Elliott’s new multibillion-dollar stake

Software company Synopsys is up 3% in premarket trading on Monday after The Wall Street Journal reported that Elliott Investment Management, a well-known activist fund, has taken a multibillion-dollar stake in the company.

Elliott Managing Partner Jesse Cohn told the WSJ that “Synopsys is essential to the global chip industry,” and that it is “uniquely positioned to benefit” as the AI industry continues to require more capital, more complex chips, and therefore, more software to design them.

The firm’s investment is predicated on a “clear opportunity for Synopsys’ financial performance to more fully reflect the value it delivers.” While memory stocks like Micron have been on a tear recently, Synopsys has dropped 8% over the past year, lagging behind its biggest rival, Cadence Design Systems, which is up 6% in the same period.

Citing people familiar with the investment in Synopsys, the Journal reports that Elliott sees room for the company to boost sales and improve its margins to be more in line with that of Cadence. In its fiscal year 2025, Cadence notched an adjusted operating margin of nearly 45%, while Synopsys eked out only 37%.

Elliott Managing Partner Jesse Cohn told the WSJ that “Synopsys is essential to the global chip industry,” and that it is “uniquely positioned to benefit” as the AI industry continues to require more capital, more complex chips, and therefore, more software to design them.

The firm’s investment is predicated on a “clear opportunity for Synopsys’ financial performance to more fully reflect the value it delivers.” While memory stocks like Micron have been on a tear recently, Synopsys has dropped 8% over the past year, lagging behind its biggest rival, Cadence Design Systems, which is up 6% in the same period.

Citing people familiar with the investment in Synopsys, the Journal reports that Elliott sees room for the company to boost sales and improve its margins to be more in line with that of Cadence. In its fiscal year 2025, Cadence notched an adjusted operating margin of nearly 45%, while Synopsys eked out only 37%.

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Saleah Blancaflor

US national average gas price rises 25 cents in a week once again to hit $4.55

Drivers have been seeing another increase at the pump, as the national average for a gallon of regular gas rose 25 cents for a second consecutive week.

Gas prices are currently $4.55 per gallon, which is $1.40 higher than it was about a year ago, according to the American Automobile Association. Gas prices have reached their highest level since 2022 when the national average peaked at $5.01 per gallon.

While crude oil prices dropped below $100 per barrel during ongoing negotiations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, gas prices continue to face growing pressure from global supply concerns.

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(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

While crude oil prices dropped below $100 per barrel during ongoing negotiations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, gas prices continue to face growing pressure from global supply concerns.

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(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

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OpenAI’s massive custom chip deal with Broadcom is reportedly facing financing difficulties

OpenAI’s plan to purchase 10 gigawatts worth of custom AI chips from Broadcom, a deal announced in October, is running into some financial difficulties, per The Information.

A report, citing an internal memo and people involved in the talks, says that that the custom chip designer is being asked to finance the initial $18 billion in chip production, and is only willing to do so if Microsoft buys 40% of these processors or OpenAI finds other buyers.

Shares of Broadcom sank to session lows following this news, but pared most of that retreat thereafter.

Microsoft recently revised its agreement with the ChatGPT maker to end revenue-sharing payments from the former to the latter. That’s seemingly a signal of the tech behemoth’s reluctance to contribute as much to OpenAI’s massive cash burn going forward.

All in all, it appears as though Broadcom is willing to meet OpenAI more than halfway in a bid to make sure the parties can secure capacity for these chips to be produced. The report concludes:

Broadcom had long insisted that OpenAI put up one dollar of its own for every dollar Broadcom provided in financing, a typical arrangement to limit the chip vendor’s risks. That requirement had become a sticking point in the talks, according to the memo and an executive involved in the talks.

But Broadcom recently decided to relax that demand and invest more capital up-front than OpenAI, breaking from Broadcom’’s “long-held hard-line requirement,” the OpenAI memo said.

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Whirlpool tumbles on Q1 earnings, says war is causing “recession-level” decline in US appliance demand

Shares of home-appliance giant Whirlpool Corp. are tumbling on Thursday following its Q1 earnings and stark warning about consumer confidence.

According to Whirlpool, the war with Iran “resulted in recession-level industry decline in the US as consumer confidence collapsed in late February and March.”

The company’s Q1 sales were down about 10% year over year. In April, Whirlpool issued its “largest price increase in more than a decade,” with costs for consumers rising 10%. US appliance demand dropped 7.4% in Q1, Whirlpool said, including a 10% drop in March.

“This level of industry decline is similar to what we have observed during the global financial crisis and even higher than during other recessionary periods,” CEO Marc Bitzer said on the company’s earnings call.

Whirlpool shares were down more than 20% in premarket trading, but pared some of those losses in early trading. It remains on pace for one of its worst trading days in company history.

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Krispy Kreme jumps on narrower Q1 loss and “significant progress on turnaround”

Krispy Kreme’s shares are climbing this morning, with the stock ticking up around 5% as the market opened after the company reported narrowing losses and highlighted the success of its turnaround efforts before the bell.

For the quarter ended March 29, 2026, Krispy Kreme trimmed its net loss to $22.8 million, down from $33.3 million a year earlier, though still wider than the $10.8 million loss analysts had penciled in (compiled by Bloomberg). Adjusted EBITDA for Q1 came in at $33.1 million, a little more than the $30.6 million that analysts had been expecting.

CEO Josh Charlesworth struck an optimistic note around the earnings, commenting that Q1 “highlighted significant progress across every pillar of our turnaround plan” and that management expects “this momentum to continue through 2026, driven by profitable growth in the U.S. with key strategic partners, higher digital sales, and international expansion.”

The donut chain is tightening its belt quicker than previously anticipated and expects a net leverage ratio of less than 5.5x in 2026, where they’d expected the level to remain at or below 5.5x last quarter. DNUT also expects more than $15 million in cash flow by the end of the fiscal year as it tightens its debt reduction target.

The company’s newly introduced FY2026 net revenue outlook, forecast to be between $1.25 billion and $1.35 billion, fell below Wall Street’s $1.46 billion estimates — a discrepancy that Krispy Kreme addressed by saying that analyst expectations don’t yet reflect recent asset sales.

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