Market Signal Briefing

You know Robinhood as a pioneer of commission-free trading. But the company has much bigger plans.

Robinhood Markets (HOOD 0.04%) is having a stellar year, and so are its shareholders. As of Dec. 9, Robinhood shares are up nearly 90% over the past six months, and they've soared 270% in 2025. Zoom out to a three-year time horizon and Robinhood stock has rewarded shareholders with a jaw-dropping 1,400% gain.

Robinhood is coming off a monster third quarter. Revenue doubled to $1.3 billion and net income increased 271% on a year-over-year basis. After such an impressive run, investors might be wondering if Robinhood's momentum can carry over to 2026. Let's take a look at some of the factors that could have an impact on the business -- and the stock performance -- next year and beyond.

Image source: Getty Images.

Robinhood is building a financial services ecosystem
Robinhood has evolved from a trendy trading app for crypto enthusiasts into a diversified financial services platform. In addition to stock and crypto trading, Robinhood now offers IRA accounts, private banking, portfolio management, futures trading, a credit card, event contracts, and a membership service called Robinhood Gold. As of the third quarter, Robinhood had 11 business lines generating $100 million or more in annualized revenue each.

Still, Robinhood's bread and butter is its trading platform. Robinhood generates revenue from transactions through payment for order flow or bid-ask spreads. In Q3, transaction-based revenue jumped 129% to $730 million, comprising 57% of Robinhood's total revenue. Revenue from cryptocurrency transactions exploded 330% higher to $268 million, options revenue jumped 50% to $304 million, and equities revenue soared 132% to $86 million.

Robinhood's reliance on retail trading activity makes it highly sensitive to swings in market sentiment. Simply put, trading volumes spike when markets are moving higher. Conversely, user engagement tends to drop off when prices are falling or moving sideways. This correlation is even more pronounced with cryptocurrency trading, which has led to lumpy growth in Robinhood's crypto transaction revenue over the past three years.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

There's an interesting dynamic at play here. Because crypto trading is a major revenue driver for Robinhood -- and retail trading activity tends to ebb and flow with crypto sentiment -- Wall Street seems to view Bitcoin as a proxy for the health of Robinhood's business. In the chart below, notice the parallel movement between Robinhood stock and Bitcoin, especially over the past year and a half:

HOOD data by YCharts

If this trend continues, crypto volatility will be a key factor for Robinhood stock in 2026. Likewise, any dramatic swings in broader market sentiment -- like a shift away from high-growth tech stocks favored by retail investors -- could have an outsized impact on Robinhood's trading volumes and stock performance next year. However, if Robinhood can make progress on its diversification strategy, growth in its financial services products could help smooth out month-to-month volatility in its trading revenue.

Event contracts: a true wild card
Last fall, Robinhood dipped its toes into the newly created prediction markets by allowing users to bet on the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. An event contract is a low-cost, yes-no financial bet on whether a specific event will happen. Robinhood now offers more than 1,700 contracts, ranging from professional and college sports to politics, climate, entertainment, and economics.

Event contracts could be Robinhood's next growth engine. Contract volume has doubled every quarter, reaching 2.3 billion contracts in Q3. In October alone, volume ballooned to 2.5 billion contracts, which puts event contracts on track for a $300 million annual run rate, according to management.

Not everyone is on board with prediction markets. On Dec. 3, Connecticut's Department of Consumer Protection Gaming Division issued cease-and-desist orders to Robinhood and two other platforms, asserting that they're offering illegal sports wagering in the state. Although Robinhood insists that its event contracts are regulated at the federal level, investors might want to keep an eye on this situation -- especially if other states follow Connecticut's lead.

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Can Robinhood keep rolling?
Robinhood is trading at a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 59, more than double the S&P 500's forward P/E estimate of 24.1. That's not an outrageous valuation for a high-growth company, in my opinion. But I can see how it might give some investors pause, especially after the parabolic price gains of the past few years.

Still, if you're worried about what Robinhood's stock will do in 2026, I think you're missing the bigger picture. This is a company with ambitions of becoming a global financial services powerhouse. In 10 years, Robinhood aims to generate half of its revenue from outside the U.S. and from institutional investors. Robinhood made progress on both fronts with its recent acquisition of Bitstamp, a global cryptocurrency exchange serving institutional and retail clients. Based on market share data, there's a ton of runway for Robinhood to continue growing its core business as well.

If Robinhood is on your watch list in 2026, I would view any significant pullbacks as buying opportunities.

Aerospace company Rocket Lab has produced big returns for long-term investors.

Motley Fool co-founder and CEO Tom Gardner and analyst Seth Jason recently talked with Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck about business, engineering, and entrepreneurship.

To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. When you're ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy.

A full transcript is below.

This podcast was recorded on Nov.30, 2025.

Peter Beck: It is a raging cauldron of hell and conflict sometimes in my head because I'm half entrepreneur who wants to take extreme risk, and then half engineer who, by nature, is extremely conservative.

Mac Greer: That was Rocket Lab Founder and CEO Peter Beck. I'm Motley Fool Producer Mac Greer. Now, Rocket Lab is an aerospace company with a launch business and a space systems business, and it has become a big business. Motley Fool Co-Founder and CEO Tom Gardner and Motley Fool analyst Seth Jayson recently talked with Peter Beck about the business of Rocket Lab.

Tom Gardner: We're so pleased to be spending this time with Sir Peter Beck, the Founder and CEO of Rocket Lab. Before going into our conversation, I'll just share, I don't know how familiar you are with The Motley Fool, but when we recommend companies and often put our own skin in the game with our members, we do so with a five-year minimum holding period, generally, and ideally multi-decade holding period. We like to assess the long-term vision and mission strategy and performance of the business. Obviously, we don't want to put you in a position where you're having to give any forward-looking statements. Just deny any of our long-term questions that you can answer, but just letting you know that we really are most interested in the very long term and our greatest investments, which is not unusual for people throughout their lives, are the ones that they held for the longest period of time. I love my low cost basis of $25 a share right around there for Rocket Lab, but Seth Jayson, who's here and Lou Whiteman, who can't be here today, both recommended the stock and owned the stock since it was below five dollars a share. A lot of our Motley Fool members have gotten in some early low positions with the business, but I think, Peter, we love to hear you just outline the main components of Rocket Lab, maybe beginning with space systems since it's easy to overlook the segment or may view Rocket Lab as a launch company. Can you use a walking tour of the business, please.

Peter Beck: Totally. I always like to talk about Rocket Lab as an end-to-end space company because it's almost bisected into two parts. There's launch, which is the big roaring stick in the sky, which everybody gets excited about, and then the space systems, which is less visually glamorous, but, of course, a huge part of the business. Both of these elements are necessary to deliver on the key goal here and the key mission of being end to end, and I think ultimately, deploying infrastructure or services on orbit. If you're talking about the long term, it's my view that the biggest space companies in the future, it's going to be a little bit blurry about are they a space company or are they something else? Just take our friends over at SpaceX. Are they a space company or are they a telecommunications company at this point? It gets a little bit blurry, but I think what is absolutely true is that if you have unfettered rapid and reliable access to space and you can build whatever spacecraft you want to build, then your ability to deploy infrastructure or services from orbit is going to be way better than somebody else who doesn't have those capabilities. We're just methodically going about making sure we have all those elements to ultimately deliver on that twin space company goal. I know you want to talk about space systems, but I think it's always good to wrap it in the context of why space systems even exists. Space systems was really started very early on in the company's life. I often hear people saying launch wasn't big enough, so Rocket Lab pivoted to building spacecraft. That's just simply not true. In fact, the second electron vehicle that we ever flew had a whole all of the recesses pre-cut into the kick stage for solar panels to turn that into a photon, so it's been part of the plan from Day 1. But the thing is the most difficult thing to do, and the most transformational thing you can do is have access to orbit. That's the biggest problem you have to solve in all of this. Spacecraft are difficult, but not nearly as difficult as gaining access to orbit.

That's the real disruptor here; it's not anything else. That's where we started. Then as we started to build our own satellites internally, we placed some orders for some components, and the lead times associated with them and the costs associated with them really took us back. We're like, "How can anybody be disruptive in this industry when it takes 12 months to get just a simple star tracker?" Not surprisingly, that led our first acquisition of Sinclair Interplanetary, and we never looked back from that point. The best way to describe what we've done there is literally lay a spacecraft out or satellite out on the boardroom table and then just systematically point to all the bits that really suck and then go after each one of those and either build that technology internally, or we'll go and buy the best company that currently makes that technology. Not just stopping there but actually doing it at scale. That gives us a really healthy ability to just think of it like a storeroom of parts that you can just go and pull off the shelf to build almost anything you want. Then the next leg of space systems, there's really three internal mandates that I set forward when we started space systems officially. That was, one, everything that goes to space should have a Rocket Lab logo on it.

Don't care if we built it, don't care if we launched it, but everything that goes to space should have a Rocket Lab logo on it, preferably the biggest logo that you can fit on the component. Then, secondly, we want to build spacecraft, but not interested in just building boring spacecraft that lead nowhere. They have to be very strategic spacecraft that ultimately fulfill the end vision. Then the third one is building applications or infrastructure in all but that feeds into. The components bit we're well in hand right now. We're the largest supplier in the world of some things. I think we're the largest base grade solar cell provider and panel provider in the world now. I don't know if we're the largest reaction wheel provider, but we must be getting up there, and we just keep scaling these businesses. Then on the spacecraft side, our first spacecraft was the spacecraft called First Light, which was a little Photon. Then we skipped about a decade and went straight to the moon with the next Photon. Then because we were able to successfully build that spacecraft for NASA to go to the moon, we won the ESCAPADE missions to Mars, which are about to launch. Then because we executed those really well, we were able to secure a contract with MDA Globalstar on a quite a [inaudible] big comms platform. Then we're able to win, as a prime contractor to SDA, a whole bunch of national security spacecraft. Then along the way, interesting stuff that's very strategic like the Varda reentry spacecraft and Lockset and a whole bunch of other stuff that all feeds into the end goal here, and a few years later, there you go, that space system.

Tom Gardner: Can you talk about the interplay as an entrepreneur and an engineer between the importance of creativity and imagination, discovery and experimentation, and how crucial it is to execute down to a layer detail and precision that given the business most people never encounter would ever encounter anything like what it takes to have the conviction when you put something on the launch pad that it's time to go.

Peter Beck: Yes, it is a raging cauldron of hell and conflict sometimes in my head because I'm half entrepreneur who wants to take extreme risk, and then half engineer who by nature is extremely conservative. So, to your point finding the balance of putting stuff on the pad that actually works, but moving quickly and being innovative is a fine line to walk. I think it's something that I think it's also a part of the magic of the company. I think if you're just 100% entrepreneur and you've seen that with maybe other space companies and no engineer, the results are just real bad, and then if you're 100% engineer and then no entrepreneur, then I think you would never ever put anything on the pad because you would be unable to take any risk. So I think you have to get that balance right, and I think it's probably some of the magic of Rocket Labs knowing where to be entrepreneurial and take risk and knowing where just to not take risk.

Tom Gardner: It feels to me like most of our questions will weave between engineering and entrepreneurship. So perhaps you can continue to blend those by telling us the process of making acquisitions to be a payload provider on the payload, why that's significant, and how far you are in that process, how complicated it is to assemble that and why it matters.

Peter Beck: So, we've basically got all the bits and pieces of the satellite. There's a few bits there that we haven't quite got, but we've pretty much got everything that we need there, and you really quickly learn that people don't buy satellites for great reaction wheels and solar panels. People buy satellites for the payload and what it does, and you're never going to scale to a giant company if you just provide buses, and you really have to provide the end to end solution. So you've seen us start to dip our toe into payloads now, and Eletroptical is the first piece of that, and if you think about how many providers in the world are there of these deeply complex electro optical infrared payloads, you can count them on one hand. So being able to provide that payload to other people's spacecraft is one thing. But when you turn up all of a sudden to a customer and you can provide the thing that they actually want to do being the payload, and by the way, all of the bus, all of the operation systems, all the ground segment, and we can launch it for you, it's just a totally different proposition. So you'll see us acquire more of those payload elements because I think that's the last piece in the puzzle.

Seth Jayson: Something along similar lines, I cover a lot of our AI stocks here, and sovereign AI has become a thing for various reasons right now, and it sounds a little bit to hear some of the recent space talk that sovereign space launch is shifting in a similar direction, and I know I think that your recent acquisitions may be nodding at that, and so, how do you think about those kinds of markets going forward between Europe, Asia, the US, obviously, you'll never serve. But is that part of the strategic thinking going forward?

Peter Beck: Yeah, so, look, every nation is and I would say, there's been a recent retrenchment in the fact that nations have with various world events have decided that actually we need our own stuff, and so there's definitely certainly a strong desire there. We've always seen it a lot from launch because any emerging space nation always wants their own rocket because it's just super cool and very visible. So we've always been approached a lot with, can you come to our country and build a launch site, and it's like, I don't want to build another launch site ever. So why would I do that? But there's no strategic reason to do it other than a country wants a launch pad, but they have to service that launchpad and that demand with their own sovereign spacecraft, and maybe that will happen, or maybe that won't. But certainly, yes, we're definitely seeing a lot of sovereigns looking to create their own capability, and to your point, the menaric acquisition that hopefully we get through in Germany, it's a fantastic product. It's a laser terminal. It's incredibly needed across air platforms and many others. So in its own right, it's a great acquisition. But also, it really is our first step into Europe, and we're not stopping it just becoming large in the United States. We want to service the globe and the countries that we can work in. So that's the first step into Europe.

Tom Gardner: Just a succinct late question for you about investors in Rocket Lab. If an investor today wanted to align their time horizon with your time horizon as an investor, how long should they be thinking about holding the stock? There's so much of a transactional dynamic in the public markets with a lot of information. One of the biggest challenges we face at the The Motley Fool is to teach the importance of finding something that you want to be honor and the benefits of that. So the dream is to align with the CEO's time horizon. Now, some CEOs are very transactional themselves so everybody's at a different pace with a different time horizon on their vision. What's the proper time horizon to align with your vision?

Peter Beck: Well, I'm not going to provide financial advice here, that's for sure. Darn. But look, I'm trying to build the biggest space company in the world, and I would have hoped to have done it by now. Everything always takes too long, but you have my commitment that's my goal, and my shoulder is down, and I'm running as hard as I can to do that, and so is everybody in the company. How long that takes is how long that takes. But you can see we consistently keep growing and scaling the company, and everything just consistently moves up into the right, and hopefully people see the methodical path that we're trying to walk here. It's like, as I mentioned, right at the beginning of the call, there's like $20 billion opportunity in launch, a $30 billion opportunity in spacecraft and a 350 whatever billion dollar opportunity in applications and services, and the faster you can get there with something that's really disruptive, then, the bigger space company you can actually build.

Tom Gardner: And in that [inaudible] can you talk a little bit about the culture at Rocket Lab? A company that's squeezing years of hours into a month, yet also trying to build something that will succeed for generations. How do you align the work, not burn out in the process and match it with something that's designed to sustain as an independent company for decades?

Peter Beck: Look, it's fair to say if you want work life balance, don't come here, and if you look at our competitors, they don't have work life balance either. So if you think you can compete with your competitors and not work as hard, then that's going to be a bad surprise. So we absolutely push hard, and I would say the culture here is we have a number of really non negotiable elements, and right at the top is we build beautiful things. I just absolutely believe that if you build a beautiful thing, it generally works when you give someone the freedom to build a beautiful thing, they take so much pride in it and they look well past their work and other people's work, and you can go and look at any Rocket Lab, spacecraft, any Rocket Lab component, any Rocket Lab rocket, and they're almost so beautiful, they're artistic, and that's the way it should be, and whether it's a piece of code, a piece of software, a boardroom, table, whatever it is, it needs to be beautiful. I think where a lot of space companies have gone wrong as they try and see how crappy they can build stuff and get away with it, whereas we're the opposite of that. The number one thing that must be always true first in space is it has to work. Everything else behind that it has to be second. So making sure that everything is beautiful is something that everybody is really focused on, and it's a self fulfilling prophecy, as well, because you attract people that want to build beautiful things that work, and people who want to take shortcuts and not present the best work that they can do don't survive. They either realize that it's not the environment for them or their peers around them don't accept their. So it's self fulfilling, and if you look at the launch companies over the last call it five or 10 years, it's not a good bet. Generally, they all fail, and I'm always asked, Well, why did Rocket Labs succeed and all these others fail, and it comes down to really two things. It comes down to building beautiful things, and it comes down to hustle. When I say hustle, I mean when you're greeted with a barrier, you have two options. Is you can either just throw your arms up and go, Well, I don't know what to do, and this seems impenetrable and can't solve it. Or you try and climb it, and if you can't climb it, you try and go around it. If you can't go around it, you get out your spade, and you just start digging until you get under it. That's the Rocket Lab mentality. So where many others would have reached points in both technical or otherwise and given up, I think we just have more tenacity than others.

Tom Gardner: Sir Peter Beck, the founder and CEO of Rocket Lab to resemble RKLB naturally will be a very volatile stack. Many of the greatest companies have very viable stacks as they bring something into the world that others try and figure out how consequential it will be, what risks they will need to endure as a shareholder, and so we're excited to be on that journey with you and your team and your company, and we wish you the very best and thank you for 60 minutes of your time.

Peter Beck: No, thanks very much guys, it's been fun.

Mac Greer: As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against. So don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards and is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our show notes. For the Motley Fool Money Team, I'm Mac Greer. Thanks for listening, and we will see you tomorrow.

The future of the news organization that regularly draws rebukes from the president could be a decisive factor in the outcome of a deal.

Analyst’s Disclosure:I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of BTC-USD, COIN, XYZ either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

I'm not an investment advisor.

Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP, a leading national shareholder rights law firm, today announced that it has commenced an investigation on behalf of Sprouts Farmers Market, Inc. (“Sprouts” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: SFM) investors concerning the Company's possible violations of the federal securities laws. IF YOU ARE AN INVESTOR WHO LOST MONEY ON SPROUTS (SFM), CLICK HERE TO INQUIRE ABOUT POTENTIALLY PURSUING CLAIMS TO RECOVER YOUR LOSS. What Happened? On October 2.

Ripple Markets funded the trust with 100 million XRP, currently valued at roughly $226 million.

Key Takeaways

Cboe BZX Exchange approved the listing of the 21Shares XRP ETF, which will hold and track the performance of XRP.
The ETF will trade under ticker TOXR and custody XRP holdings with Coinbase Custody, Anchorage Digital Bank, and BitGo Trust Company.

Cboe BZX Exchange confirmed it has approved the listing and registration of the 21Shares XRP ETF, according to a Wednesday filing with the SEC. This means the product is ready to go live upon official notice of issuance.

The 21Shares XRP ETF, which will track the performance of the CME CF XRP-Dollar Reference Rate – New York Variant, aims to offer exposure to XRP, the fourth-largest crypto asset by market capitalization, according to its latest prospectus.

Shares are set to trade on Cboe BZX Exchange under the ticker symbol TOXR. The fund will charge a 0.3% annual sponsor fee, calculated daily and paid weekly in XRP.

Ripple Markets is currently the only shareholder of the XRP trust, holding 10,000,000 shares acquired at a purchase price of 100,000,000 XRP, valued at approximately $226 million in aggregate.

21Shares hinted that trading for its spot XRP ETF is set to start soon.

XRP Army. Are you ready?🤝

— 21shares (@21shares) December 10, 2025

The 21Shares XRP ETF will join numerous XRP funds on the market this year, including those from Canary Capital, Bitwise, Grayscale, and Franklin Templeton.

Disclaimer

SpaceX, the privately held aerospace company led by tech centibillionaire Elon Musk, made another Bitcoin transfer on Wednesday, continuing a recent flurry of moves.

According to Lookonchain analysts, citing on-chain data from Arkham Intelligence, the company moved 1,021 Bitcoin ($94.5 million worth). 

The SpaceX-labelled wallet sent the Bitcoin to two fresh addresses, with each receiving 614 BTC and 407 BTC. It’s unclear whether the aerospace company is simply adjusting its storage scheme, preparing to sell the funds, or intends to use the BTC in some other way.

The Wednesday transfer marks the second such transaction this month and ninth this year, totaling roughly 8,910 BTC ($925 million), conducted through institutional custody platform Coinbase Prime.

According to Arkham, SpaceX currently holds approximately 3,991 BTC, worth around $367.4 million as of today. Bitcoin is trading hands for $92,845 as of publication time, down 0.8% in the past 24 hours. The aerospace company once held 25,000 BTC in 2022 before reducing its position to 8,285 BTC by June that year, likely spurred by a market-wide shock triggered by the implosion of Terra-Luna in May, the failure of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX empire in November, and the ensuing domino effect.

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Elon Musk’s companies were among the earliest institutional Bitcoin adopters, with electric car maker Tesla reporting roughly 11,900 BTC holdings in its coffers.

SpaceX’s Blockbuster $1.5 Trillion IPO

The on-chain transfers come as SpaceX is moving ahead with plans for an initial public offering that could raise well over $30 billion, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Musk-helmed company is targeting a valuation of approximately $1.5 trillion, making it the largest public market offering in history. SpaceX’s management is aiming for a listing as soon as mid-to-late 2026, though the timing is contingent on market conditions and other factors, the sources told Bloomberg.

If the IPO goes through, investors won’t just be purchasing into rockets and satellites. They’ll also be buying into a firm that holds millions worth of the world’s largest and oldest cryptocurrency.

TL;DR:

Phantom’s CASH Stablecoin reached $100 million in supply just two months after its debut in September.
The exponential growth was driven by the fee-free “Cash Account,” bank on-ramp, and DeFi incentives on Solana.
CASH contrasts with MetaMask’s mUSD stablecoin, whose supply dropped after its short-term liquidity programs ended.

Recently, the native stablecoin of the Web3 self-custody wallet Phantom, Cash (CASH), surpassed the impressive $100 million mark in supply, according to data provided by Artemis. The stablecoin’s achievement comes just two months after its official launch on September 30th, indicating a notably faster adoption acceleration than its competitors.

The asset’s growth is attributed to a smart product design that facilitates access to fiat capital, coupled with strong on-chain incentives. In a strategic move mid-November, Phantom introduced a fee-free “Cash Account” that allows instant bank funding, peer-to-peer transfers, and debit card integration, thanks to the stablecoin’s issuer, Bridge, and Stripe. These integrations have been fundamental in facilitating the entry and exit of liquidity.

Drivers of Parabolic Growth and the Contrast with MetaMask
Demand for the Phantom CASH Stablecoin has been further strengthened by protocol-level incentives, particularly in the Solana ecosystem. For example, Kamino, one of the largest liquidity providers on Solana, partnered with Phantom in early October to launch the “CASH Growth Initiative,” offering weekly and monthly KMNO rewards for lending and borrowing using CASH.

These combined stimuli resulted in a parabolic growth in the number of CASH transactions, which spiked to almost 162,000 on November 25th. In contrast, MetaMask’s stablecoin, MetaMask USD (mUSD), also briefly surpassed $100 million in supply in early October. However, its circulating supply has dropped drastically to around $25 million.

MetaMask’s Senior Director of Product, Johann Bornman, explained that this drop occurred after their own “short-term liquidity programs” ended. He noted that the team is focused more on building utility for mUSD within the wallet than on short-term supply, highlighting the differences in product development cycles.

The success of the Phantom CASH Stablecoin underscores the critical importance of user experience and DeFi incentives for the massive adoption of digital assets. The rapid expansion in the supply and usage of CASH positions Phantom as a key player in the next-generation stablecoin infrastructure.

In summary, this Phantom CASH Stablecoin phenomenon demonstrates that the combination of frictionless fiat on-ramps and deep on-chain integrations is the winning formula in the Web3 wallet wars.

One of these coins is eyeing a golden goose, and the other is still working on itself.

Picking between XRP (XRP 4.02%) and Cardano (ADA 5.89%) is really a choice between investing in a chain that wants to be plumbing for global money flows, and a chain that still feels like an ambitious research project looking for its killer use case.

Both projects are serious, and both could reward patient investors under the right conditions. But their paths are very different, as are the sources of demand that might eventually push their prices higher. So before you decide which one deserves an investment of $2,500, it's worth looking at how real capital is actually using each network today.

Image source: Getty Images.

Why XRP is increasingly plugged into real finance
Per its issuer, Ripple, XRP's aspiration is to be a fast, cheap settlement asset for processing international payments and managing the kinds of assets that financial institutions need today and are likely to use tomorrow, like tokenized financial instruments. To advance toward those goals, Ripple and its partners are adding regulatory compliance layers to the XRP Ledger (XRPL) so the same infrastructure can host tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), as well as ample volumes of regulated stablecoins.

On the XRPL, there is more than $300 million in stablecoin value, anchored by Ripple USD, a natively issued dollar stablecoin backed by cash and cash equivalents. At the same time, financial businesses like Franklin Templeton are testing tokenized money market funds whose shares can be swapped against RLUSD, with digital units issued directly on XRPL. So there's a growing base of capital in the financial tools that institutions need, and growing evidence that those institutions are actually dabbling in using the network for what it was intended to do.

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Aside from the confirmation of the investment thesis for XRP, a new major catalyst just happened in 2025 with the launch of U.S. spot XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Starting in mid-November, several asset issuers, including Canary Capital, Bitwise, Franklin Templeton, and Grayscale, began trading spot XRP ETFs. These funds appear to be successful, with the group attracting nearly $1 billion in net inflows already.

In short, XRP now occupies a clearly defined niche, and institutional behavior suggests that niche is gaining traction. And that's encouraging other investors to buy it, likely bidding its price up over time.

This coin's engineering story still needs an economic chapter
Cardano's focus is dramatically broader than XRP's. Its roadmap describes eras of developers working on various issues, covering the principles for core protocol development, implementing decentralization and smart contracts, throughput and scaling, and now chain governance.

Within each of those areas, few could question the rigor of the network's deliberative and peer-reviewed approach to determining which technical steps are most effective in solving the problems in question. However, detailed discussions and elegant engineering don't automatically translate to significant economic activity, and in Cardano's case, they have not.

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Cardano's decentralized finance (DeFi) total value locked (TVL) is about $190 million, with around $39 million in stablecoins. For the sake of comparison, Ethereum, the king of DeFi, hosts nearly $71 billion in total value locked and $166 billion in stablecoins on its chain. Cardano doesn't need to grow to become that big to succeed as an investment, but the issue is that it simply doesn't have enough critical mass in stablecoins, the basic components of DeFi, to believe in the prospect of significant growth in the segment.

Nonetheless, a bullish case for this coin exists. If its governance matures and its ecosystem resources consolidate into high-utility applications, such as its efforts to utilize the web's x402 standard to generate revenue from micropayments for accessing content on the internet, Cardano could carve out a niche. But even that depends on successful multiyear execution and a previously unused component of the internet becoming mainstream, which is a very uncertain and slower-moving path at best.

What's the better buy with $2,500?
For investors choosing between these two assets today, XRP is the better choice by a large margin. It already serves a clear purpose, and it's attracting real capital inflows through stablecoins, tokenized funds, and now U.S. spot ETFs. Furthermore, all those are somewhat durable demand channels, likely not just artifacts of a brief spate of speculative enthusiasm.

Cardano may eventually find its niche. But at this moment, its economic footprint lags far behind its ambition, and there isn't necessarily data to suggest that's in the process of changing anytime soon.

However, the FOMC economic projections and dot plot signaled a pause in further monetary policy easing, sending XRP to a session low of $2.0363 before steadying.

Despite Wednesday’s pullback, resilient institutional demand and legislative developments support a bullish short- to medium-term price outlook.

Below, I will explore the key drivers behind recent price trends, the medium-term (4-8 week) outlook, and the key technical levels traders should watch.

XRP-Spot ETF Inflows Slow Sharply Ahead of Fed Rate Decision
The US XRP-spot ETF market reported net inflows of $8.73 million on Tuesday, December 9, down from $38.04 million the previous day.

Significantly, Franklin XRP ETF (XRPZ) reported zero net flows for December 9, a first zero for a behemoth US asset manager, ranked #19 on the ETF Issuer League Table by assets under management. XRPZ saw $31.7 million in net inflows the previous day, suggesting institutional investors turned off the tap amid uncertainty about the Fed’s post-December rate path.

For context, the US BTC-spot ETF market has seen net inflows of $3.8 million in December, trailing the US XRP-spot ETF’s inflows of $277.5 million. This week’s inflows have yet to reflect a sharp jump in investor demand for crypto despite Vanguard opening the doors for brokerage accounts to invest in crypto-spot ETFs.

Market Structure Bill Roadblocks Challenge Bullish Outlook
The prospect of a broadening investor base sets up a bullish outlook for XRP. However, demand would likely hinge on progress toward crypto-friendly US legislation.

Crypto in America host and journalist Eleanor Terrett shared the latest developments on Capitol Hill, stating:

“Democrats negotiating the crypto market-structure bill say they’ve accepted “significant portions” of US Senate Banking Committee’s RFIA text, but the GOP’s December 4th offer still misses key principles Dems are seeking. Their three-page counteroffer, a copy of which was sent to me, lays out their asks on token classification, illicit finance, ethics, and the GENIUS Act’s stablecoin-yield restrictions.”

For context, XRP rallied 14.69% on Jul 17 and climbed to an all-time high of $3.66 on July 18 as traders reacted to the US House of Representatives passing the Market Structure Bill to the Senate.

However, the token has plunged 44% from its July ATH. Delays to the Market Structure Bill, due to the US government shutdown, have contributed to the reversal, suggesting that bipartisan support could trigger an XRP breakout.

Fed Signals Pause
The Fed cut interest rates by 25 basis points to a 3.50% to 3.75% target range on December 10, boosting demand for XRP. However, the FOMC economic projections and dot plot signaled sticky inflation and a less dovish Fed rate path, weighing on XRP and the broader crypto market.

Committee members expected inflation to remain above the Fed’s 2% target until 2028. On this basis, the dot plot showed a single rate cut in 2026 and one further adjustment in 2027, more hawkish than September’s projection for two rate cuts in 2026.

The more hawkish Fed rate path overshadowed the resumption of quantitative easing (QE). The Fed will resume buying Treasuries on Friday, December 12, after ending QT on December 1. Typically, QE adds liquidity, boosting demand for risk assets.

XRPUSD – 30 Minute Chart – 111225 – The Fed Effect
Bullish Medium-Term Outlook Hinged on Spot ETFs and Regulatory Headlines
On Thursday, December 11, traders will continue to react to the FOMC Economic Projections and the more hawkish dot plot.

However, several tailwinds could shift sentiment and support on XRP’s short- to medium-term price outlook. These include:

XRP-spot ETFs report strong inflows as the investor base broadens.
The Market Structure bill receives bipartisan support and makes progress toward a Senate floor vote.
OCC grants Ripple a US-chartered banking license.

In my view, these potential tailwinds support a near-term (1-4 weeks) climb to $2.35 and a medium-term (4-8 weeks) return to $2.5.

Downside Risks to Bullish Outlook
While the short- to medium-term outlook remains bullish, several scenarios could alter the outlook. These include:

The Bank of Japan hikes rates, signals more in 2026, and ends QE, triggering a yen carry trade unwind.
The MSCI delists digital asset treasury companies (DATs). Delistings would likely reduce interest in XRP as a treasury reserve asset.
US Senate opposes the Market Structure Bill.
OCC rejects Ripple’s application for a US-chartered banking license.
XRP-spot ETFs see heavy outflows.

These events would likely push XRP below $2, exposing the November low of $1.82.

However, in my opinion, XRP-spot ETF inflows, a broader investor base, and progress toward crypto-friendly legislation support a longer-term move toward $3.

In summary, the short-term outlook remains cautiously bullish, while the medium- to longer-term outlook is constructive.

Financial Analysis
Technical Outlook: EMAs Signal Caution
XRP slid 3.14% on Wednesday, December 10, reversing the previous day’s 1.64% gain to close at $2.0412. The token underperformed the broader crypto market, which dropped 0.74%.

The token snapped a three-day winning streak and remained below the 50-day and 200-day Exponential Moving Averages (EMAs). The EMAs signaled a bearish bias. However, fundamentals are shifting from the technical trend, supporting a bullish outlook.

Key technical levels to watch include:

Support levels: $2, $1.9112, and $1.8239
50-day EMA resistance: $2.2508.
200-day EMA resistance: $2.4660.
Resistance levels: $2.2, $2.35, $2.5, $2.62, $2.8, $3.0, and $3.66.

Avoiding a drop below the $2.0 psychological support level would open the door to testing the 50-day EMA. A sustained move through the 50-day EMA would bring the $2.35 resistance level into play. Importantly, a break above the 50-day EMA would indicate a near-term bullish trend reversal. A bullish trend reversal would support a medium-term (4-8 weeks) rise to the 200-day EMA and the $2.5 level.

TLDR:

Bitcoin’s hash price dropped to a historic low, leaving most public miners unprofitable (breakeven point at ~$90,000).
Growing unprofitability, exacerbated by the 2024 halving, accelerates the Bitcoin Miners Pivot to AI.
Major miners like Core Scientific and Terawulf are already generating multi-million dollar revenue from high-performance computing services for giants like Google and Microsoft.

The crypto downturn has pushed a large number of Bitcoin miners to the brink of unprofitability, forcing operators to scale back the power of the energy-intensive machines that keep the blockchain running.

According to Hashrate Index, a key measure of mining revenue known as the hash price recently touched a record low. This level is now below the median mining cost (including overhead and financial expenses) for most publicly traded miners, with a breakeven price that has climbed 20% to around $90,000 per Bitcoin. As a result of this economic pressure, the network’s hashrate saw a drop of almost 8%, as miners underclock their machines to save power.

Artificial Intelligence as an Escape Route for Bitcoin Miners
The bleak outlook for traditional mining, intensified by the April 2024 halving which reduced rewards, has validated the strategic shift of many operators. The Bitcoin Miners Pivot to AI and to hybrid models built around High-Performance Computing (HPC) has accelerated, turning the shares of these companies into some of the best market performers this year.

While mining remains their largest revenue stream, major companies like Core Scientific and Terawulf already derive 21% and 14% of their revenue from HPC, respectively. This shift is due to the fact that the demand for computing capacity for Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications offers a much larger and more lucrative market pie in the long term, unlike the finite and decreasing reward from Bitcoin.

The decoupling between the stock prices of miners and the price of Bitcoin has deepened; investors are primarily focused on the AI business, with little interest in Bitcoin mining operations.

Large miners have transformed their facilities into data centers for AI, signing multi-million dollar contracts with hyperscalers like Google and Microsoft. This trend has led some major players, such as Bitfarms Ltd., to announce plans to completely wind down their Bitcoin mining business in the coming years.

In summary, analysts predict that the pivot to AI will continue, and companies with weaker balance sheets and high debt will struggle the most in such a depressed hash price environment.

Crypto Reporter

Shalini Nagarajan

Crypto Reporter

Shalini Nagarajan

Part of the Team Since

Jan 2024

About Author

Shalini is a crypto reporter who provides in-depth reports on daily developments and regulatory shifts in the cryptocurrency sector.

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Last updated: 

December 10, 2025

Bitcoin fell about 2% in early Asian trading on Thursday while regional equities extended the relief rally that followed the Federal Reserve’s latest rate cut and upbeat tone on the US outlook.

The Fed delivered a third straight quarter-point reduction and Chair Jerome Powell said the inflation hit from tariffs should fade as the US economy strengthens.

He described the move as a further step toward policy normalization and stressed that officials want to support jobs without letting price pressures flare again.

Nine of the 12 members on the policy committee backed the cut and fresh projections showed the median official still expecting only one more cut in 2026.

Market snapshot
Bitcoin: $90,121, down 2.3%
Ether: $3,224, down 2.4%
XRP: $2.01, down 3.9%
Total crypto market cap: $3.16 trillion, down 2.4%
Markets Weigh Limited 2026 Cuts While Risk Appetite Stays CautiousFutures now imply about a 78% chance the Fed will leave rates unchanged at its next meeting, up from about 70% before the decision, as traders reassess how far this easing cycle can really go.

SUMMARY OF FED DECISION (12/10/2025):

1. Fed cuts rates by 25 bps in 3rd rate cut of 2025

2. Fed will consider "extend and timing" of additional adjustments

3. Fed will begin purchasing US Treasury Bills on December 12th

4. Fed will buy $40 billion of US Treasury bills in 30…

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) December 10, 2025
Nic Puckrin, investment analyst and co-founder of The Coin Bureau, said, the “FOMC decision wasn’t quite as hawkish as many market participants were expecting, so markets are breathing a sigh of relief.”

“However, it is worth noting that the Fed is now expected to cut rates only once next year – fewer cuts than investors were hoping for. This could still change, since next year does bring a historic changing of the guard, but Chair Jerome Powell still remains at the helm for the first three FOMC meetings of 2026,” he added.

“Indeed, today’s announcement is not enough to spark a Santa rally for Bitcoin, and I don’t see any other obvious catalysts from here on, barring any unexpected announcements from President Donald Trump. Even then, a dead cat bounce is a real possibility, as risk assets tend to care more about the Fed than just about anything else.”

Regional Markets Rise While Greater China Shows A Split In Risk AppetiteAsian stocks picked up the baton from Wall Street, where the S&P 500 closed 0.7% higher and the Russell 2000 small cap gauge jumped 1.3% to a record.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose about 0.5% in early trade, with tech and financial shares drawing the bulk of the buying interest.

Moves across Greater China showed a mixed risk appetite. The Shanghai benchmark slipped 0.18% and the Dow Jones Shanghai index eased 0.10%.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index advanced 0.4% as investors rotated back into some of the city’s large caps. For crypto traders, the rebound in Hong Kong is a reminder that equity risk sentiment in the city often moves in tandem with demand for China linked growth plays and higher beta tokens.

Tech sentiment turned more cautious in US after hours dealings. Nasdaq 100 futures traded about 0.3% lower in Asian hours after Oracle reported revenue that fell short of expectations, sending its shares sharply down in late trade.

Nvidia also edged lower, a sign that investors are trimming some of the most crowded artificial intelligence wagers that often sit in the same portfolios as major coins.

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On-chain data shows the Solana Realized Profit/Loss Ratio has dipped into the loss-taking zone recently, a sign that SOL liquidity has thinned.

Solana Liquidity Back At Levels Associated With Bear Markets
According to data from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode, Solana liquidity has recently contracted to levels that are typically witnessed in a bear market. There are many ways “liquidity” of a cryptocurrency can be assessed, but here, Glassnode has used the Realized Profit/Loss Ratio.

This indicator measures, as its name already implies, the ratio between the amount of profit and loss that the SOL investors as a whole are realizing through their transactions.

The metric works by going through the transaction history of each coin being sold on the network to see what price it was last moved at. If the previous transaction price was less than the latest selling price for any token, then the indicator considers its sale to have realized a net gain. Similarly, the metric adds transactions to the loss-taking category in the opposite case.

The exact amount of profit or loss realized in any transfer is naturally equal to the difference between the latest price and last selling value. The indicator adds up this value for both categories and determines the ratio.

Now, here is the chart shared by the analytics firm that shows the trend in the 30-day moving average (MA) of the Solana Realized Profit/Loss over the last few years:

The 30-day MA value of the metric appears to have dipped into the loss region in recent days | Source: Glassnode on X
As displayed in the above graph, the Solana Realized Profit/Loss witnessed a sharp spike during the price rally in September. This suggests that profit taking saw an explosion. The indicator maintained at high levels for a while, but following the price peak in October, its value went downhill fast.

In November, the Realized Profit/Loss breached below the 1 mark as SOL plummeted. A value less than 1 on the metric implies loss realization is outpacing profit taking. Since this breakdown, the indicator has only gone lower inside the loss-taking region, a sign investor capitulation has only been becoming more dominant.

Glassnode has noted that the trend signals “liquidity has contracted back to levels typically seen in deep bear markets.” During the 2022 bear market, Solana remained in these conditions for a few months before its price found a bottom.

It now remains to be seen whether the low liquidity will also persist for the cryptocurrency this time, or if the fall into the loss region is only a temporary one for the indicator.

SOL Price
Solana surged to $144 on Tuesday, but the coin has seen a fall back to $138.

The price of the coin seems to have overall gone up over the last few days | Source: SOLUSDT on TradingView
Featured image from Dall-E, Glassnode.com, chart from TradingView.com

NetApp, Inc. (NTAP) Barclays 23rd Annual Global Technology Conference December 10, 2025 7:15 PM EST

Company Participants

Wissam Jabre - Executive VP & CFO

Conference Call Participants

Timothy Long - Barclays Bank PLC, Research Division

Presentation

Timothy Long
Barclays Bank PLC, Research Division

Hi, everybody, thank you for joining Tim Long, IT hardware, comm equipment analyst at Barclays, very happy to have with him here from NetApp, CFO, relatively new CFO. But oddly enough, I did a fireside chat with this fine gentleman at their headquarters a few weeks ago. So we get to turn the tables a little bit here.

So maybe I think you got to read a little disclosure, and then we'll start out.

Wissam Jabre
Executive VP & CFO

Yes. Just make sure I read the safe harbor. So today's discussion may include forward-looking statements regarding NetApp's future performance, which are subject to risk and uncertainty. Actual results may differ materially from the statements made today for a variety of reasons described in NetApp's most recent 10-K and then 10-Q filed with the SEC and available on our website at netapp.com. NetApp disclaims any obligation to update information in any forward-looking statement for any reason. Thank you.

Question-and-Answer Session

Timothy Long
Barclays Bank PLC, Research Division

Okay. Thank you. I appreciate the time. I know it's pretty crazy times for everybody. So got a few kind of hot topics here, but maybe we'll start off. You're still relatively new to the CFO seat at NetApp. So maybe talk a little bit about kind of your first year and maybe the priorities that you're focused on, and then we'll get into some of the parts of the business.

Wissam Jabre
Executive VP & CFO

That's great. First, thank you so much, Tim, for having me, and happy to be here. So yes, first year

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Analyst’s Disclosure:I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

Fabrinet (FN) Barclays 23rd Annual Global Technology Conference December 10, 2025 4:55 PM EST

Company Participants

Seamus Grady - CEO & Chairman

Conference Call Participants

Timothy Long - Barclays Bank PLC, Research Division

Presentation

Timothy Long
Barclays Bank PLC, Research Division

Hello, everybody. Thank you for joining. Tim Long here, Barclays IT hardware com equipment analyst. Very happy to have Fabrinet with us today. Seamus Grady, CEO, with us. So thank you very much for joining. Obviously, really hot space, and you guys are in the heart of a lot of the key technology growth areas now.So I got a bunch of questions here. I want to start with kind of the maybe the 4 top ones that we get a lot of questions on, and I'm sure you do as well. So maybe we'll start with telecom and DCI. It's been nice, you guys started breaking that out recently, so we could see it a little bit better. Just talk a little bit about from a Fabrinet side, what products and solutions are really seeing that growth on one side and then talk a little bit about kind of the breadth of customer base and who's driving that strong growth.

Question-and-Answer Session

Seamus Grady
CEO & Chairman

Yes, we decided to break out DCI because I think for the feedback from investors was DCI has always been in our telecom number. But of course, it's what's going on in the datacom world that's driving the growth in DCI. So we decided to break it out so that you can clearly see, okay, yes, it's in telecom, but here's the number. You can see it separately. And it's been growing very nicely for us. We have 5 -- most of our DCI data center interconnect, most of it is 400ZR and 800ZR, 400ZR plus and more recently some 800ZR. It's been growing very nicely for

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SINGAPORE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ant International, HSBC and Swift today have completed a successful Proof of Concept (POC) for the cross-border transfer of tokenised deposits using ISO 20022 standards. The initiative leverages Swift's global messaging network and HSBC's recently launched Tokenised Deposit Service, combined with Ant International's blockchain technology. The POC marks a key milestone in Ant International, HSBC, and Swift's efforts to help businesses unlock the full benefits of token.

Credo Technology Group Holding Ltd (CRDO) Barclays 23rd Annual Global Technology Conference December 10, 2025 5:30 PM EST

Company Participants

William Brennan - President, CEO & Chairman
Daniel Fleming - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Thomas O'Malley - Barclays Bank PLC, Research Division

Presentation

Thomas O'Malley
Barclays Bank PLC, Research Division

Thank you. All right. Welcome back to the Barclays Global Tech Conference. I'm Tom O'Malley, semi and semi-cap equipment analyst. We have Bill Brennan and Dan Fleming from Credo. Thank you for joining.

William Brennan
President, CEO & Chairman

Thanks for having us.

Question-and-Answer Session

Thomas O'Malley
Barclays Bank PLC, Research Division

It's always an interesting conversation because I feel like every year, we're up here talking about different things, which is really good, right? So new innovation, the market looking different, but maybe like a step back to start, which is you're seeing $3 trillion plus of announced spend. Are we in the early innings of this AI investment cycle? You've been very clear in the past about how you guys are going to enable that, but I'd love for maybe you guys to start by sharing that where are the blockades in these deployments that you guys kind of enable? And what sort of products are you guys talking about most recently?

William Brennan
President, CEO & Chairman

You know the answer.

Thomas O'Malley
Barclays Bank PLC, Research Division

I know the answer, but it's not for me.

William Brennan
President, CEO & Chairman

Anywhere are we innings wise, it's always early innings, and if you say middle innings, you're in trouble.

Thomas O'Malley
Barclays Bank PLC, Research Division

Oh, no.

William Brennan
President, CEO & Chairman

That's a general statement. All kidding aside, yes, it's tremendous to see the energy, the continued energy in the build-out of AI infrastructure. I think -- personally, I

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December 10, 2025 8:15 PM EST | Source: Stardust Solar Energy Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - December 10, 2025) - Stardust Solar Energy Inc. (TSXV: SUN) (OTCQB: SUNXF) ("Stardust Solar" or the "Company"), a leading provider of residential solar energy solutions, is pleased to announce, further to its news release of October 31, 2025, that it has issued 468,000 common shares in the capital of the Company (the "Shares") at a deemed price of $0.10 per Share to an arm's length creditor (the "Creditor") in settlement of debt in the amount of $46,800.00 (the "Shares for Debt Settlement") for legal services provided to the Company by the Creditor.

All the Shares to be issued in connection with the Shares for Debt Settlement are subject to a statutory hold period of four months plus a day ending on April 11, 2026 in accordance with applicable securities legislation and the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange.

About Stardust Solar:

Stardust Solar is a North American franchisor of renewable energy installation services, specializing in solar panels (PV), energy storage systems, and electric vehicle supply equipment. The Company equips entrepreneurs with branded business management services, cutting-edge equipment, and comprehensive support, including marketing, sales, engineering, and project management. With franchises across Canada and the United States, Stardust Solar drives the adoption of clean energy solutions that boost economic development and create a more sustainable future.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

The TSX Venture Exchange Inc. has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.

- NOT FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES OR THROUGH U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES -

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/277687

NEW ORLEANS, Dec. 10, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors that they have until December 30, 2025 to file lead plaintiff applications in securities class action lawsuits against Synopsys, Inc. (“Synopsys” or the “Company”) (NasdaqGS: SNPS), if they purchased or otherwise acquired the Company’s securities between December 4, 2024 and September 9, 2025, inclusive (the “Class Period”) and/or purchased or otherwise acquired Synopsys common stock in exchange for their shares of Ansys, Inc. (“Ansys”) common stock in the acquisition of Ansys. These actions are pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Get Help

Synopsys investors should visit us at https://www.claimsfiler.com/cases/nasdaq-snps-2 or call toll-free (844) 367-9658. Lawyers at Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC are available to discuss your legal options.

About the Lawsuit

Synopsys and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws.

On September 9, 2025, post-market, the Company announced its 3Q2025 financial results, disclosing quarterly revenue of $1.740 billion, missing its prior guidance of between $1.755 billion and $1.785 billion, and reported net income of $242.5 million, a 43% year-over-year decline from $425.9 million reported for 3Q 024. Further, the Company reported that its Design IP segment accounted for approximately 25% of revenue and came in at $426.6 million, a 7.7% decline year-over-year, and also provided guidance inferring that Design IP revenues will decline by at least 5% on a full-year basis in fiscal 2025.

On this news, the price of Synopsys’ shares fell $216.59, or 35.8%, to close at $387.78 per share on September 10, 2025, on unusually heavy trading volume.

The first-filed case is Kim v. Synopsis, Inc., et al., No. 25-cv-09410. A subsequent case, New England Teamsters Pension Fund v. Synopsis, Inc., et al., No. 25-cv- 10201, expanded the class period.

About ClaimsFiler

ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations.

To learn more about ClaimsFiler, visit www.claimsfiler.com.

Costco stock has stumbled lately -- but does that retreat tell the whole story? A closer examination of short- and long-term returns reveals a more nuanced picture.

Costco Wholesale (COST 1.58%) has been lagging behind the broader stock market recently, but the retail giant may have deserved a break. The stock has still crushed the market over the long haul.

How a $10,000 Costco bet would have gone in six months
Let's say you invested $10,000 in Costco stock six months ago, enabled your brokerage's dividend reinvestment plan (DRIP), and left the stock alone. That position would be worth $8,769 by Dec. 9. That's a total return of negative-12.3%, or an annualized return of negative-22.8%.

Putting the same money in an S&P 500 (^GSPC +0.67%) index fund instead would have resulted in a single-ticker portfolio worth $11,480. And the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 index ran even further ahead; an index tracker such as the Invesco Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQM +0.40%) would be up to $11,820 today.

COST Total Return Level data by YCharts

Costco looks better on a three-year chart
The story changes if you stretch the timeline a bit. Costco investors have outperformed the S&P 500 over the past three years, for example. (Keeping pace with the supercharged Nasdaq-100 during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom was a tougher task.)

COST Total Return Level data by YCharts

Costco shines over time
And what if you held your Costco stock for five years, dating back to December 2020? The longer time span really puts Costco in the spotlight, as it outperformed both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq-100 in this period.

COST Total Return Level data by YCharts

Valuation check: Is Costco's stock still a Kirkland bargain?
Bearish investors might say that Costco is running out of rocket fuel. The stock traded at a lofty 95 times free cash flow (FCF) in the spring of 2025. The current multiple of 50 is far lower, but still nosebleed-inducing if you're a diehard value investor. And wasn't Costco supposed to be a value play in the first place? It's kind of ironic when the stock of a legendary discount retailer trades at a rich price premium.

Moreover, Costco faces the same challenging economic environment as everyone else, with operating costs increasing because of tariffs and inflation. It can't be easy to run a low-margin warehouse retailer under these conditions.

Image source: Getty Images.

Costco bulls see this deep price dip as a buying opportunity instead. Costco's financial results are soaring as belt-tightening consumers turn to Costco's wallet-saving goods. Trailing-12-month sales are 19% higher than three years ago, while FCF nearly tripled. I'm talking about a fine-tuned cash machine.

I'm siding with Costco's fans at this point (Costco investors and customers, not their ceiling fans). Yes, the stock still trades at sky-high valuation ratios, but the company has earned that price premium by thriving in both good and bad times. Temporary pullbacks can happen to any stock; patience is a life-saving virtue on Wall Street.

NEW ORLEANS, Dec. 10, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors that they have until January 12, 2026 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Stride, Inc. (“Stride” or the “Company”) (NYSE: LRN), if they purchased or otherwise acquired the Company’s securities between October 22, 2024 and October 28, 2025, inclusive (the “Class Period”). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Get Help

Stride investors should visit us at https://www.claimsfiler.com/cases/nyse-lrn-4 or call toll-free (844) 367-9658. Lawyers at Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC are available to discuss your legal options.

About the Lawsuit

Stride and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws.

On September 14, 2025, it was reported that the Gallup-McKinley County Schools Board of Education had filed a complaint against the Company, alleging fraud, deceptive trade practices, systemic violations of law, and intentional and tortious misconduct, including inflating enrollment numbers by retaining “ghost students” on rolls to secure state funding per student and ignoring compliance requirements, including background checks and licensure laws for its employees. On this news, the price of Stride’s shares fell $18.60 per share, or 11.7%, to close at $139.76 per share on September 15, 2025.

Then, on October 28, 2025, the Company disclosed that “poor customer experience” had resulted in “higher withdrawal rates,” “lower conversion rates,” and had driven students away, and that the Company estimated the impact caused approximately 10,000-15,000 fewer enrollments and that, because of this, its outlook is “muted” compared to prior years. On this news, the price of Stride’s shares fell $83.48 per share, or more than 54%, to close at $70.05 per share on October 29, 2025.

The case is MacMahon v. Stride, Inc., et al., Case No. 25-cv-02019.

About ClaimsFiler

ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations.

To learn more about ClaimsFiler, visit www.claimsfiler.com.

Newport Beach, CA, Dec. 10, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bimergen Energy Corporation (OTCQB: BESS) (“Bimergen”), a utility-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) asset owner, project developer, and independent power provider, today announced that its shares of common stock have been approved for listing on the NYSE American LLC ("NYSE American") stock exchange. Bimergen expects that its common stock will begin trading on the NYSE American under the symbol “BESS” at the opening of trading on or about December 18, 2025, subject to authorization of the application and continued compliance with the exchange rules.

In connection with the anticipated uplisting, Bimergen is also conducting a concurrent offering of its securities, subject to market conditions and regulatory approval. Additional details regarding the offering will be provided through the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”).

Bimergen expects that its shares of common stock will continue to trade on the OTC Markets’ OTCQB until the close of the market on or about December 17, 2025. Upon effectiveness of the listing on the NYSE American, trading of the common stock on the OTCQB will terminate. Stockholders of Bimergen do not need to take any action prior to the listing of Bimergen’s shares on the NYSE American.

This communication does not constitute an offer, or a solicitation of an offer, to buy or sell any securities, investment or other specific product, or a solicitation of any vote or approval, nor shall there be any sale of securities, investment or other specific product in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction.

About Bimergen Energy Corporation

Bimergen Energy Corporation (OTCQB: BESS) is a U.S.-based independent power producer specializing in the development, ownership, and operation of standalone battery energy storage systems (BESS). Bimergen develops utility-scale and distributed storage projects designed to provide grid reliability, renewable integration, and flexible energy solutions. Bimergen manages the full project lifecycle, including site selection, permitting, engineering, procurement, construction, and operations. Its portfolio spans multiple power markets across the United States.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may include, and oral statements made from time to time by representatives of Bimergen may include “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Statements regarding possible business combinations and the financing thereof, and related matters, as well as all other statements other than statements of historical fact included in this press release are forward-looking statements. When used in this press release, words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “might,” “plan,” “possible,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “should,” “would” and similar expressions, as they relate to us or our management team, identify forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs of management, as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, Bimergen’s management. Actual results could differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements as a result of certain factors detailed in Bimergen’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). All subsequent written or oral forward-looking statements attributable to us or persons acting on our behalf are qualified in their entirety by this paragraph. Forward-looking statements are subject to numerous conditions, many of which are beyond the control of Bimergen, including those set forth in the Risk Factors section of Bimergen’s filings with the SEC. Bimergen undertakes no obligation to update these statements for revisions or changes after the date of this release, except as required by law.

Contact:
Dave Gentry
RedChip Companies Inc.
1-407-644-4256 | 1-800-REDCHIP (733-2447)
[email protected]

NEW ORLEANS, Dec. 10, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors that they have until January 30, 2026 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against DeFi Technologies Inc. (“DeFi” or the “Company”) (NasdaqCM: DEFT), if they purchased or otherwise acquired the Company’s securities between May 12, 2025 and November 14, 2025, inclusive (the “Class Period”). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Get Help

DeFi investors should visit us at https://claimsfiler.com/cases/nasdaq-defi/ or call toll-free (844) 367-9658. Lawyers at Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC are available to discuss your legal options.

About the Lawsuit

DeFi and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws.

On November 13, 2025, post-market, the Company announced its financial results for the third quarter of 2025, disclosing a nearly 20% decline in revenue, well below market expectations, and also significantly lowered its 2025 revenue forecast, from $218.6 million to approximately $116.6 million, due to “a delay in executing DeFi Alpha arbitrage opportunities previously forecasted due to the proliferation of [DAT] companies and the consolidation in digital asset price movement in the latter half of 2025.”

On this news, the price of DeFi’s shares fell $0.40 per share, or 27.59%, over the following two trading sessions, to close at $1.05 per share on November 17, 2025.

The case is Linkedto Partners LLC v. DeFi Technologies Inc., et al., No. 25-cv-06637.

About ClaimsFiler

ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations.

To learn more about ClaimsFiler, visit www.claimsfiler.com.

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