Markets
markets
Luke Kawa

US stocks sink after Trump says he’s considering a “massive increase” of tariffs on Chinese imports

More tariffs might be back on the menu.

US stocks reversed lower after US President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post that he is considering a “massive increase” on tariffs of Chinese imports.

Trump said he’s mulling higher levies as well as “many other countermeasures” because of “the hostile ‘order’ that they have just put out” restricting the export of rare earth metals. He also seemingly canceled his upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea in two weeks, saying “now there seems to be no reason to do so.”

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF, Invesco QQQ Trust, and iShares Russell 2000 ETF all gave up early gains to fall more than 1%. A basket of stocks compiled by Goldman Sachs of US companies that have significant revenue exposure to China is off more than 2%.

Wafer fab equipment stocks Lam Research, Applied Materials, and KLA Corp, which all count China as their top market, are underperforming, as is iPhone seller Apple.

Chip stocks Advanced Micro Devices, Intel, Broadcom, and Nvidia are all getting hit on the news, as rare earths are needed components for semiconductor production. For Tesla, it’s a similar story given its footprint in China and the importance of rare earths for EVs.

There’s also a lot of plain old dumping of recent winners.

Super Micro Computer, Coinbase, and Robinhood Markets are among the biggest laggards since Trump’s post as investors cut risk.

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)

The rare earth curbs are far from the only recent example of China stepping up its defense of domestic industry and resources. Qualcomm is the subject of an antitrust investigation, stringent checks of semiconductor shipments are reportedly in place as officials look to keep Nvidia’s chips from entering the country, and separate reporting indicates that US ships will be charged an escalating fee for docking at Chinese ports.

More Markets

See all Markets
Luke Kawa
17m
The threat of AI disruption has dawned on the bond market

22V Research economist Peter Williams noted that medium-term rate expectations have disconnected from recent encouraging labor market data.

Apollo robot
markets
Hyunsoo Rim

Michael Burry flags “troubling” jump in Nvidia’s supply commitments

“The Big Short” investor Michael Burry — famous for betting against the 2008 housing bubble — just warned of a major risk in Nvidia’s latest annual report, pointing to a sixfold surge in purchase obligations over the past year.

In a Substack post Thursday, Burry called the increase from $16.1 billion to $95.2 billion in just 12 months “troubling,” noting that Nvidia has been forced to place noncancelable purchase orders well before knowing the final demand for its AI chips. The surge is partly tied to supplier TSMC requiring longer-term contracts, he added.

Read more

'Big Short' Michael Burry warns Nvidia is taking on risk that could be 'catastrophic'

'Big Short' Michael Burry warns Nvidia is taking on risk that could be 'catastrophic'
markets
Matt Phillips

Vistra beats Q4 earnings expectations for adjusted EBITDA, but dips on income decline

Power provider Vistra, a key player in the AI energy trade, reported better-than-expected adjusted earnings results early Thursday, but shares dipped in early trading as Q4 net income dropped.

The Texas-based company, which supplies nuclear- and natural gas-fueled power to wholesale and retail markets, reported:

  • Net income of $233 million, a decline of 52% from Q4 2024.

  • Adjusted EBITDA from ongoing operations of $1.74 billion vs. the $1.71 billion expected by Wall Street analysts.

  • Vistra maintained previously issued guidance for full-year EBITDA from ongoing operations and adjusted free cash flow from ongoing operations.

Vistra shares soared 258% in 2024 amid a flurry of excitement over the AI energy boom. Last year was more muted, with the stock rising 17%. So far in 2026, shares were up roughly 9% before the report.

Vistra beats fourth-quarter core profit estimates on AI-driven power demand

Vistra beats fourth-quarter core profit estimates on AI-driven power demand

  • Net income of $233 million, a decline of 52% from Q4 2024.

  • Adjusted EBITDA from ongoing operations of $1.74 billion vs. the $1.71 billion expected by Wall Street analysts.

  • Vistra maintained previously issued guidance for full-year EBITDA from ongoing operations and adjusted free cash flow from ongoing operations.

Vistra shares soared 258% in 2024 amid a flurry of excitement over the AI energy boom. Last year was more muted, with the stock rising 17%. So far in 2026, shares were up roughly 9% before the report.

Luke Kawa
4h
Why Nvidia’s terrific quarter is getting a terrible reaction

Nvidia’s CEO gave a deeply unsatisfying answer about his biggest customers’ ability to generate cash. But they might be investing more in AI GPUs in 2027 anyway.

Jensen Huang in front of Vera Rubin at CES 2026
markets
Claire Yubin Oh

Sandisk rises on partnership with SK Hynix to standardize memory chip architecture tailored for AI data centers

Sandisk is up 3% in premarket trading on Thursday after it began its global standardization strategy of high-bandwidth flash (HBF) memory solutions with SK Hynix.

SK Hynix commented in a press release on Thursday that “by making HBF an industry standard, together with Sandisk, we will lay the foundation for the entire AI ecosystem to grow together,” adding that the companies will set up a dedicated workstream to work on the standardization under the Open Compute Project, the world’s largest organization dealing with data center technologies.

First debuted last February, Sandisk’s HBF technology lies in between ultrafast high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and high-capacity SSDs. That is, these have more storage capacity than HBMs, but are still fast enough to be utilized in AI inferencing (albeit not as quick as HBM).

Sandisk has previously argued that this hybrid architecture is central to AI services that need user applications but require a significant amount of fast interconnect between GPUs. The latest announcement also notes that HBF technology is expected to be more cost-efficient compared to alternatives of similar scale.

The launch, which was shared in an kickoff event on Thursday evening, starts SK Hynix and Sandisk’s workflow, which was announced when the two companies signed a memorandum of understanding “to standardize the specification, define technology requirements and explore the creation of a technology ecosystem” last August, per Sandisk’s press release at the time. Ultimately, by collaborating with SK Hynix, one of the three key HBM suppliers, to standardize and commercialize the technology, Sandisk is manufacturing somewhat of a first-mover advantage to offer the system-level “AI-optimized memory architecture” required for AI inference markets, rather than focusing on the performance of a single chip element.

Latest Stories

Sherwood Media, LLC produces fresh and unique perspectives on topical financial news and is a fully owned subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, Inc., and any views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any other Robinhood affiliate, including Robinhood Markets, Inc., Robinhood Financial LLC, Robinhood Securities, LLC, Robinhood Crypto, LLC, or Robinhood Money, LLC.
©2026 Sherwood Media, LLC