Nia Warfield, Luke Kawa6/2/25

Tech and energy fuel positive start to the week for US stocks

US stocks enjoyed a positive start to the week, shaking off early losses to finish near their highs of the day. The S&P 500 rose 0.4%, the Nasdaq 100 gained 0.7%, and the Russell 2000 went up 0.2%.

The S&P 500’s rally came despite decliners outnumbering advancers by 22.

Energy was the best-performing S&P 500 sector ETF despite another production increase from OPEC+, while tech also put in a solid gain. Industrials was the lone sector to finish in the red.

Meta surged, while ad agencies fell, on the social media giant’s plan to launch an AI ad-creation tool.

US steel giants Nucor and Steel Dynamics surged double digits, leading S&P 500 gainers after President Trump said he would double tariffs on steel and aluminum imports beginning this Wednesday. On the flip side…

Detroit automakers Ford and GM both fell about 4% on the news and additional comments from the president that he wanted automakers to move full production to the US.

Advertising firms Omnicom, Interpublic, and WPP dipped over 2% on reports that Meta hopes to launch a tool that will use AI to create ad campaigns by the end of next year.

DraftKings shares dropped 6% and FanDuel parent Flutter Entertainment slipped nearly 3% after Illinois quietly passed a new budget over the weekend that tacks on steep new fees for high-volume sportsbook operators.

Shares of Tempus AI, an unprofitable vendor of cancer screening tests that also licenses data for use in drug discovery, soared 15%, erasing much of the loss it suffered after a short seller released a searing analysis of the stock last week.

Applied Digital soared 48% while CoreWeave jumped 8% after the former announced a pair of 15-year deals between the two tech companies to support the latter’s AI capabilities.

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Tasha Matsumoto

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 Kawa1/30/26

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 Knoblauch1/30/26

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 Phillips1/30/26

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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