Tesla falls sharply after Musk and Trump feud gets nasty

GE Vernova, which makes turbines used in power plants and has been a cornerstone in the AI power trade, is falling after posting a mixed bag of Q4 results on Wednesday morning.

• Adjusted EBITDA of $1.16 billion fell short of the $1.25 billion estimate from analysts polled by Bloomberg, dragged down by a loss in its wind business.

• Total revenue came in at $10.96 billion vs. the $10.21 billion consensus expectation from analysts polled by FactSet.

• GE Vernova gave full-year 2026 sales guidance of between $44 billion and $45 billion vs. a consensus expectation of $42.13 billion.

• New orders of $22.2 billion vs. expectations for $18.28 billion.

GE Vernova is up some 400% over the last two years. But the majority of those gains were booked by August 2025. Since then, the shares have been largely rangebound, and are down a bit after this morning’s report.

Starbucks rose 8% in premarket trading after it reported financial results on Wednesday that beat Wall Street estimates on same-store sales for its fiscal Q1, with management projecting better than expected results for that key metric for the full fiscal year.

For the last three months of 2025, Starbucks reported:

• $9.9 billion in revenue, higher than the the $9.6 billion analysts were penciling in.

• Same-store sales growth of 4%, significantly higher than the 2.3% analysts polled by FactSet were expecting. This marks the second consecutive quarter where that key metric was positive.

• Adjusted earnings per share of $0.56, less than the $0.59 the Street was penciling in.

The sales beat is a sign that CEO Brian Niccol's turnaround plan, which includes ideas like the "bearista cup" and extending seasonal drink periods, may be taking hold.

The company also shared its first financial outlook since suspending its forecast in October 2024. For its fiscal year ending in September, Starbucks guided for same store sales to rise by at least 3%, more than the 2.83% growth that Wall Street was projecting. Management also expects annual adjusted earnings per share in a range of $2.15 to $2.40, compared to the $2.35 analysts were penciling in.

Intel is surging this morning amid one confirmed vote of executive-suite confidence in the company and a rumored one that could be much more significant:

Starting with the latter, Taiwanese industry outlet DigiTimes reports that Intel will play a role in Nvidia GPUs for the Feynman generation, the successor to the upcoming Vera Rubin generation, which is expected to be released in 2028. Specifically, the report claims that Nvidia will “partially utilize” Intel for the I/O die, or the part of the module that facilitates communication, as well as for about 25% of packaging. The remainder would be handled by TSMC, which is also slated to retain its role in manufacturing the Feynman architecture’s brains.

In September, Nvidia announced a $5 billion investment in Intel as part of of a pact to develop data center and PC products. This report, if confirmed, would make a significant enhancement of this partnership.

And as for the support from inside the house: a filing released after the close on Tuesday showed Intel chief financial officer David Zinsner bought nearly $250,000 in company stock on Monday. That purchase came amid the more than 20% tumble in the shares after management issued guidance for Q1 that came in below Wall Street’s view.

Elevance Health, already battered after the Trump administration proposed keeping payments to private Medicare plans flat in 2027, reported earnings results that beat Wall Street estimates but gave a disappointing full-year outlook.

For the last three months of 2025, Elevance Health reported:

• $3.33 adjusted earnings per share, compared to the $3.10 analysts polled by FactSet were expecting.

• $49.3 billion in revenue, compared to the $49.8 billion the Street was penciling in.

• A medical cost ratio of 93.5%, right in line with estimates.

For full-year 2026, the company expects to report:

• Annual adjusted earnings per share of at least $25.50, short of the $29.99 analysts are currently penciling in.

The report comes after the Trump administration said Tuesday it would seek roughly no change in rates for Medicare insurers, sending Elevance and a host of other major Medicare Advantage providers lower. The proposal complicates the turn-around story insurers like Elevance had been telling investors after taking a major hit in 2025 amid higher-than-expected medical costs.

Micron shares are continuing their meteoric rise after South Korean competitor SK Hynix reported record earnings for the final quarter of 2025, underscoring the continued demand for the world’s three leading memory chip manufacturers — SK Hynix, Micron, and Samsung — fueled by rampant AI capex spending.

Driven by demand for its high-bandwidth-memory (HBM) products, a higher-margin memory product essential for AI accelerators, the company posted a record 32.8 trillion won (~$22.6 billion) in revenue and 19.2 trillion won ($13.2 billion) in operating profit for the fourth quarter. The company’s shares were up more than 6% in trading in Korea.

SK Hynix also announced on Wednesday that it will commit at least $10 billion as it restructures a subsidiary to establish a new US-based company specialized in finding “new AI growth engines.” Management also continues to consider listing its shares in the US.

SK Hynix’s latest performance reflects the strong demand for HBM3E, its cutting-edge DRAM product, for which the Korean firm is the main supplier to big tech companies like Nvidia and Microsoft. Micron is second to SK Hynix’s dominance in the HBM space in market share.

Elsewhere in the AI memory and storage space, Seagate’s robust results and strong guidance is helping to lift sentiment further.

Micron, Western Digital and, Sandisk are soaring in premarket trading stateside, while Samsung shares popped up a smaller 2% at Wednesday’s close in Korea.