Markets
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Luke Kawa

Wedbush hikes price target on Microsoft to $600, saying “AI set to change the cloud growth trajectory”

Dan Ives loves one of his favorite stocks even more than he used to.

16.5% more, to be exact. That’s how much the Wedbush Securities analyst hiked his price target on Microsoft, a stock he rates as “outperform” and has on the firm’s “Best Ideas List.” That’s more than 20% above its record close of $490.11 on Tuesday, and well above the average analyst estimate of about $520.

The bump in the price target is down to “incrementally bullish recent AI customer checks in the field with a massive adoption wave of Copilot and Azure monetization now on the doorstep for Microsoft,” Ives wrote. “AI is set to change the cloud growth trajectory in Redmond.” (That’s a reference to where Microsoft is headquartered, for the uninitiated.)

Ives disagrees with reports that Microsoft’s Copilot AI chatbot isn’t getting much love from potential customers, suggesting it could add $25 billion to Microsoft’s revenue trajectory by fiscal 2026 (that is, the year ending in the middle of 2026).

“Our thesis remains that the cloud and AI monetization is going to comprise a bigger and bigger piece of Redmond going forward and will ultimately spur growth and margins over the coming years,” he concluded. “We believe Microsoft is just hitting its next phase of monetization on the AI front and more enterprises are accelerating their AI budgets and strategic footprint with Redmond into FY26 with the Street not fully appreciating the growth story.”

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Luke Kawa

Nvidia reportedly halts production of H200 chips for sale to China in favor of Vera Rubin ramp

Selling H200s to China is proving more difficult than Nvidia had anticipated.

The FT reports that the chip designer has asked TSMC to stop output of the H200 processors and instead produce Vera Rubin offerings, its upcoming flagship edition, citing two people familiar with the matter.

There’s likely a lot more conviction that megacap tech companies outside of China will appreciate any supply boost for these next-generation processors than the US-China trade and regulatory morass that’s complicated H200 sales will suddenly be swept away.

Nvidia had H200s in inventory and, per the FT, also already produced 250,000 of these chips — so the sales opportunity is still there, but just diminished for now.

The loose sequencing on how we got here, based on myriad reports on the topic:

  • Nvidia has wanted to sell AI chips to China;

  • Back in December, US President Donald Trump said this would be allowed for the H200, a generation that was much more powerful than China produced domestically, but not cutting-edge tech (as well as chips with similar specs from other producers);

  • Leading Chinese tech companies wanted to buy a lot of these chips;

  • Nvidia called upon TSMC to increase production of these chips in expectation of realizing a sales opportunity as high as $54 billion for 2026;

  • China would prefer its companies to purchase from domestic producers to reduce their dependence on US technology;

  • The US wants to limit the total number of these newly-permitted AI chips that can get into China as well as how many each buyer can purchase;

  • Nvidia, which had planned to have its first shipments of H200s there by the Lunar New Year, still hasn’t sold any of these chips to China.

The twists and turns here, and conflicting media coverage, has been maddening to try and keep track of. I cannot imagine the level of frustration for an executive attempting to navigate their operations through this haze.

Maybe the real H200 sales were the friends we never made along the way.

Luke Kawa
2h
How Broadcom CEO Hock Tan won the market over during the earnings call

“Broadcom knocked down (at least) four outstanding investor concerns on the call,” wrote Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon, who upped his price target to $525 from $475.

Dunhuang Celebrates Lantern Festival With Fireworks Show
markets
Claire Yubin Oh

The Trade Desk jumps on reported deal talks to help OpenAI sell ads

The Trade Desk rose double-digits in premarket trading on Thursday, up more than 16.5% at 5 a.m. ET, after The Information reported that OpenAI has held early partnership talks with the company to help the ChatGPT maker sell ads going forward.

Per the report, OpenAI will initially use external partners to sell ads and scale up its business, having launched ads on ChatGPT just last month. The Trade Desk, which offers an automated platform for advertisers to place ads on a large scale, will apparently be one of those partners. Will Doherty, The Trade Desk’s senior VP of inventory development, oversees partnerships with the platforms and companies where businesses place ads, and is involved in the OpenAI talks, per one of The Information’s sources.

Sam Altman’s company is reportedly planning to bring ad tech functions in-house eventually, including automating sales and offering performance information to advertisers.

Per The Information, OpenAI has projected that the new emphasis on ads could help double revenues from its consumer business to $17 billion, as it looks for different ways to monetize its platform’s ~910 million users. With that in mind, OpenAI has already explored partnerships with retailers like Target, which offers ad services, and has also recently announced a technology partnership with ad tech veteran Criteo.

The partnership arrives as a huge boon for TTD, after revenue growth slowed in the last fiscal year, with shares down more than 30% so far in 2026 before today’s early jump.

OpenAI Held Early Talks With The Trade Desk to Sell Ads

OpenAI Held Early Talks With The Trade Desk to Sell Ads

Per the report, OpenAI will initially use external partners to sell ads and scale up its business, having launched ads on ChatGPT just last month. The Trade Desk, which offers an automated platform for advertisers to place ads on a large scale, will apparently be one of those partners. Will Doherty, The Trade Desk’s senior VP of inventory development, oversees partnerships with the platforms and companies where businesses place ads, and is involved in the OpenAI talks, per one of The Information’s sources.

Sam Altman’s company is reportedly planning to bring ad tech functions in-house eventually, including automating sales and offering performance information to advertisers.

Per The Information, OpenAI has projected that the new emphasis on ads could help double revenues from its consumer business to $17 billion, as it looks for different ways to monetize its platform’s ~910 million users. With that in mind, OpenAI has already explored partnerships with retailers like Target, which offers ad services, and has also recently announced a technology partnership with ad tech veteran Criteo.

The partnership arrives as a huge boon for TTD, after revenue growth slowed in the last fiscal year, with shares down more than 30% so far in 2026 before today’s early jump.

markets
Max Knoblauch

American Eagle posts stronger-than-expected Q4 earnings and revenue

If American Eagle has seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of Sydney Sweeney.

The jeans seller posted adjusted earnings of $0.84 per share, ahead of the $0.71 expected by analysts polled by FactSet. It booked $1.76 billion in fourth-quarter revenue, versus the $1.74 billion consensus.

Shares initially climbed more than 5% after-hours before paring gains to about 2%.

“Compelling new product collections, supported by fresh marketing campaigns, led to higher demand trends in the quarter,” said CEO Jay Schottenstein.

American Eagle said it’s expecting same-store sales to grow by high single digits in the first quarter.

Marketing controversy has proved to be a powerful mover of denim for AE. In its third-quarter earnings call in December, AE said its partnership with Sydney Sweeney — together with a Travis Kelce partnership — had garnered more than 44 billion impressions. The retailer hit meme stock status last July when it initially launched its “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans” campaign.

As of Wednesday’s close, American Eagle shares had climbed 120% since the Sweeney ad first landed.

Luke Kawa
16h
Broadcom posts modest Q1 sales and earnings beats

Its CEO forecasting over $100 billion in AI chip sales after the report, however, got investors excited.

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