Investopedia Markets News (all except PF)

• Micron Technology is due to report earnings after markets close Wednesday.
• Options pricing suggests traders see the stock swinging up to 6.5% by the end of the week.
• Analysts expect Micron to report strong sales and profit growth on booming AI demand.

Micron Technology is set to report earnings after markets close today, with traders anticipating a sizable move in the memory chipmaker’s stock.

Based on current options pricing, Micron (MU) shares seen swinging up to 6.5% in either direction by the end of the week. From Tuesday’s close, a move of that size could push the shares near $1,135, approaching their June record, or pull them back to about $995.

Micron shares have nearly quadrupled in value since the start of the year on a boom in AI-driven demand, though they’ve pulled back from their record high in recent months amid some worries around the sustainability of growth.

Another strong report from Micron could help improve sentiment around the AI trade.

Analysts at UBS recently wrote that they see the gap between memory supply and demand only getting wider heading into 2027, however, and advised investors to focus on the “durability” of demand.

Micron is expected to report $50.95 billion in revenue for its fiscal fourth quarter, up 350% year-over-year, per Visible Alpha estimates. Adjusted earnings are seen coming in at $31.63 per share, more than 10 times what the company reported a year ago.

Analysts are overwhelmingly bullish on Micron, with 11 of the 12 analysts tracked by Visible Alpha recommending buying the stock, and one neutral rating. Their mean target of $1,545 would suggest almost 50% upside from Tuesday’s close.

This article has been updated since it was first published to reflect more recent prices.

• Bank of America initiated coverage of IonQ with a “buy” rating and a $60 price target on Monday.
• The analysts pointed to IonQ’s scale and broad customer base, along with recent acquisitions.

Quantum computing stocks have pulled back in recent months. Bank of America says it’s time to buy one stock in the sector.

Analysts at the bank on Monday launched coverage of IonQ (IONQ), the largest publicly traded pure-play quantum company by revenue, with a “buy” rating and $60 price target. Shares of the quantum computing firm were down less than 1% to $45 in recent trading, on a day when the broader tech sector lost ground.

The analysts pointed to IonQ’s scale and broad customer base, along with recent acquisitions that have “added nearer-term products and revenue, enterprise & sovereign customer relationships, and additional commercialization paths.”

Optimism around the potential benefits of quantum computing technology and its potential to solve more complex problems than traditional computers has boosted stocks of firms developing the technology in recent years. Breakthroughs by high-profile firms including Alphabet (GOOGL) and IBM (IBM), along with investments from Nvidia (NVDA), have also helped introduce the technology to a wider range of investors.

IonQ shares remain in positive territory for the year, but have lost about 40% from their May highs.

• Boeing shares dropped Monday after news of a 737 MAX software glitch raised worries about a potential safety risk.
• The Federal Aviation Administration said it is reviewing the issue and will take action if it identifies a safety concern.

A Boeing 737 MAX software glitch is sending shares of the plane maker down sharply Monday.

Boeing (BA) shares were down 5% Monday afternoon, leading Dow decliners, after The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that the company identified a 737 MAX software glitch “that could cause an automated navigation feature to fail, prompting concerns about a potential safety risk while planes are landing.”

Boeing confirmed the report. “Last month, we informed all 737 operators about a software issue where pilots may not have access to automated flight guidance during a specific landing scenario,” a spokesperson said in a statement to Investopedia. “We shared information with operators that reinforced existing pilot procedures for safely handling such cases. Our engineers are working on a software update to permanently address the issue.”

The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that it “is aware of a potential issue in a software update for the flight computers on certain Boeing 737 MAX airplanes and is working closely with Boeing and the airlines.” The agency added that it “will convene a Corrective Action Review Board (CARB) and will take immediate action if it identifies a safety concern.” 

Boeing has been hoping its final two 737 models, the MAX 7 and MAX 10, would enter commercial service soon, as it has a big backlog of orders for the narrowbody planes. The MAX 7 was approved by the FAA last month with the new software.

Industry officials told the Journal that Southwest Airlines (LUV) and United Airlines (UAL) “have told Boeing that they don’t want to receive new 737 MAX planes equipped with the flawed software, and instead requested an earlier version of it.” 

With Monday’s drop, Boeing shares are down nearly 15% since the start of the year.

• Oppenheimer analysts said software stocks could be set to get a boost from AI-driven revenue growth.
• They identified Microsoft, ServiceNow, and Braze as top picks.

Oppenheimer has ideas about how to play an expected wave of fresh support for software stocks.  

Evidence that software companies are driving revenue gains from AI could ease disruption fears, leaving the sector primed for a boost, Oppenheimer analysts wrote Monday—though they see some stocks as bigger “AI winners” than others. 

Companies that can claim they serve as a “system of record” for their enterprise clients’ data, and have pricing models that combine seats with charges for rising consumption offer the “clearest path to AI-driven upside and stock outperformance,” the firm wrote. 

Cloud giant Microsoft (MSFT), workflow automation software provider ServiceNow (NOW), and customer engagement platform Braze (BRZE) were Oppenheimer’s top three picks based on that criteria. 

Microsoft offers “unmatched distribution across a massive installed-base,” while ServiceNow combines “best-in-class growth” with “durable automation and security tailwinds,” according to the analysts. Braze, which has seen its stock lose nearly a third of its value this year, offers “one of the most attractive risk/rewards in our universe,” Oppenheimer wrote.  

Shares of ServiceNow have lost about 15% year-to-date, while Microsoft has climbed around 6%, underperforming the broader S&P 500’s roughly 13% gain over the same period. 

• Investopedia identified 211 U.S. Starbucks closures across 33 states and Washington, D.C.
• California has the most closures at 64 stores, nearly a third of the U.S. total.
• The closures come after Starbucks posted strong U.S. sales growth, suggesting they’re about pruning, not distress.

Starbucks is closing stores for the second September in a row.

Starbucks (SBUX) closed about 250 stores across the U.S. and Canada this past week, about 1% of its North American footprint, but declined to list the closures. Starbucks picked locations where it doesn’t “see a path to acceptable financial performance,” Mike Grams, the company’s operating chief, told employees Thursday.

Investopedia checked the hours listed for every U.S. company-operated store and identified 211 stores in 33 states and Washington, D.C., that have gone dark. The remaining closures are in Canada or among licensed locations.

The closures cluster in the country’s most populous states: California has 64, followed by New York with 15 and Texas with 14. Colorado and Florida have nine apiece.

The pattern within states is less obvious. Starbucks shut five Manhattan stores, including 99 Wall St. and 11 Penn Plaza, along with downtown locations in Los Angeles, Boston, and Philadelphia. It also closed stores in towns like Corrigan, Texas; Gunnison, Colo.; and Two Rivers, Wis., where they were the only Starbucks for miles.

Nearly all the closures, about 200 of the 211, took effect this past weekend, the last of the company’s fiscal year.

Starbucks still expects to grow this fiscal year. What’s changing isn’t the size of the chain but the stores it’s keeping—remodeled, higher-traffic locations.

The company expects about $300 million in restructuring charges, including roughly $200 million in “cash charges primarily related to lease exit costs and employee separation benefits,” according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. It also cut its forecast for net new stores this fiscal year to about 440 from a previous range of 600 to 650.

Starbucks Workers United told Investopedia that 20 of the store closures across the U.S. and Canada are unionized, about 8% of the closures, while about 700 of the 11,000 company-operated locations in the U.S. and Canada, or about 6%, are unionized. Among them: the Eugene, Ore., store that in 2022 became the first in the state to organize.

Starbucks said it’s offering transfers “wherever possible” and severance to those it can’t place. The union said it negotiated an enforceable agreement covering transfers and severance for member baristas.

The closures this time last year, which Investopedia counted at 467 U.S. stores, came amid falling sales. That’s not the case now.

U.S. same-store sales rose 7.9% in the quarter ended June 28, with transactions up 4.2%, the company’s best showing since CEO Brian Niccol took over in 2024. Starbucks has remodeled more than 1,000 stores this year and expects to reach 1,500 by fiscal year-end.

The near-ubiquity of Starbucks locations isn’t changing. While Starbucks ended fiscal year 2025 with fewer stores for the first time in a decade, it still expects to end this fiscal year with about 440 more stores worldwide than it started with, even after this week’s closures.

Update—Sept. 28, 2026: This article has been updated to include the information from Starbucks Workers United.

• Strategy added 1,665 bitcoin last week, increasing its holdings to 847,666 coins.
• Bitcoin has gained over 40% in the past three months, reaching around $83,000.
• Spot bitcoin funds saw $2.4 billion in net inflows last week, reversing year-long outflows.

The crypto market’s turnaround has fattened a bitcoin whale.

Strategy (MSTR) bought 1,665 bitcoin last week for roughly $143 million, pushing its stockpile up to 847,666 coins—more than the digital asset treasury had before it started to sell them earlier this year. 

The overall value of its stockpile, however, remains below what it was worth in early October, when the cryptocurrency hit its all-time high of more than $126,000 per coin. The world’s largest cryptocurrency appears to have shaken off its winter doldrums, gaining more than 40% in the past three months to around $83,000 as of Monday morning. 

Strategy wasn’t the only buyer last week. Some $2.4 billion in net flows rushed into spot bitcoin funds from Sept. 21 to Sept. 25, pushing year-to-date inflows to over $1 billion, according to Farside Investors. In other words, fund investors have flipped the switch and flows are now in the positive in a year long marked by falling prices and sideways action.

Crypto-linked stocks, including Strategy and Coinbase (COIN), are down so far Monday, with the price of bitcoin off a little over 2% in the past 24 hours. That said, the cryptocurrency is down just about 5% year-to-date.

• President Donald Trump is reportedly considering banning exports of diesel fuel.
• Experts say a diesel ban could reduce diesel prices by 25 cents per gallon each week the export ban remained in effect, while raising gasoline prices by 30 cents per gallon.
• Oil and business groups urged Trump not to ban diesel exports.

President Donald Trump has access to a “make diesel cheaper” button, but experts say there are good reasons he might not want to press it.

Record-high diesel prices, driven by wars in Iran and Ukraine, are a major problem for household budgets and the economy. They are threatening to stoke inflation by raising transportation costs for nearly everything consumers buy.

Trump is reportedly considering measures to bring those prices down, including by banning exports of the critical fuel. Analysts predict an export ban would lower diesel prices temporarily while raising them for gasoline and other fuels, and pushing up diesel prices in the long run. The trade-off would be diesel prices falling by 25 cents per gallon each week of the ban, while gasoline prices increasing by 30 cents per gallon, economists at Goldman Sachs estimated.

“We’re thinking about it very seriously,” Trump said Sunday at a golf tournament near Chicago, in response to a question from a FOX News reporter.

Talk of the diesel ban swirled last week, first reported Wednesday by Politico,  which said the White House was preparing for a 90-day export ban.  Later, Energy Secretary Christopher Wright told reporters Trump wasn’t going to ban exports altogether, but told the Wall Street Journal he was considering some other form of restriction.

An export ban could relieve some of the upward pressure on inflation stemming from record-high diesel prices, but could push up prices in other areas, experts say.

Gasoline prices would rise because of how oil refineries are set up, according to an analysis by Martijn Rats, a commodities strategist at Morgan Stanley.

If diesel exports were banned, the extra fuel would have to be stored, and U.S. refiners would run out of storage space in about three weeks. At that point, they’d have to cut production of both diesel and gasoline.

“This would require higher gasoline imports, from a global market that is already tight,” Rats wrote. “Hence, a diesel export ban could have the counterintuitive effect of an increase in gasoline prices if U.S. refiners cut runs.”

If the ban were limited in time, diesel prices in the U.S. would rebound after it was lifted and likely be higher than they would have been without the export ban. And it would also push up diesel prices elsewhere in the world.

Wright, Trump’s energy secretary, raised similar concerns on Wednesday, speaking at an event hosted by The Economist magazine.

“The blunt tool of banning diesel exports definitely doesn’t work,” he said, according to the magazine. “That same refinery that produces diesel also produces gasoline and jet fuel, so if you can’t export the diesel that comes out of our refineries, you run out of places to store it, and you have to reduce U.S. refining, which would put upward pressure on gasoline prices and jet-fuel prices.”

Trump acknowledged the potential for higher gas prices in his interview Sunday.

“That can oftentimes lead to a little bit of an increase on gasoline for cars, so we’re looking at it very seriously—we may do it,” he said.

A slew of business groups, including the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, warned Trump against any export restrictions in an open letter. They contended a ban “would lead to less fuel production, tighter supplies, and rising costs for American families, farmers, and truckers.”

The U.S. has never outright banned diesel exports before, but it did ban crude oil exports between 1975 and 2015. When the ban was lifted, domestic oil production rose but did not drive up gasoline prices for U.S. consumers, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.

Nevertheless, analysts expect the government to take some action on diesel, even if it’s not a complete export ban.

Angst over high fuel prices is leaving the public in a gloomy mood about their own finances and the broader economy, according to a University of Michigan consumer survey released Friday.

The university’s long-running index of consumer sentiment dipped to near historic lows in September after diesel prices surged at the end of the month.  And with midterm elections approaching in November, the president has political as well as economic reasons to alleviate high fuel prices, even if it’s only a short-term measure.

“An outright ban still seems unlikely,” Rats wrote. “However, a partial and/or time-limited export restriction appears possible.”

• Nvidia increased its stock buyback program by $150 billion, bringing the total to $235 billion.
• The current buyback program extends through Nvidia’s 2028 fiscal year.

Chip giant Nvidia on Monday raised its buyback program to nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars.

Nvidia (NVDA) this morning said its board approved a $150 billion boost to its buyback program, lifting the authorized total to $235 billion. The program runs through the end of its 2028 fiscal year; the first half of its 2027 year ended in late July.

“NVIDIA’s growth is being driven by a once-in-a-generation platform shift to AI and accelerated computing,” CEO Jensen Huang said in a written statement. “Our cash generation gives us the capacity to invest in the technologies that advance this transformation and return capital to shareholders.”

The company in August said it spent about $26 billion on buybacks and dividends in its latest quarter, leaving it with approximately $99 billion authorized remaining. It called its current approval “the largest share repurchase authorization increase in history,” in a press release.

Shares of Nvidia were recently up about 2%. Read Investopedia’s full coverage of today’s trading here.

• Nvidia introduced a new software platform that it says can prevent AI agents from breaching testing limits.
• The announcement follows a string of recent incidents where AI agents escaped their testing environments and hacked outside websites.

Nvidia says it has a new software system to prevent AI agents from breaking outside of their testing limits, after a series of high-profile hacks.

Nvidia (NVDA) said Monday that its Open Agent Safety Platform can set boundaries for agents, monitor actions taken, and shut agents down if they try to “move outside its software boundary.”

The announcement follows a string of recent incidents where agents from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta (META) and Alphabet (GOOGL) escaped their “sandbox” testing environments and hacked into outside websites in an effort to complete their tasks. Recently, OpenAI agents accessed limited data from a trio of federal government websites: the Education Department, Commerce Department, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, per The New York Times.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a statement that the platform “brings together industry, researchers and public-sector organizations to share best practices, align on evaluation methods and foster international cooperation.”

Nvidia announced partnerships with dozens of AI firms that are using the platform in Monday’s release, including Anthropic, SpaceX (SPCX), Oracle (ORCL), and Salesforce (CRM).

Shares of Nvidia climbed about 3% in early trading Monday following the news, at a time when the broader tech sector lost ground. The shares may also be getting a boost from the AI chip giant’s announcement of a $150 billion stock buyback approval, bringing its current buyback plan to a total of $235 billion.

With Monday’s gains, Nvidia shares have climbed about 25% since the start of the year. 

• MongoDB shares fell after its CEO resigned to join Meta.
• The company appointed its former CEO its interim CEO and president.

Shares of data platform company MongoDB dropped Monday on news that its CEO is leaving.

MongoDB (MDB) was down more than 20% in morning trading after the company said CEO and president Chirantan “CJ” Desai stepped down, effective immediately, to “pursue a senior role at Meta Platforms.”

Meta (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg separately wrote that Desai would be joining the Facebook parent as chief enterprise platform officer, “reporting directly to me.”

“We are starting the next major pillar of our business, Meta Enterprise Platform, to help businesses use AI to grow and transform in new ways as well,” Zuckerberg wrote.

MongoDB’s board appointed Dev Ittycheria as interim CEO and president. Ittycheria served as the company’s CEO and president from 2014 to 2025.

MongoDB shares entered Monday down 2% this year. Despite today’s decline, they remain above year-to-date lows seen in April. Meta shares, which have risen 14% in 2026, slipped 1% before the bell.