Luke Kawa5/14/25

US stocks creep higher in tech-centric rally

Tech stocks did the heavy lifting on Wednesday to prevent major downside across key indexes.

The S&P 500 inched up 0.1% and the Nasdaq 100 rose 0.6%, while the Russell 2000 dropped 0.9%.

The S&P 500’s advance-decline line was firmly tilted to the downside, with the number of stocks falling outnumbering those that rose by 204.

The only S&P 500 sector ETFs that finished in the green were the ones home to the Magnificent 7: tech, communication services, and consumer discretionary. Healthcare once again brought up the rear with a big drop.

Super Micro Computer was a standout performer, rising double digits after striking a $20 billion multiyear deal to supply a Saudi Arabian data center company with servers.

Nvidia booked another large gain as Bank of America analysts said that sovereign AI deals (like the one struck with Saudi Arabia this week) could offset the impact of export restrictions. AMD, which also reached an agreement to sell chips to the Kingdom, soared after management boosted its buyback authorization.

Boeing posted a paltry advance even as the White House said Qatar Airways is posed to purchase $96 billion worth of planes.

Rocket Lab USA lived up to its name after touting its second successful Earth return operation in as many months.

Sony jumped out of the gates after reporting better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings, but gave back a big chunk of that rally by the close.

PVH, parent company of the likes of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, surged on the heels of an upgrade to “buy” from Jefferies. Rivian, on the other hand, dipped after being downgraded by the same firm.

American Eagle had its wings clipped after posting ugly preliminary Q1 results and yanking its full-year guidance, citing “macro uncertainty.”

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Tasha Matsumoto

Large-caps waver ahead of next week’s Fed meeting; small-caps notch record close

Stocks are in a holding pattern as investors await tomorrow’s release of September PCE for further insight into next week’s Fed decision.

a sunny field

markets

Report: US senators plan to introduce bill blocking Nvidia from selling advanced chips to China for 30 months

US senators are on the verge of introducing a bill that would block Nvidia from selling its H200 or Blackwell chips to China for 30 months, the Financial Times reports. The H200 is Nvidia’s best chip from the Hopper generation, while the Blackwell line is its current flagship offering.

Shares of the chip designer are little changed in the wake of this report, still up more than 1% on the session. The reaction makes sense, seeing as previous positive indications on Nvidia’s ability to sell advanced chips to China failed to inspire much positive momentum in its shares.

The stock got a short-lived jolt higher (that didn’t last the day!) on November 21 after Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration had discussed the possibility of selling its H200 chips to China.

Nvidia has effectively been shut out of China’s AI market in 2025. First, export restrictions meant it could no longer sell the H20, a nerfed version of its Hopper chip, to the world’s second-largest economy. After that export ban was lifted, demand from China “never materialized,” per Nvidia CFO Colette Kress. Reports indicate that China banned its leading technology giants from purchasing these semiconductors, instead pushing them toward domestic alternatives.

President Donald Trump had mused about allowing Nvidia to sell Blackwell chips to China prior to his meeting with Chinese President Xi in late October, but failed to do so. The two leaders did not discuss the topic at that time.

Per the FT, this upcoming bill would be a bipartisan effort, being cosponsored by the leading Republican and Democrat members of the Senate Foreign Relations East Asia subcommittee.

markets

AI energy plays soar on an explosion of call buying

Like their quantum computing counterparts, AI-linked energy plays are benefiting from an explosion of bullish options activity on Thursday.

Oklo is up double digits with call volumes above 106,000 as of 2:46 p.m. ET, more than double its 20-day average for a full session, with a put/call ratio of about 0.6. Call options with a strike price of $110 that expire this Friday (which are now in-the-money thanks to today’s surge) are seeing the most activity.
Nuscale, another nuclear energy play, has seen nearly 140,000 call options change hands versus a 20-day average of 51,073.
And fuel cell company Bloom Energy has traded nearly 80,000 calls, roughly twice its 20-day average, with a put/call ratio of about 0.3.

During his appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast released on Wednesday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang talked up the potential for nuclear energy, saying, “In the next six to seven years I think you are going to see a whole bunch of small nuclear reactors.”

This adds to the evidence that the speculative bid is back in a big way after smaller stocks tied to the AI boom and quantum computing cratered from mid-October through most of November as credit risk began to seep into the AI trade.

Old electronic items tossed on ground for disposal, Hudson

Technology giants don’t look like they used to, as the asset-light era fades

Oracle and Meta are now some of the most capital-intensive businesses in the S&P 500, spending more than energy giants. I guess data really is the new oil?

David Crowther14h

markets

Matt Phillips14h

Space stocks rip amid speculation on Altman joining race

Space stocks AST SpaceMobile, Planet Labs, and Rocket Lab all soared Thursday amid a recovery in the high-beta momentum class of shares coveted by some retail traders.

(High-beta momo stocks are basically shares that have been on a winning streak for a while, and tend to go up a lot more than the overall market on positive days. Goldman Sachs includes all three of the aforementioned space stocks in its themed basket of such shares.)

There’s little other fundamental news out there on the companies themselves.

But a Wall Street Journal report that OpenAI impresario Sam Altman has been toying with the idea of entering the space industry, potentially standing up a rival to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite service, may also be contributing.

As we’ve mentioned elsewhere, sometimes these stocks seem to trade on a what’s-bad-for-the-Musk-empire-is-good-for-us-and-vice-versa vibe.

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