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Luke Kawa2/7/25

Walmart’s reign atop the revenue leaderboard poised to pass to Amazon, barring an epic quarter

Walmart has ruled the roost when it comes to revenue generation by an S&P 500 company.

But it may be officially cede that crown when the retailer reports its results on February 20.

The brick-and-mortar retail giant with a big e-commerce footprint is on the verge of being surpassed by an e-commerce giant with a big cloud business. In its most recent quarter, Amazon booked nearly $188 billion in sales, with President and CEO Andy Jassy hailing the holiday shopping season as its “most successful yet.”

Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg anticipate that Walmart’s revenues will come in around $180 billion.

The best projection of the bunch calls for $182 billion in sales. Walmart would need to exceed the consensus estimate by about 4.4% in order to maintain its top spot on the top line. Over the past decade, Walmart has beaten revenue expectations by that much or more only once: in the first quarter of 2022, when its sales figure was 4.81% above the consensus forecast.

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Matt Phillips5m

AI server cluster maker Penguin Solutions takes flight

Small cap AI server-cluster maker Penguin Solutions surged Thursday, after posting better-than-expected Q2 revenue and profit numbers Wednesday after the close, along with an increase in full-year sales and profit guidance.

The company — which was known as Smart Global Holdings until July 2024 — has positioned itself as a provider of “end-to-end AI infrastructure solutions.”

Its Advanced Computing division designs and sells computers, cabling, and coolings systems, the server racks and clusters of racks AI data centers need. Its other main division sells flash and DRAM memory products.

It’s a pretty small company, with a fully diluted market cap of just over $1 billion and roughly 2,900 employees, according to FactSet.

The stock is volatile. Penguin dove during last year’s tariff tantrum that followed Liberation Day in April. Then it turned tail and doubled through early October, amid a surge of call options activity that tends to reflect retail interest. From the October peak, it then plunged by about 50%, before Thursday’s renaissance.

For what it’s worth, call options activity in Penguin is pretty busy today too — relatively speaking — with roughly 2,625 traded as of about 1:15 pm ET. That’s the most since early January, when the company last reported quarterly numbers. The average volume over the previous 25 trading sessions is about 325 calls a day, according to FactSet data.

Penguin Solutions Stock Takes Off On AI Bolstered Outlook

Penguin Solutions Stock Takes Off On AI Bolstered Outlook

The company — which was known as Smart Global Holdings until July 2024 — has positioned itself as a provider of “end-to-end AI infrastructure solutions.”

Its Advanced Computing division designs and sells computers, cabling, and coolings systems, the server racks and clusters of racks AI data centers need. Its other main division sells flash and DRAM memory products.

It’s a pretty small company, with a fully diluted market cap of just over $1 billion and roughly 2,900 employees, according to FactSet.

The stock is volatile. Penguin dove during last year’s tariff tantrum that followed Liberation Day in April. Then it turned tail and doubled through early October, amid a surge of call options activity that tends to reflect retail interest. From the October peak, it then plunged by about 50%, before Thursday’s renaissance.

For what it’s worth, call options activity in Penguin is pretty busy today too — relatively speaking — with roughly 2,625 traded as of about 1:15 pm ET. That’s the most since early January, when the company last reported quarterly numbers. The average volume over the previous 25 trading sessions is about 325 calls a day, according to FactSet data.

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Momentum returns to optics stocks as the release valve for AI optimism

Potentially imminent end to the war? Buy optics stocks.

Maybe not? Buy optics stocks anyway.

Effectively all the juice left in the AI trade is coming from optics (and memory) stocks. And the latter group is taking a bit of a breather today while the former continues to surge.

Shares of Ciena Corp., Lumentum, and Coherent are building on recent big gains and among the biggest gainers in the S&P 500 near midday, while Applied Optoelectronics is also surging on Thursday.

These companies all provide solutions that help information move around in data centers, and thus are key beneficiaries of the aggressive capex plans of hyperscalers. Nvidia has invested $2 billion apiece in Coherent and Lumentum in deals that also include purchase commitments.

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Matt Phillips3h

Space stocks rip during a topsy-turvy day for the equity market

Satellite-services-from-space stocks surged Thursday after reports that Amazon is in talks to buy Globalstar, which provides voice and connectivity services from its satellite network. It also can’t hurt that the general mood around space is ebullient, following the successful launch of Artemis II on Thursday.

Planet Labs and ViaSat also soared on the news.

The gains for EchoStar — seen as a backdoor play at pre-IPO SpaceX exposure — and Rocket Lab were more muted, perhaps because a deep-pocketed competitor like Jeff Bezos getting serious about space services could complicate the plans of the two largest commercial space launch companies.

Rocket Lab and SpaceX see launch services as key to their aspirations of being major providers of voice and data services from low-Earth orbit satellites.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s SpaceX is the dominant provider of such services, and the early rumors on the company’s planned IPO — expected to be the largest ever — suggest the market is very excited about the prospects for the industry.

Elsewhere in the space stock world, Intuitive Machines — a maker of space infrastructure that provides services to NASA for lunar missions — also rose.

Globalstar surges after FT reports that Amazon is in talks to buy the satellite group

Globalstar surges after FT reports that Amazon is in talks to buy the satellite group

The gains for EchoStar — seen as a backdoor play at pre-IPO SpaceX exposure — and Rocket Lab were more muted, perhaps because a deep-pocketed competitor like Jeff Bezos getting serious about space services could complicate the plans of the two largest commercial space launch companies.

Rocket Lab and SpaceX see launch services as key to their aspirations of being major providers of voice and data services from low-Earth orbit satellites.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s SpaceX is the dominant provider of such services, and the early rumors on the company’s planned IPO — expected to be the largest ever — suggest the market is very excited about the prospects for the industry.

Elsewhere in the space stock world, Intuitive Machines — a maker of space infrastructure that provides services to NASA for lunar missions — also rose.

Hyunsoo Rim, David Crowther

Can Sandisk do the double?

The S&P 500 just had its worst quarter in years. Here are the biggest winners and losers.

Sandisk and energy stocks soared while software names sank amid a broad sell-off in tech stocks.

Balancing balls of different sizes on pink seesaws creating equilibrium

Retail traders are “skipping the dips” to dash for cash and bet against tech stocks

The speculative fever that dominated markets for much of 2025 looks to have broken.

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