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The recovery in US stocks is all thanks to the riskiest kinds of companies

Earnings variability, volatility, and trading activity rule the roost.

Luke Kawa

The massive recovery in US stocks since reciprocal tariffs were announced is as clear a sign as any that risk appetite is back.

But just how much have traders been willing to dump or embrace risk during the S&P 500’s descent from all-time highs and swift bounce back?

Factor portfolios are a useful way to track the tale of the tape in this regard, and Bloomberg has a hefty collection of US-specific long/short factor portfolios that group stocks based on certain attributes: value, momentum, profitability, earnings variability, size, and so on.

All of these portfolios are designed to be market neutral, meaning their price action shouldn’t be driven by what the overall stock market is doing, but rather the unique characteristics of each factor.

The initial leg downward in stocks from when the S&P 500 reached an all-time high on February 19 was, unquestionably, a momentum-centric downturn. Momentum cratered, and traders sought safety in companies that were cheap, profitable, or had good dividend yields. After March 10, momentum came roaring back and high-dividend stocks slumped (as longer-term US bond yields drifted higher, which tends to reduce the relative appeal of companies that pay back their shareholders in this manner).

But focusing on which factors have led since the S&P 500’s 2025 low on April 8 is a veritable who’s who of the riskiest types of stocks; high volatility, high trading activity, and earnings variability are the top three. That comports with what we know about retail traders flexing their muscles through this maelstrom, no doubt.

Some of the stocks that are longs in all three portfolios include Tesla, Strategy, Dell, and AppLovin.

Which raises the question: is it inherently risky when stocks like this are leading the market?

Well, during the current bull market (which we’ll still say we’re in until proven otherwise!), we have scant instances of these three factors all being atop the leaderboard for most of a two-week period. Once was in late 2023, which coincided with/was followed by a brief hiccup for the overall market before the S&P 500 roared in the first quarter of the next year. The other came earlier, in February 2023, and was followed by one of your run-of-the-mill 5% to 10% pullbacks for the broad market.

Certainly nothing conclusive, but it does get the antennae up just a little.

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iRobot files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy just 11 days after its record one-day gain

Last one to leave the Roomba, please turn off the lights.

iRobot, maker of robotic vacuums and other cleaning products, announced that it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sunday as part of a restructuring agreement that would see 100% of the company’s equity interests be acquired by its secured lender and its primary contract manufacturer, Shenzhen PICEA Robotics Co., Ltd. and Santrum Hong Kong Co., Limited.

In a press release, the company said that this move “will delever the Company's balance sheet and enable iRobot to continue operating in the ordinary course, pursue its product development roadmap, and maintain its global footprint.”

Shares of iRobot recently booked their biggest one-day gain on record, rising 74% on December 3 on the heels of a Politico report that the Trump administration was planning on going “all in” to boost the robotics industry.

That report spurred a wave of buying from traders who were presumably looking to get exposure to the theme, enticed by the name of a company that has “robot” in it, and less than fully versed on its financial position. Back in March, management had warned investors that “there is substantial doubt about the Company's ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least 12 months.”

Volumes exceeded 228 million on Dec 3, also far and away a daily record for the stock.

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Data center trade deep in the red

The data center trade is seeing its steepest sell-off since the market rout that was ignited by President Donald Trump’s Rose Garden tariff announcement back in April.

Goldman Sachs’ themed basket of AI data center shares was down more than 6% at around 12 p.m. ET, putting it on track for its worst day since the tariff announcement.

Losses hammered seemingly every form of input needed for the sprawling concrete server warehouses at the heart of the investment boom.

Hardware makers including data storage companies like Sandisk, Western Digital, and Seagate Technology Holdings, as well as DRAM maker Micron — some of the best-performing stocks in the S&P 500 this year — were taking a licking, as were networking stocks Cisco and Arista Networks and data center builders such as Vertiv Holdings and electrical and mechanical contractor Emcor.

Optimism for all things AI has seemed to evaporate throughout the week, as the stock market greeted lackluster quarterly numbers from Oracle and Broadcom with jittery sell-offs and concern about growing debts that could crater cash flows.

Those worries seem to be spreading to ancillary beneficiaries of the AI boom on Friday, gouging a chunk out of charts that retail dip buyers have not — at least so far — stepped in to buy as we head into the weekend.

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Luke Kawa

Oracle denies Bloomberg report that it’s delaying some data centers for OpenAI to 2028 from 2027

Getting a multi-hundred-billion-dollar backlog for cloud computing revenues from data center projects is easy. Building them is hard.

Oracle extended declines to as much as -6.5% on the day on the heels of a Bloomberg report that the cloud giant has pushed back the completion dates for some of the data centers it’s building for OpenAI to 2028 from 2027, citing people familiar with the work. Oracle denied this report, telling Reuters that there have been no delays to any sites required to meet its contractual commitments and that all milestones remain on track.

Shares had fully pared their report-induced drop ahead of Oracle’s reply, but remain in the red for the day.

Bloomberg said the reported postponement was attributed to labor and material shortages.

Oracle has been spending more on capex than Wall Street had anticipated, leading to higher-than-expected cash burn. Management boosted its full-year capital spending plans by $15 billion after reporting Q2 results earlier this week.

Oracle’s cloud infrastructure sales came in short of estimates in its fiscal 2026 Q2, a signal that markets already had reason to doubt its ability to quickly turn its humungous RPO (that is, remaining purchase obligations) into revenues.

Traders also seem to be of the mind that potential delays to data center completions are going to limit sales for what goes into them.

Some of the bigger losers since the Bloomberg headline hit the wires include:

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Luke Kawa

Broadcom’s post-earnings tumble is weighing on Google’s entire AI ecosystem

Broadcom’s post-earnings plunge is prompting a sharp pullback in Google-linked AI stocks, which had been on fire thanks to the warm reception to Gemini 3.

The stocks getting hit hard:

A basket of these Google-linked AI stocks compiled by Morgan Stanley is suffering one of its worst losses of the year. This brisk retreat also follows the release of GPT-5.2 by OpenAI.

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