Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Eldorado Gold is rated Buy, driven by the near-completion of its transformational Skouries copper-gold project in Greece. Skouries will diversify EGO's product mix, enhance cash flow, and reduce single-commodity dependency, with commercial production targeted for Q4 2026. EGO's robust balance sheet, existing mine cash flows, and non-recourse project financing significantly mitigate execution and financial risks.

Bitmine, Sharplink and Joe Lubin fund a new dedicated go-to-market organization built by Ethereum Foundation alumni

, /PRNewswire/ -- Ethereum Institutional, an independent non-profit organization, today announced its public launch as the dedicated institutional front door for the Ethereum ecosystem. The organization consolidates a year of institutional engagement work led by the Ethereum Foundation's go-to-market team, housing it in an independent organization with a sharper mission, broader geographic footprint and long-term funding. Bitmine Immersion Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: BMNR), Sharplink, Inc. (NASDAQ: SBET) and Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin are anchoring the funding, along with dozens of individual and institutional contributors.

Ethereum Institutional Ethereum Institutional exists so as the world's largest financial institutions make their foundational, long-lived platform decisions about tokenization, stablecoins and onchain market infrastructure, they engage Ethereum through a credible, neutral counterpart. Ethereum does not force a single rigid configuration, but lets institutions choose the approach that fits each use case, while deriving security from the world's most robust and reliable digital asset settlement layer.

This launch represents the second major independent steward organization for Ethereum's ecosystem unveiled in the last week, following the announcement of Ethlabs, a research and development lab also founded by former Ethereum Foundation leaders. Together, Ethlabs and Ethereum Institutional form complementary pillars of Ethereum's next chapter: one advancing protocol-layer innovation and core infrastructure, the other ensuring institutions have a credible, dedicated counterpart to guide them from evaluation through deployment at scale. Ethereum Institutional brings ecosystem experience and unbiased expertise to the world's largest financial institutions.

The institutional adoption moment is now. Ethereum currently hosts roughly $180 billion of stablecoins on mainnet, approximately 60% of total stablecoin supply and roughly two-thirds of all tokenized real-world assets. Leading financial institutions across asset management, banking, payments, custody and market infrastructure are actively building on the network. Meanwhile, competing ecosystems have made institutional adoption their explicit commercial priority, each running well-funded business development organizations with dedicated mandates to land institutional deployments.

The platform decisions institutions are making in the next 12-24 months will set the topology of onchain finance for decades. Coordinated, credible representation now unifies the conversation, and supports expanding Ethereum's robust network, which benefits its existing and future users.

Ethereum Institutional launches with a proven track record and existing momentum: the team has built over 500 institutional relationships covering the global universe of Tier-1 banks, top-tier asset managers, sovereign institutions, custodians and market infrastructure providers. The team has established a thought leader gathering through the Institutional Ethereum Forum, which brought together more than 150 senior executives and Heads of Digital Assets from institutions representing roughly $250 trillion in combined assets under management.

Ethereum Institutional will operate along five focus areas from day one: Institutional Education and Engagement, Institutional Intelligence, ETH and Ecosystem Marketing, Standards and Best Practices and Institutional Events. Geographic coverage will expand from New York, London, Hong Kong, and Singapore into additional primary financial centers including Zurich, Frankfurt, Tokyo and Abu Dhabi, with dedicated institutional leads embedded in each region operating under a shared credibly neutral mandate.

Thomas "Tom" Lee, Chairman of Bitmine. "Financial institutions are making infrastructure decisions today that will shape capital markets for decades, and Ethereum is increasingly at the center of those conversations. Ethereum Institutional arrives at exactly the right moment, creating a trusted, independent home where institutions can engage with the ecosystem, develop standards and accelerate adoption. It's an important step toward making Ethereum the backbone of the next generation of global financial infrastructure."

Joseph Chalom, Chief Executive Officer of Sharplink. "I spent two decades helping the world's largest institutions adopt new technology, and I have rarely seen the conditions align the way they have for Ethereum. These institutions are moving from interest to action across tokenization, stablecoins and a new financial market infrastructure. Ethereum Institutional was built to meet them at exactly this moment."

Joe Lubin, Ethereum co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Consensys. "Ethereum has become the premier infrastructure for decentralized, verifiable, programmable trust. For more than a decade, the researchers, developers and ecosystem have focused on doing the hard work without cutting corners: making the network more scalable, more affordable, more usable, and protecting credible neutrality and censorship resistance via progressive rigorous decentralization. This is why it has been the first and prevailing choice for the majority of stablecoin activity, tokenized assets, DeFi and other onchain financial infrastructure. Traditional finance is already onboarding itself to Ethereum's decentralized rails. Ethereum Institutional will help accelerate this next major chapter, enabling institutions to engage at scale, promoting the openness and permissionless innovation that make the network uniquely powerful and valuable."

Concluding, David Walsh, Executive Director of Ethereum Institutional, said, "Ethereum's credible neutrality is one of its greatest strengths, but neutrality without representation can often be seen as silence. The Ethereum ecosystem needs a credible, independent counterpart institutions can engage with directly; someone financial leaders can call, brief their board with, and trust to come back with honest answers. Ethereum Institutional exists to be this dedicated counterpart. Our job is to translate institutional requirements into deployments that scale, and ultimately to make Ethereum the foundational layer for institutional finance."

Lee, Chalom and Walsh will serve as the members of the Board of Directors.

About Bitmine 
Bitmine (NYSE: BMNR) is a Bitcoin miner with operations in the US. The company is deploying its excess capital to be the leading Ethereum Treasury company in the world, implementing an innovative digital asset strategy for institutional investors and public market participants. Guided by its philosophy of "the alchemy of 5%," the Company is committed to ETH as its primary treasury reserve asset, leveraging native protocol-level activities including staking and decentralized finance mechanisms. The Company launched MAVAN (Made-in America Validator Network), a dedicated staking infrastructure for Bitmine assets, in 2026.

About Sharplink

Sharplink (NASDAQ: SBET) is a leading institutional-grade Ethereum treasury platform designed to give public market investors smarter, more productive exposure to ETH. Ethereum underpins the majority of global stablecoin, tokenized real-world assets and decentralized finance settlement. Sharplink was founded in 2019 and is headquartered in Miami, Florida. Learn more at sharplink.com.

About Ethereum Institutional

Ethereum Institutional is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to the institutional adoption of Ethereum. The organization functions as the neutral front door for institutions to enter the Ethereum ecosystem, working directly with banks, asset managers, custodians, market infrastructures, fintechs, and sovereign institutions to translate their requirements into on-chain deployments. The organization operates five focus areas: Institutional Education and Engagement, Institutional Intelligence, ETH and Ecosystem Marketing, Industry Discovery and Requirements, and Institutional Events. Learn more at ethereuminstitutional.org.

Forward-Looking Statement

This press release contains statements regarding anticipated institutional interest in Ethereum, research focus and roadmaps, governance arrangements, funding availability, and program scaling. These statements are based on current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including market conditions for digital assets, regulatory changes, protocol-level developments, timing of institutional deployments, funding availability and general economic conditions. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this release and are not guarantees. Ethereum Institutional and its funders undertake no obligation to update them except as required by law. This press release is for informational purposes only.

SOURCE Bitmine Immersion Technologies, Inc.

REAL Introduces Confidential Execution Layer to Support Institutional RWA Markets

Investors choosing between Duolingo (DUOL +5.42%) and Zeta Global (ZETA +7.11%) must weigh high-growth education technology against AI-powered marketing solutions. Both companies are navigating a rapidly evolving software landscape in 2026.

Duolingo uses gamification to maintain user engagement in the language learning market, while Zeta Global focuses on enterprise-level data analytics for digital marketing. They represent two different paths within the software sector, offering investors distinct ways to gain exposure to consumer-facing and business-to-business technology trends.

The case for DuolingoDuolingo provides language education through its flagship mobile app, which uses gamification to keep users returning. The company generates most of its revenue through subscriptions and advertising on its platform. Customer concentration like this adds a layer of risk to the business, as Apple and Alphabet together accounted for roughly 82% of total revenue in 2025.

In FY 2025, revenue reached $1 billion, which represents a growth rate of approximately 38.7% compared to the prior year. The company also reported net income of nearly $414.1 million for the same period. This resulted in a net margin of close to 39.9%, which helps investors assess how efficiently a company converts sales into profit.

As of its December 2025 balance sheet, the debt-to-equity ratio is roughly 0.1x, which measures total debt against shareholder equity. The current ratio is approximately 2.6x, indicating the company has sufficient assets to cover its short-term debts. Free cash flow for the year was roughly $369.7 million, though stock-based compensation represented roughly 35.4% of operating cash flow, which inflates reported cash generation since SBC is a non-cash expense added back in the cash flow statement.

The case for Zeta GlobalZeta Global provides an AI-powered marketing cloud that helps large enterprises acquire and retain customers through digital channels. The company recently entered a strategic partnership with Palantir Technologies to enhance its infrastructure for enterprise artificial intelligence. Since the top 10 customers account for more than one-third of total revenue, customer concentration like this adds a layer of risk to the business.

For FY 2025, the company reported revenue of close to $1.3 billion, representing growth of approximately 29.7% year over year. Despite this growth, the business reported a net loss of roughly $31.5 million. This resulted in a net margin of about -2.4%, showing that the company has not yet reached full-year profitability on a net basis.

On its December 2025 balance sheet, the debt-to-equity ratio was roughly 0.2x. The company maintains a current ratio of approximately 1.6x, providing a healthy cushion for short-term liabilities. Free cash flow was nearly $185.1 million, but stock-based compensation represented roughly 89.4% of operating cash flow, which inflates reported cash generation since SBC is a non-cash expense added back in the cash flow statement for tech stocks like this.

Risk profile comparisonDuolingo faces significant revenue concentration risks because it is highly dependent on the app stores run by Apple and Alphabet. The company also competes in a crowded online learning market where new generative artificial intelligence products could disrupt its pricing power. Additionally, as of April 2026, the company is under investigation by law firms concerning potential federal securities law violations.

Zeta Global is heavily reliant on a small number of large clients, making the loss of any single major relationship a significant threat to financial results. The business must also navigate evolving data privacy laws like GDPR that could limit its ability to collect consumer data. Furthermore, integrating acquisitions and adapting to emerging AI-specific regulations pose ongoing challenges to its operational efficiency.

Valuation comparisonZeta Global trades at a significantly lower multiple than Duolingo, suggesting a more conservative valuation for the AI marketing company relative to future earnings estimates.

MetricDuolingoZeta GlobalSector BenchmarkForward P/E42.9x19.9x36.4xP/S ratio5.5x3.6xN/ASector benchmark uses the SPDR XLK sector ETF. Valuation metrics sourced from Financial Modeling Prep (FMP) and may differ from other data providers.

Duolingo and Zeta offer very different products, but they appear to be at the same point in their growth journeys. Both sport market caps around $5 billion, both are applying artificial intelligence to power their businesses, and both face customer concentration risks. Duolingo shines in terms of its profitability, but Zeta’s product may make it the more compelling pick in this match-up.

Digital marketing is a big business, and if Zeta’s AI-powered product can differentiate itself in a crowded market, it could prove to be a runaway winner. Its partnership with tech giant Palantir is certainly a step in the right direction. Duolingo was a breakout star and offers a unique product, but online language learning may have more limited adoption, especially as more users become comfortable conversing with AI assistants.

Investing in tech stocks, particularly those that are deep in growth mode, can pay off handsomely for investors, but conservative investors are best served keeping these kinds of investments to smaller allocations within their portfolios, as the soaring highs can be quickly replaced by devastating lows.

Important Information Regarding Section 20(a) Individual Liability Claims Against Futu Holdings Executives Who Certified SEC Filings While the Company Allegedly Operated Without Required CSRC Licenses

FUTU INVESTOR ALERT

, /PRNewswire/ -- Levi & Korsinsky, LLP alerts investors in Futu Holdings Limited (NASDAQ: FUTU) of a pending securities class action naming two senior executives as individual defendants. Class Period: May 24, 2023 through May 27, 2026. Check if you can recover your investment losses or contact Joseph E. Levi, Esq. at [email protected] | (212) 363-7500.

Futu shares lost $34.10 per share on May 22, 2026, a 27.5% single-day decline, after the CSRC proposed a penalty of RMB 1.85 billion (approximately USD 271 million). The Court has set August 25, 2026 as the deadline to apply for lead plaintiff appointment.

The Named Individual Defendants

Leaf Hua Li, Futu's Chief Executive Officer, and Arthur Yu Chen, the Company's Chief Financial Officer, are named as individual defendants in the action. The complaint charges that both executives possessed the power and authority to control the contents of Futu's SEC filings, press releases, and presentations to analysts and institutional investors throughout the three-year Class Period. The CSRC also proposed a personal fine of RMB 1.25 million against Li individually.

Section 20(a) Control Person Framework

The lawsuit asserts claims under Section 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which imposes liability on individuals who controlled a company that violated Section 10(b). As alleged, Li and Chen:

Received copies of the Company's reports and press releases prior to issuance and had the ability to prevent their release or cause corrections Possessed access to material non-public information regarding CSRC non-compliance and the risk of substantial penalties Signed annual reports on Form 20-F that affirmed financial results allegedly inflated by revenue from unlicensed mainland China operations Knew that adverse facts regarding ongoing regulatory exposure had not been disclosed to the investing public Sarbanes-Oxley Certification Obligations

Under Sections 302 and 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Li and Chen each personally certified the accuracy and completeness of Futu's annual reports filed with the SEC. The action contends these certifications were materially misleading because they failed to disclose that Futu continued conducting securities, public fund sales, and futures business in mainland China without required licenses or CSRC approval, even after the regulator's December 2022 public warning.

"Corporate officers have a duty to ensure their companies' public statements are accurate and complete. When executives certify SEC filings, they assume personal responsibility for the truthfulness of those disclosures." -- Joseph E. Levi, Esq.

Scienter Allegations

The complaint charges that the Individual Defendants knew Futu was not in compliance with CSRC requirements. The CSRC publicly announced its inquiry on December 30, 2022. Yet for over three years, the Company's quarterly press releases continued to tout paying client growth, total client assets exceeding HK829 billion, and trading volumes surpassing HK3.2 trillion per quarter, all without adequately disclosing that the underlying business generating these figures was operating without requisite licenses.

Speak with an attorney about recovering damages or call Joseph E. Levi, Esq. at (212) 363-7500.

Levi & Korsinsky, LLP | Top 50 Securities Firm | (212) 363-7500 | www.zlk.com | Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.

Frequently Asked Questions About the FUTU Lawsuit

Q: Who are the defendants named in the FUTU lawsuit? A: The complaint names Futu Holdings Limited and individual defendants Leaf Hua Li (CEO) and Arthur Yu Chen (CFO), who signed SEC filings and certified financial disclosures under Sarbanes-Oxley throughout the Class Period.

Q: What is the FUTU class action lawsuit about? A: A securities class action has been filed against Futu Holdings Limited (NASDAQ: FUTU) alleging materially false and misleading statements between May 24, 2023 and May 27, 2026. Shares fell approximately 27.5% after the CSRC proposed a RMB 1.85 billion penalty for unlicensed operations, causing significant losses for shareholders.

Q: What is a lead plaintiff and why does it matter? A: A lead plaintiff is the investor appointed by the court to represent the entire class. Lead plaintiffs are typically investors with the largest documented losses. Being appointed does not increase individual recovery but gives direct oversight of how the case is run.

Q: How do I know if I lost enough money to be the lead plaintiff? A: There is no minimum loss threshold. Courts appoint the investor with the largest provable loss who is willing and able to represent the class adequately. Contact Levi & Korsinsky before August 25, 2026 to evaluate.

Q: What if I already sold my FUTU shares -- can I still recover losses? A: Yes. Eligibility is based on when you purchased, not whether you still hold them. Investors who bought during the Class Period and sold at a loss may still participate.

Q: Do I need to go to court or give testimony? A: No. The overwhelming majority of class members never appear in court or give depositions. You submit a claim form to receive your portion of recovery.

Q: What does it cost me to participate? A: Nothing. Securities class actions are handled on a pure contingency basis. No upfront fees, no retainer, no out-of-pocket costs.

CONTACT:
Levi & Korsinsky, LLP
Joseph E. Levi, Esq.
Ed Korsinsky, Esq.
33 Whitehall Street, 27th Floor
New York, NY 10004
[email protected]
Tel: (212) 363-7500
Fax: (212) 363-7171

SOURCE Levi & Korsinsky, LLP

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pushed for stronger legislation to bar President Donald Trump and his family from profiting off cryptocurrency, after new disclosures on Tuesday revealed income in excess of $1 billion in 2025.

Warren Demands Improved Crypto BillWarren said that the cryptocurrency legislation, i.e., the Clarity Act, eligible for a full floor vote in the Senate, must have provisions to stop Trump and his family from making money from cryptocurrency ventures.

Steve Rattner, a well-known Wall Street financier, weighed in on the financial benefits of the “Trump family’s White House self-dealing.”

‘Not A Good Look’Lawrence Lepard, an investment manager and Austrian economist, said that the disclosure didn’t give a “good look” and could spark political backlash against cryptocurrency if Democrats regain power.

Former Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb was sharply critical of Trump’s cryptocurrency fortune, deeming it as “greatest onslaught of corruption in the history of mankind.”

Trump Made A Bomb With CryptoAccording to financial disclosure released on Tuesday, Trump’s cryptocurrency ventures netted him roughly $1.2 billion in 2025, the very first year of his presidency.

The windfall included over $520 million from the sale of tokens issued by World Liberty Financial and more than $635 million in royalties collected from the Official Trump (CRYPTO: TRUMP) memecoin.

The White House didn’t immediately return Benzinga’s request for comment.

Photo courtesy: Sheila Fitzgerald on Shutterstock.com

Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

© 2026 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX 3.21%) made its public debut this month, and demand was so intense that the stock quickly shot up to $225 per share from its original $135 initial public offering (IPO) price. The hype has since died down, and SpaceX is currently trading near $150 as of this writing. So how do investors decide whether to buy, hold, or sell in light of this pullback?

First, we must consider the price dip itself and whether it is truly an opportunity, a warning, or just short-term noise to ignore. There really isn't much analyst consensus on SpaceX. Price targets range from an absurdly high $310 to $62 per share, so different conclusions can be reached from the outset.

Only time will tell who has the correct take on Elon Musk's multi-trillion-dollar business. However, this dip is likely driven by a combination of fears and concerns about SpaceX's debt load, inflated valuation, and ability to grow revenue to justify that sky-high valuation.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

SpaceX announced it would issue $25 billion in bonds this week, following its record-breaking $85 billion IPO raise. The additional debt has some investors concerned. Lastly, insider lockups will expire in the coming months, which could trigger a selling spree that pushes the stock lower. With all that said, this dip is generally reactionary and not necessarily tied to SpaceX's financials. The company hasn't even released its first quarterly earnings report.

Today's Change

(

-3.21

%) $

-5.48

Current Price

$

165.38

Should you buy? While SpaceX's price is still inflated, there's a bull case to consider: the businesses it owns and their growth trajectory. The subsidiary Starlink, a satellite Internet network, is globally scalable and already generates recurring revenue. SpaceX also owns xAI, which lags competitors, but could catch up over time and eventually become profitable. SpaceX, of course, currently dominates the medium-lift reusable rocket market.

There's a lot of potential revenue in a diversified portfolio. Success stories like Amazon, which is both an e-commerce platform and a leading cloud provider, show what is possible with successful execution and a long enough time horizon.

Should you hold? If you already hold SpaceX shares, the stock will be volatile for the foreseeable future, and trying to time the market isn't a winning strategy in the long run. It's going to take years for revenue to catch up with valuation. Right now, SpaceX trades at more than 100 times its sales. Holding the stock will require the stomach to handle price swings.

The stock has been trading for less than a month, so holding is a reasonable option because investors haven't given the company nearly enough time to find its footing.

Should you sell? If you bought SpaceX and the stock has become too concentrated in your portfolio, or you find yourself unable to handle the volatile price swings, you may want to consider reducing your position. Or perhaps you've become bearish on the space industry and on SpaceX's ability to become a profitable, cash-flowing machine. In that case, selling makes sense.

There isn't one right answer when it comes to buying, holding, or selling any stock. In general, it's best to buy and hold for a minimum of five years to give stocks a chance to grow and weather any market downturns. In the case of SpaceX, investors need patience, a high risk tolerance, and the ability to wait for revenue to catch up with the more than $2 trillion valuation.

That may not happen for several years. Your personal portfolio goals are what matter most.

Shares of Apple Inc NASDAQ: AAPL are trading around $285 this week, down almost 10% from the all-time highs they hit earlier this month. A string of unhelpful headlines has weighed on sentiment, from the underwhelming Siri AI reveal at WWDC to last week's price hikes on MacBooks and iPads.

Apple Today

$292.98 +3.62 (+1.25%)

As of 10:28 AM Eastern

This is a fair market value price provided by Massive. Learn more.

52-Week Range$201.50▼

$317.40Dividend Yield0.37%

P/E Ratio35.36

Price Target$314.85

The latest update is more interesting than the market has so far given it credit for. It was reported last week that Apple has launched a lobbying campaign to secure clearance from the U.S. administration to procure memory chips from CXMT, a Chinese company currently on the Pentagon's 1260H list. For context, that's the U.S. government's official register of businesses operating in the country that are believed to have ties to the Chinese military.

Get Apple alerts:

While the headline reads as another piece of complicated news for a stock that's had plenty of it, the underlying signal is potentially more constructive.

Apple is clearly moving with speed to address the cost pressure that's been weighing on it, even if the path is far from straightforward.

Why Apple Is Lobbying for Chinese MemoryThe overall context here is important. Memory chip prices have been surging globally, driven by the same AI-related demand that's been powering rallies in stocks across the board. For Apple, the impact is direct, with CEO Tim Cook publicly admitting last week that the cost pressure had become "unsustainable" and that "price increases are unavoidable." That admission was followed swiftly by price hikes across many of its core products, including its MacBook and iPad ranges, and the stock had its worst day in over a year as a result.

The lobbying campaign now reported is an attempt to ease that exact pressure. CXMT is one of the largest memory chipmakers in China, and securing access to its output could go a long way to offset some of the supply-side bottleneck Apple is facing.

The complication is that CXMT was added to the Pentagon's 1260H list this month, due to its alleged links to the Chinese military. While Apple isn’t explicitly barred from buying from these firms, dealing with companies on that list carries reputational risks and has the whiff of desperation about it.

What Wedbush Is SayingFrom that viewpoint, it’s understandable that Wedbush has cautioned that any benefit from this lobbying effort may be limited, at least in the short term. Apple tried something similar with a Chinese competitor of CXMT, YMTC, back in 2022 and faced significant pushback from Congress. There's every chance the same resistance could repeat itself this time around.

The bigger problem, according to Wedbush, is that the underlying issue isn't really about access. It's about capacity. As they pointed out in a note to clients on the news, "there is simply not enough production capability to support current memory demand."

In other words, even if Apple succeeds in unlocking access to CXMT's output, it won’t fundamentally change the tightening supply-and-demand dynamic that's been driving prices higher. That's a fair caution, and it's worth weighing carefully before getting carried away with the bullish framing.

Why the Market May Still Be Missing the Bigger PictureThat said, focusing purely on the near-term economics may be missing the more important strategic signal. Apple is one of the most capable supply chain operators on earth, and the fact that it's actively lobbying the administration to expand its options speaks to a company that isn't simply sitting back and absorbing this cost squeeze. It's moving aggressively on multiple fronts to find a way through.

This needs to be viewed in the broader context of the strategic moves Apple has been making in recent weeks. The partnership with Intel Corp NASDAQ: INTC on domestic chip production, the deeper push into U.S. manufacturing, and now the lobbying effort on Chinese memory all point to the same underlying story.

Apple is acting to diversify its supply chain in every direction it can, and strategic agility has historically been one of its biggest competitive advantages. For investors, the path to success from this China play may not be smooth, but the direction of travel is reassuring.

A Stock Setup That's Becoming Hard to IgnoreThe combination of all this with Apple's recent pullback makes the current setup interesting. The stock is now meaningfully cheaper than it was at the start of the month. Still, the long-term story, anchored by AI agentic potential, ecosystem stickiness, and a deepening Services revenue mix, hasn't actually changed.

Apple Inc. (AAPL) Price Chart for Wednesday, July, 1, 2026

For investors looking through the noise and asking whether Apple’s trajectory is meaningfully different today than it was a few weeks ago, the answer is, increasingly, that it isn't. The recent headlines might be telling investors to be careful, but the underlying picture is quietly telling them something rather different.

Should You Invest $1,000 in Apple Right Now?Before you consider Apple, you'll want to hear this.

MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on... and Apple wasn't on the list.

While Apple currently has a Moderate Buy rating among analysts, top-rated analysts believe these five stocks are better buys.

View The Five Stocks Here

Looking for the next FAANG stock before everyone has heard about it? Click the link to see which stocks MarketBeat analysts think might become the next trillion dollar tech company.

Get This Free Report

A pause in talks between the U.S. and Iran have futures taking a step back ahead of Wednesday's opening bell. Tom White turns to the trading action and explains how persisting headwinds keep markets pressured.

Meta Platforms stock is showing upward momentum. What’s ahead for META stock? According to Bloomberg, Meta is forming a business to generate revenue from excess computing power sold to outside customers as part of an internal initiative called Meta Compute.

The plans include two potential offerings. The first involves selling access to various AI models hosted on Meta’s existing infrastructure—similar to Amazon Web Services’ Bedrock offering—with Meta running the data centers and chips powering the models, including its own Muse Spark models, and charging developers to access them. The second involves selling access to raw computing capacity, similar to neocloud businesses like CoreWeave.

Meta Compute is led by Santosh Janardhan, Meta’s head of infrastructure; Daniel Gross, a leader inside the Meta Superintelligence Labs AI unit; and Meta President Dina Powell McCormick.

Bloomberg noted that the company’s plans are still in development and could change. Meta did not immediately respond to Benzinga’s request for comment.

Meta Shares Trend HigherMETA Price Action: At the time of publication, Meta shares are trading 7.05% higher at $603.00, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

Image via Shutterstock

This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

© 2026 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

Alex Coffey says the second half of 2026 has a strong foundation underneath when turning to historical market metrics. One corner of Wall Street not seeing significant strength: hyperscalers, which have lagged compared to chipmaking peers.

Meta has spent billions of dollars developing AI and building out data centers to support it. But now, the company may be preparing to put those data centers to a more immediately profitable purpose.

On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that Meta is developing plans for a cloud infrastructure business, selling access to both AI compute power and models. The move would pit it against the big cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. 

Meta’s decision to sell off excess compute comes weeks after SpaceX, via xAI, announced similar plans. In early May, SpaceX signed a deal with Anthropic to buy out all of the compute capacity at SpaceX’s Colossus 1 data center. SpaceX has signed similar leases since with Google and Reflection AI. The fact that Meta is doing the same is a signal that the winners of the AI race may not be the ones providing the best models and services, but rather the ones who own the data centers.

That is, if the demand for compute continues to hold, and if data centers retain their value. Some skeptics have warned the race to build out AI infrastructure is creating a bubble that leans heavily on rapidly depreciating chips. Others have questioned whether AI companies can generate enough end-user revenue to justify the trillion-dollar bets. 

Those concerns haven’t stopped Meta from investing heavily in infrastructure for AI compute. As of the end of the first quarter, Meta had committed to spending $182.9 billion on AI infrastructure in the coming years, including massive ongoing projects in Louisiana and Ohio. The Ohio project, which Zuckerberg said would be the size of Manhattan, is expected to come online this year.

Unlike Google and OpenAI, Meta hasn’t seen significant demand for its own AI models and services. Meta doesn’t break out its revenue from Meta AI or from Llama, its open-weight AI model family, in its earnings, and executives have mostly emphasized the internal corporate uses of AI in public statements. That could mean that Meta’s AI endeavors don’t yet represent a material standalone revenue line. 

To get a return on some of its own colossal spend, Meta may copy CoreWeave’s business model and sell access to “raw” compute capacity, according to Bloomberg. The outlet also reported Meta is considering following AWS’s lead and selling access to various AI models — including its recently launched closed-weight model, Muse Spark — hosted on its AI infrastructure.

The new business line will be part of a new initiative reportedly dubbed Meta Compute, which is led by head of infrastructure Santosh Janardhan, Meta Superintelligence Labs leader Daniel Gross, and president Dina Powell McCormick.

The report confirms Zuckerberg’s May statements that a Meta cloud computing business is “definitely on the table” as a way to get a return on some of the massive investment into its strategy to develop AI “superintelligence.”

TechCrunch has reached out to Meta for comment.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

Rebecca Bellan is a senior reporter at TechCrunch where she covers the business, policy, and emerging trends shaping artificial intelligence. Her work has also appeared in Forbes, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, and other publications.

You can contact or verify outreach from Rebecca by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at rebeccabellan.491 on Signal.

© 2023 Getty Images / Getty Images News via Getty Images

Shares of Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) have been picking up in recent sessions, now close to 13% in just three sessions. Undoubtedly, just because Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ:SPCX) is the new hot Elon Musk stock in town does not mean shares of the EV juggernaut are going to be stuck going sideways for a while longer.

With the ambitious Terafab, a foundry, and some very impressive next-generation AI chips on the horizon, questions linger as to whether Tesla shares can outrun SpaceX. Certainly, SpaceX had its IPO at a fairly hefty price, and the price of admission has only grown since.

In any case, Tesla’s transition from EV maker to robotics innovator and AI chip play is already well underway. And arguably, the company has already delivered some pretty impressive innovations early on in its shifting of the gears.

The AI5 chip is jaw-droppingly impressive With the AI5 chip coming later in the year and the AI6 chip to follow, perhaps Tesla is the ultimate physical AI play and a more exciting bet than SpaceX, as Elon Musk looks to reduce its dependence on others as structural forces continue to make it tougher to get a spot on the production line. Given that AI demand could keep going from here, perhaps going down the route of a fab is the most logical thing to do, despite the price of the undertaking, the time it’ll take, and the very limited room for error.

In terms of breakthrough, the AI5 chip built on the 3nm process looks seriously impressive as the AI world moves into an inference inflection point. With reports of a 40x performance boost, it certainly feels like Tesla is the Magnificent Seven member with some of the most mouth-watering benchmarks.

Of course, it’s still early, but if the architecture behind the AI5 chip delivers, it’s not all too far-fetched to envision Tesla’s custom silicon stepping up to the plate as a serious challenger to Nvidia‘s (NASDAQ:NVDA) dominance. Of course, Nvidia’s not ignoring the opportunity at the edge either. Its RTX Spark superchip is every bit as impressive.

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Tesla didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

However, at the end of the day, Tesla’s chips are all about efficiency rather than raw power.

When it comes to the edge, perhaps surgical precision beats brute force. And with an army of Optimus humanoid robots on the way, as well as Tesla’s robotaxi opportunity, Tesla’s custom silicon is already going to find a home in some seriously impressive embodied AI products. Any way you look at it, it looks like Tesla is about to become a disruptor again as it beckons in the age of robotics.

The road ahead looks bright for Tesla as several catalysts align With a massive data moat and a recent “40x performance boost” milestone in the books, it feels like Tesla might be the underestimated AI chip play that might just pull to the very front of the pack in this AI race. And with the 2nm AI6 chip to follow, count me as unsurprised if Tesla finds a way to silence the doubters as it finds huge success driving right into the age of robotics.

Full Self-Driving (FSD) v14 Lite has been released for Hardware 3 vehicles, And it finally feels like Tesla is finally delivering on its wild promises. The big question for investors moving forward is whether Optimus, Terafab, and the custom silicon roadmap will also be a success, even when the odds of failure are so high. It’s tough to say, but if you’re a Musk believer, I do think Tesla now looks a whole lot more interesting after its latest sudden surge.

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Tesla didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

The RulingStockholm’s Patent and Market Court ruled in PriceRunner’s favor, awarding $1.97 billion in damages. The award compensates for lost revenue caused by Google’s preferential treatment of its own comparison-shopping service over independent price-comparison services—conduct the court found also drove up costs for consumers.

“When markets work well, everyone benefits. Consumers get higher quality at lower cost, companies stay focused on serving customers rather than defending position, and society is better off for it,” said Dan Greaves, Head of Communications and Policy at Klarna. “This ruling supports a healthier, more competitive market for the way people compare products and services.”

What Is PriceRunner?Klarna Shares Shoot HigherKLAR Price Action: At the time of publication, Klarna shares are trading 6.27% higher at $21.50, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

Image via Shutterstock

This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

© 2026 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

A Swedish court ruled that the search giant favored its own price-comparison service over Klarna's.

A Swedish market court on Wednesday ordered Google to pay some 14.3 billion kronor ($1.46 billion) in damages to price comparison site Pricerunner for promoting its own shopping comparisons in search results.

© 24/7 Wall St / Getty Images

Artificial intelligence has produced no shortage of headline-grabbing stories. Every week seems to bring another breakthrough model from OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google, while Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) dominates discussions around the chips powering the AI revolution. 

Yet history shows that the companies creating the most value aren’t always the ones making the most noise. During the cloud computing boom, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) quietly built Amazon Web Services (AWS) into a business that now generates tens of billions of dollars in operating income each year. The same pattern may be emerging in AI, where Amazon’s biggest advantage isn’t building the best chatbot — it’s becoming the platform where businesses deploy them.

Bedrock Is the AI Platform Most Investors Overlook Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told analysts during the first-quarter earnings conference call, “Bedrock…saw 170% growth in customer spend quarter over quarter and processed more tokens in Q1 than all prior years combined.” 

That isn’t just a usage milestone — it suggests enterprise AI adoption has shifted from experimentation to production.

Bedrock isn’t another large language model competing with ChatGPT or Gemini. Instead, it serves as a managed platform that lets businesses access multiple foundation models — including Anthropic’s Claude, Amazon’s Nova, Meta Platforms‘ (NASDAQ:META) Llama, and others — through a single interface while AWS handles security, governance, and infrastructure.

Forget the chatbot wars. Amazon is quietly building the $15 billion digital highway where the entire AI revolution actually runs. © 24/7 Wall St. In other words, Amazon isn’t trying to convince customers that one AI model is best. It’s betting businesses will want the flexibility to use whichever model works best for each task.

That strategy mirrors what AWS did in cloud computing. Companies didn’t choose AWS because Amazon built the best database or operating system. They chose it because AWS became the easiest place to run almost everything.

Amazon Is Competing for the Most Valuable Layer of AI The AI market is rapidly separating into distinct layers.

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Amazon didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

Company Primary AI Focus Nvidia AI chips and computing hardware Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Azure AI platform and OpenAI partnership Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) Gemini models and Vertex AI cloud platform Amazon AWS infrastructure and Bedrock AI platform Unlike OpenAI or Anthropic, Amazon doesn’t need to win the race to build the smartest model. It only needs to become the preferred platform where enterprises deploy AI applications. That opportunity may be larger than many investors appreciate.

During Amazon’s Q1 call, Jassy also noted that AWS’s AI business has reached an annual revenue run rate exceeding $15 billion, while Bedrock customer spending grew 170% quarter-over-quarter. Those figures suggest AI workloads are moving from pilot projects into everyday business operations.

As more companies deploy AI agents capable of completing multi-step tasks, inference demand — the computing required every time an AI model generates an answer — should continue expanding. Every inference request creates demand for GPUs, networking equipment, memory chips, and cloud infrastructure, all of which strengthen AWS’s ecosystem.

Investors May Be Looking in the Wrong Place Granted, Amazon doesn’t receive the same attention as Nvidia’s GPUs or OpenAI’s newest model releases. That said, enterprise customers typically care less about who built the model than whether their applications run securely, reliably, and at scale. That’s precisely where Bedrock fits.

Surprisingly, Amazon’s decision to support multiple competing AI models could become one of its biggest competitive advantages. Businesses gain flexibility without locking themselves into a single vendor, while Amazon earns revenue regardless of which model customers ultimately choose.

Key Takeaway In short, Amazon may not produce the flashiest AI headlines, but it is positioning itself to own one of the industry’s most valuable pieces: the enterprise platform where AI applications are built and deployed. The latest Bedrock usage figures suggest that strategy is already gaining traction.

Ultimately, investors shouldn’t view Amazon as simply another participant in the AI race. They should view it as the company building the digital highway that many of the race’s winners will travel. If enterprise AI adoption continues accelerating, Bedrock could become as foundational to artificial intelligence as AWS became to cloud computing — and that would make Amazon one of the AI era’s biggest long-term beneficiaries.

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Amazon didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Executive Accountability: Jared Spataro's "70% of the Fortune 500" Copilot Claims Now at the Center of Microsoft Securities Action

, /PRNewswire/ -- Levi & Korsinsky, LLP notifies investors that Jared Spataro, Microsoft Corporation's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Chief Marketing Officer for AI at Work, is named as a defendant in a securities class action covering purchases between May 1, 2025 and January 28, 2026. Find out if you qualify to recover losses from the MSFT securities action. You may also contact Joseph E. Levi, Esq. at [email protected] or (212) 363-7500.

Microsoft shares traded above $550 per share during the Class Period as the Company promoted Copilot's alleged widespread enterprise adoption. The lead plaintiff deadline is August 11, 2026.

Spataro's Role as Microsoft's AI Marketing Chief

As AI CMO, Spataro served as Microsoft's primary external spokesperson for Copilot's commercial traction and enterprise adoption story. The complaint identifies Spataro as directly involved in crafting and disseminating public statements about Copilot's market performance to analysts and institutional investors at major industry conferences.

At the September 10, 2025 Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Technology Conference, Spataro allegedly made specific, quantifiable claims about Copilot adoption that the lawsuit contends were materially misleading, including:

Claiming "more than 90% of the Fortune 500 now use Microsoft 365 Copilot" while the product allegedly suffered from significant brand positioning and interoperability failures Representing that the most recent quarter was Copilot's "best quarter ever both in terms of seat adds" and customer count  Asserting Copilot was the "fastest-growing M365 portfolio product" Microsoft had ever launched Stating Microsoft could "improve efficiency by 20% to 30%" through Copilot, characterizing such gains as "just real nuts and bolts" What Spataro Allegedly Failed to Disclose

The action contends that while Spataro promoted Copilot as achieving record adoption, the product was experiencing serious internal problems including data siloing, computational capacity constraints, user experience deficiencies, and organizational challenges that undermined the adoption narrative he presented to investors.

The complaint charges that Spataro, as the executive responsible for Copilot's market positioning, was privy to confidential information about these product shortcomings and either knew or recklessly disregarded that his public statements painted a materially incomplete picture of Copilot's actual performance.

Section 20(a) Context for Spataro

Under Section 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, individuals who exercise control over a company's public statements may bear personal liability when those statements are alleged to contain material misrepresentations. The complaint asserts Spataro was directly involved in drafting, reviewing, and disseminating the challenged statements and had the ability to prevent their issuance or cause them to be corrected.

"Individual officers who sign SEC certifications bear personal responsibility for the accuracy of corporate disclosures. When executives make specific quantitative claims about product adoption at major investor conferences, those statements carry particular weight in the market." -- Joseph E. Levi, Esq.

Speak with an attorney about Spataro's alleged role in Microsoft investor losses or call (212) 363-7500.

LEAD PLAINTIFF DEADLINE: August 11, 2026

Levi & Korsinsky, LLP, Top 50 securities litigation firm (ISS, seven consecutive years). Over 70 professionals. Hundreds of millions recovered for investors.

Frequently Asked Questions About the MSFT Lawsuit

Q: Who are the defendants named in the MSFT lawsuit? A: The complaint names Microsoft Corporation and individual defendants including senior executives who made public statements about Copilot's adoption and AI performance, signed SEC filings, or certified financial disclosures under Sarbanes-Oxley.

Q: What specific misstatements does the MSFT lawsuit allege? A: The complaint alleges Microsoft made materially false or misleading statements regarding the success, adoption, and performance of its Copilot AI products and Azure cloud platform while concealing significant technical and organizational problems. When the true state was revealed, the stock price declined.

Q: What do MSFT investors need to do right now? A: Gather brokerage records including purchase dates, share quantities, and prices paid. Contact Levi & Korsinsky for a free, no-obligation evaluation at [email protected] or (212) 363-7500. No immediate action is required to remain eligible as a class member.

Q: What does it cost me to participate? A: Nothing. Securities class actions are handled on a pure contingency basis. No upfront fees, no retainer, no out-of-pocket costs.

Q: What if I already sold my MSFT shares -- can I still recover losses? A: Yes. Eligibility is based on when you purchased, not whether you still hold them. Investors who bought during the class period and sold at a loss may still participate.

Q: How long will the lawsuit take to resolve? A: Securities class actions typically take two to four years from initial filing to resolution.

CONTACT:

Levi & Korsinsky, LLP

Joseph E. Levi, Esq.

Ed Korsinsky, Esq.

33 Whitehall Street, 27th Floor

New York, NY 10004

[email protected]

Tel: (212) 363-7500

Fax: (212) 363-7171

SOURCE Levi & Korsinsky, LLP

LOS ANGELES, July 01, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Schall Law Firm, a national shareholder rights litigation firm, announces that it is investigating claims on behalf of investors of Alibaba Group Holding Limited (“Alibaba” or “the Company”) (NYSE: BABA) for violations of the securities laws.

The investigation focuses on whether the Company issued false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose information pertinent to investors. Alibaba is the subject of a report published by Reuters on June 24, 2026, titled: “Anthropic says Alibaba illicitly extracted Claude AI model capabilities.” According to the report, “U.S. AI company Anthropic accused Alibaba, the Chinese technology and e-commerce giant, of illicitly extracting its Claude AI model capabilities in what ​it said was the largest known attack of its kind on the company, according to a ‌letter seen by Reuters.”

If you are a shareholder who suffered a loss, click here to participate.

We also encourage you to contact Brian Schall of the Schall Law Firm, 2049 Century Park East, Suite 2460, Los Angeles, CA 90067, at 310-301-3335, to discuss your rights free of charge. You can also reach us through the firm's website at www.schallfirm.com, or by email at [email protected].

The Schall Law Firm represents investors around the world and specializes in securities class action lawsuits and shareholder rights litigation.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and rules of ethics.

CONTACT:

The Schall Law Firm 
Brian Schall, Esq. 
310-301-3335
[email protected]

www.schallfirm.com

U.S. stock futures were lower this morning, with the Dow futures falling more than 100 points on Wednesday.

Shares of Nike Inc (NYSE:NKE) fell sharply in pre-market trading after the company reported fourth-quarter results for fiscal 2026.

Nike posted fourth-quarter revenue of $10.97 billion, beating analyst estimates of $10.86 billion, according to Benzinga Pro. The company reported adjusted earnings of 20 cents per share for the period, beating analyst estimates of 13 cents per share.

Nike shares fell 4% to $39.40 in pre-market trading.

Here are some other stocks moving lower in pre-market trading.

Photo via Shutterstock

Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

© 2026 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

Drake MacFarlane, M Science Research Analyst, expressed cautious optimism about Nike's recent apparel sales boost, particularly from soccer jerseys, noting it as a positive short-term factor. However, he emphasized that Nike's need to strengthen its sports credentials and improve its footwear segment represents a longer-term challenge.

Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) may very well be the king of the so-called “AI Factories,” but the GPU titan also stands to gain as the AI revolution makes its way to the edge as well. Of course, there seems to be no slowing the great AI data center buildout.

The buildout could continue to accelerate, gobbling up all of the DRAM, NAND, GPUs, and server racks, even as supply looks to make a bid to catch up to the unprecedented demand. Add water and electricity usage into the equation, and it’s clear that some structural forces are in play that could continue driving up the price of electrical components.

The solution may very well lie in the rapid advancement of on-device AI. Indeed, not every personal prompt to manage one’s email needs to go to the cloud to run on one of the most advanced AI models out there (let’s say something Mythos grade).

Nvidia’s got its ticket to the edge AI race As routing improves and more consumers look to buy smartphones and computers specifically for running AI applications, questions linger as to just how large the opportunity in the edge could be. You’ve probably heard about the smartphone supercycle or the rise of “AI PC” for some number of years now.

Thus far, it hasn’t really materialized in a way that investors have expected. And while iPhone sales over at Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) have been strong, it’s hardly anything that one could describe as a “supercycle” or anything close to it.

With recent price increases due to the AI-induced RAM-magadden, questions linger as to whether consumers will be willing to pay up for that so-called “AI tax” for the next generation of devices. Either way, it’s just highly unusual for the firm to increase prices on iPads or Macs in the midst of a cycle. I guess that’s just how unprecedented the situation is.

In any case, Nvidia has set its sights on the AI PC. And while the rise of edge AI might be a bit late to the party, I do think that it’s about to finally show up. As firms get “smart hybrid routing,” I do think that we could be moving on from the era of “tokenmaxxing” towards one of tokenminning,” as the right model is picked for the prompt. Any way you look at it, all of this bodes very well for the AI PC, which may finally be ready for prime time after experiencing limited success in the past two years.

Don't wait: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just revealed his top 10 AI stocks. See the full list FREE now.

Is the AI PC ready to get going? Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), the innovator behind Copilot and AI PCs, is about to get a catalyst with Nvidia’s RTX Spark superchip.

It’s not just another powerful chip. Rather, it’s something that could empower on-device agentic AI and change the game entirely. In a prior piece, I noted that with RTX Spark, Nvidia has pretty much punched its ticket to the edge AI race and that it could make Jensen Huang’s empire the king of AI, regardless of where models are run.

As AI data centers scramble to get around bottlenecks (not enough RAM or NAND to go around, it seems), I do think that making the most of limited resources — and that includes incorporating AI PCs and smartphones — could be key to advancing the AI revolution without having to sit around, waiting for those massive data centers to come online as they power through various hurdles standing in the way of getting AI compute to where it needs to be.

The TAM on the edge could be considerable For Nvidia, the big question is how large the total addressable market (TAM) could be as it finds its way inside the next generation of AI PCs. The most advanced RTX Spark chips could be a hot seller among professionals seeking to invest in an AI workstation to keep that token bill to a minimum. Add everyday consumers into the equation, and I do think that an AI PC supercycle could be the next theme that helps Nvidia get going again.

Whether it’s supercomputing in the home or AI superclusters in the data center, it looks like Nvidia is positioned to win once again. And, in my view, that makes Nvidia stock look like a solid deal at $200 per share.

Come the fall season, I think we’ll learn more about the true long-term potential of RTX Spark and products like it as they hit the consumer market. Given consumer hardware prices only seem to move higher, I certainly wouldn’t rule out the potential for “panic-selling,” especially if it becomes more evident that RAM shortages and all the sort are more structural than cyclical.

Don't wait: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just revealed his top 10 AI stocks. See the full list FREE now.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

For some reason or another, shares of Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) just can’t seem to get going. For a Mag Seven stock, though, Nvidia is doing just fine. But for a semiconductor name, it’s been tough to hang onto the shares while watching the rest of the industry take off by another triple-digit percentage points this year. Indeed, perhaps the boom going on in the AI chip scene is more to do with a “correction” to the upside as investors view the names as not cyclical, but structural growers this time around.

With the profits flowing in quickly across the “picks and shovels” plays, perhaps Nvidia is the last bargain standing within the wild world of semiconductor names. The $4.8 trillion GPU titan is poised to keep selling its latest and greatest as firms across the board look to scale up or run the risk of conceding ground to a rival in a race where only the gold medal leads to that massive payday, at least when it comes to high-end AI at the absolute frontier.

Picks and shovels are continuing to win big in the great AI buildout Of course, scaling up and procuring as many GPUs as possible for those next-generation data centers isn’t enough. For AI labs at the absolute cutting edge, more research and a move beyond large language models (LLMs) towards world models and Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architectures could be the right path towards some form of superintelligence or artificial general intelligence (AGI).

In any case, Anthropic’s Claude Mythos model has arguably been the big story of the year for AI. It worsened the so-called SaaS-pocalypse, which hasn’t yet fully healed. More recently, China supposedly matched the powerful model when it comes to cybersecurity applications.

That lead that Anthropic had certainly did not last long. Whether or not this represents another DeepSeek moment, though, remains the trillion-dollar question. Any way you look at it, Zhipu’s GLM-5.2 model is profoundly powerful. And what’s most striking is that it’s far cheaper to run than the likes of a Claude Mythos.

China is not far behind in the AI race Perhaps the great Jensen Huang, who previously noted that China is just “nanoseconds” behind the AI race, was 100% right. With China now possessing a powerful model that can hunt bugs just as well as Mythos, questions linger as to what the AI race now looks like. Perhaps Jensen Huang was also right in that America should look to control the hardware stack. And, with that, perhaps it’s time to think about the bull case that sees Nvidia sell more chips (perhaps beyond the H200) into the Chinese market.

Don't wait: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just revealed his top 10 AI stocks. See the full list FREE now.

With Huawei gaining traction on AI chips, it’s clear that America may very well be losing its grip on the Chinese market. Add Huawei’s CUDA-like ecosystem into the equation, and it might be tough to gain ground in the market, as China’s silicon floors it. For now, it feels like China’s sales of Nvidia chips aren’t priced in the slightest.

Maybe working together is the way to go in order to mitigate the potential dangers of AI at the frontier. Who knows? Perhaps some sort of “grand bargain” sees China sending DRAM over, while buying more Nvidia GPUs could greatly benefit both sides, taking out pain in the AI buildout while mitigating risks associated with the technology itself.

While Huawei is firing on all cylinders now, my bet is that Nvidia will remain ahead just about every step of the way. That’s the big bargaining chip America has, and it might just be played if a deal can be ironed out. Perhaps chipping away at Huawei’s monopoly is the move, while keeping China dependent on American technology (made pricier with tariffs), that’s intentionally a step behind the latest and greatest.

I don’t know about you, but I think Nvidia is right again about the benefits of selling Nvidia technology into China. Whether China sales ever end up moving the needle for Nvidia, though, remains the big question.

Don't wait: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just revealed his top 10 AI stocks. See the full list FREE now.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Enables faster rollout of new features and a more seamless experience for millions of users July 01, 2026 09:00 ET  | Source: Kyivstar Group Ltd

KYIV, Ukraine and NEW YORK, July 01, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kyivstar Group Ltd. (“Kyivstar”) (Nasdaq: KYIV; KYIVW), the parent company of JSC Kyivstar, Ukraine’s leading digital operator and part of VEON Group (Nasdaq: VEON), today announced in partnership with Visa, a world leader in digital payments, that Uklon, Ukraine’s leading ride-hailing service and part of Kyivstar’s digital ecosystem, has integrated the Visa Acceptance Platform into its application.

The launch of the new platform will strengthen Uklon’s payment infrastructure in Ukraine and deliver a faster, more seamless payment experience for millions of riders. The platform has already successfully launched in the Uklon app, enabling seamless in-app transactions, instant refunds, and transaction cancellations.

“Integrating the Visa Acceptance Platform represents a significant step forward in modernizing Uklon’s payment capabilities,” said Mykola Solomiichuk, Chief Financial Officer of Uklon. “This partnership enables us to deliver the fast, reliable payment experience our users expect while further establishing our robust, resilient and secure digital mobility ecosystem serving millions across Ukraine.”

Kyivstar President Oleksandr Komarov stated, “Strengthening digital payment infrastructure is essential to advancing Ukraine’s digital economy and expanding access to innovative services. Uklon’s integration with the Visa Acceptance Platform demonstrates our commitment to leveraging technology partnerships that enhance the user experience, drive growth across our digital ecosystem, and reinforce Ukraine’s position as a hub for digital innovation.”

“Visa Acceptance Platform aims to provide our partners around the globe with resilient, robust, and secure architecture that fuels innovation and growth,” said Tetiana Chorna, Visa Vice President, Country Manager for Ukraine. “We are pleased to support Uklon in the expansion of its digital mobility services by offering solutions that streamline payments for millions of riders across Ukraine.”

The integration builds on Uklon’s ongoing transformation into a comprehensive urban mobility and digital services ecosystem, which today spans ride-hailing, delivery, advertising, and intercity travel. Strengthening Uklon’s payments infrastructure is expected to support continued growth across Kyivstar’s digital service offerings and reinforce payments as a key driver of user engagement.

The collaboration underscores Visa’s ongoing commitment to enabling secure, fast, and innovative digital payments while supporting the growth of smart mobility in Ukraine.

About Uklon

Uklon is a technology company that developed the eponymous mobile application. Founded in Kyiv in 2010, Uklon started as a ride-hailing platform and has evolved into a multi-service digital ecosystem integrating ride-hailing, Uklon Delivery, Uklon Ads, and the Uklon Travel bus ticket booking service. As of June 2026, the Uklon service is available in 27 cities across Ukraine and at the Bukovel tourist complex. The company also operates in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

In April 2025, Uklon was acquired by JSC Kyivstar, a wholly owned subsidiary of Kyivstar Group Ltd. (Nasdaq: KYIV; KYIVW), whose shares are traded on the U.S. stock exchange Nasdaq and which is a part of the VEON Group.

Official website: https://uklon.com.ua

About Kyivstar Group Ltd.

Kyivstar Group Ltd. (“Kyivstar”) is a Nasdaq-listed holding company that operates JSC Kyivstar, Ukraine’s leading digital operator and the first Ukrainian company to list on a U.S. stock exchange. Kyivstar’s companies provide a broad range of connectivity and digital services, including mobile and fixed-line voice and data, ride-hailing, e-health, digital TV, and enterprise solutions such as Big Data, cloud, and cybersecurity.

For more information, please visit https://investors.kyivstar.ua.

Nasdaq tickers: KYIV; KYIVW

About Visa

Visa (NYSE: V) is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere and see access as foundational to the future of money movement. Learn more at visa.com.ua.

Disclaimer
This press release contains “forward-looking statements,” as the phrase is defined in Section 27A of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements relating to, among other things, the launch and integration of the Visa Acceptance Platform into Uklon application. There are numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and performance to differ materially from those expressed by such statements, including risks relating to Uklon’s integration with the Visa Acceptance Platform, among others discussed in the section entitled “Risk Factors” included in Kyivstar Group’s annual report on Form 20-F with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) on March 16, 2026, as amended and supplemented from time to time, and in any other subsequent filings with the SEC by Kyivstar Group. The forward-looking statements contained herein speak only as of the date of this release and Kyivstar disclaims any obligation to update them, except as required by applicable laws. 

Contact information
Kyivstar Group Ltd
Investor Relations
[email protected]

Altria (MO - Free Report) is one of the stocks most watched by Zacks.com visitors lately. So, it might be a good idea to review some of the factors that might affect the near-term performance of the stock.

Shares of this owner of Philip Morris USA, the nation's largest cigarette maker have returned +3.9% over the past month versus the Zacks S&P 500 composite's -1.8% change. The Zacks Tobacco industry, to which Altria belongs, has gained 1.7% over this period. Now the key question is: Where could the stock be headed in the near term?

While media releases or rumors about a substantial change in a company's business prospects usually make its stock 'trending' and lead to an immediate price change, there are always some fundamental facts that eventually dominate the buy-and-hold decision-making.

Earnings Estimate RevisionsHere at Zacks, we prioritize appraising the change in the projection of a company's future earnings over anything else. That's because we believe the present value of its future stream of earnings is what determines the fair value for its stock.

Our analysis is essentially based on how sell-side analysts covering the stock are revising their earnings estimates to take the latest business trends into account. When earnings estimates for a company go up, the fair value for its stock goes up as well. And when a stock's fair value is higher than its current market price, investors tend to buy the stock, resulting in its price moving upward. Because of this, empirical studies indicate a strong correlation between trends in earnings estimate revisions and short-term stock price movements.

Altria is expected to post earnings of $1.48 per share for the current quarter, representing a year-over-year change of +2.8%. Over the last 30 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate remained unchanged.

The consensus earnings estimate of $5.68 for the current fiscal year indicates a year-over-year change of +4.8%. This estimate has remained unchanged over the last 30 days.

For the next fiscal year, the consensus earnings estimate of $5.87 indicates a change of +3.4% from what Altria is expected to report a year ago. Over the past month, the estimate has remained unchanged.

Having a strong externally audited track record, our proprietary stock rating tool, the Zacks Rank, offers a more conclusive picture of a stock's price direction in the near term, since it effectively harnesses the power of earnings estimate revisions. Due to the size of the recent change in the consensus estimate, along with three other factors related to earnings estimates, Altria is rated Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

The chart below shows the evolution of the company's forward 12-month consensus EPS estimate:

12 Month EPS

Projected Revenue GrowthEven though a company's earnings growth is arguably the best indicator of its financial health, nothing much happens if it cannot raise its revenues. It's almost impossible for a company to grow its earnings without growing its revenue for long periods. Therefore, knowing a company's potential revenue growth is crucial.

In the case of Altria, the consensus sales estimate of $5.35 billion for the current quarter points to a year-over-year change of +1.1%. The $20.53 billion and $20.68 billion estimates for the current and next fiscal years indicate changes of +2% and +0.7%, respectively.

Last Reported Results and Surprise HistoryAltria reported revenues of $4.76 billion in the last reported quarter, representing a year-over-year change of +5.3%. EPS of $1.32 for the same period compares with $1.23 a year ago.

Compared to the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $4.56 billion, the reported revenues represent a surprise of +4.39%. The EPS surprise was +6.45%.

Over the last four quarters, Altria surpassed consensus EPS estimates three times. The company topped consensus revenue estimates three times over this period.

ValuationNo investment decision can be efficient without considering a stock's valuation. Whether a stock's current price rightly reflects the intrinsic value of the underlying business and the company's growth prospects is an essential determinant of its future price performance.

Comparing the current value of a company's valuation multiples, such as its price-to-earnings (P/E), price-to-sales (P/S), and price-to-cash flow (P/CF), to its own historical values helps ascertain whether its stock is fairly valued, overvalued, or undervalued, whereas comparing the company relative to its peers on these parameters gives a good sense of how reasonable its stock price is.

As part of the Zacks Style Scores system, the Zacks Value Style Score (which evaluates both traditional and unconventional valuation metrics) organizes stocks into five groups ranging from A to F (A is better than B; B is better than C; and so on), making it helpful in identifying whether a stock is overvalued, rightly valued, or temporarily undervalued.

Altria is graded C on this front, indicating that it is trading at par with its peers. Click here to see the values of some of the valuation metrics that have driven this grade.

ConclusionThe facts discussed here and much other information on Zacks.com might help determine whether or not it's worthwhile paying attention to the market buzz about Altria. However, its Zacks Rank #3 does suggest that it may perform in line with the broader market in the near term.