Investopedia Markets News (all except PF)

News of the day for July 6, 2026

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed last week at a record high.
Credit: Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images

Stock futures are pointing to a higher open for major indexes as tech shares rise following the long holiday weekend; chip and memory stocks are gaining after turning in a volatile performance last week; Delta Air Lines and PepsiCo are among the companies scheduled to release quarterly results this week as the earnings season gets underway; oil prices are down slightly after OPEC announced plans to increase production next month; and shares of major bitcoin holder Strategy are volatile this morning after posting huge gains last week. Here's what you need to know today.

Stock Futures Rise on Tech Sector Strength

Futures are rising Monday as chip and memory stocks surge. Futures tied to the tech-heavy Nasdaq were up 1.3% recently, while S&P 500 futures rose 0.4% and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures hovered near unchanged. Ahead of last Friday's break for Independence Day, the Dow jumped 600 points to a record closing high, while the S&P 500 finished flat and the Nasdaq tumbled amid a sell-off in tech stocks. Each of the major indexes posted gains for the week. WTI crude oil futures were recently down slightly at $68.70 per barrel, while gold futures rose 1% to $4,170 an ounce. Bitcoin was trading at $62,000, down from its weekend highs around $63,400 but up from its lows last week around $58,000. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which affects interest rates on loans, was at 4.46%, down from Thursday's closing level of 4.48%.

AI Stocks Jump After Bumpy Performance Last Week

The AI trade's rollercoaster ride of the last few weeks is taking its latest turn Monday, with a number of tech-related stocks gaining ground premarket. Hardware makers that slumped to end last week, including chipmakers Intel (INTC), Broadcom (AVGO) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), along with memory and data storage firms such as Micron (MU), Sandisk (SNDK), Western Digital (WDC) and Seagate Technologies (STX) are all rising ahead of the opening bell. Several analysts have stayed bullish on the tech sector despite the AI trade's recent volatility, with some saying the recent pullback could allow investors to pick up valuable tech names at a discount. The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) was up 4% in recent premarket trading, while the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM) jumped 8%.

What to Watch This Week: Earnings Season Starts, SpaceX Joins Nasdaq 100

Investors will get their first look this week at how some major American companies performed in the second quarter, with earnings reports due from Levi Strauss (LEVI), PepsiCo (PEP) and Delta Air Lines (DAL) on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, respectively. The reports are likely to provide insights into how American consumers felt about spending during a period in which the Iran war and inflation dominated headlines. Less than a month after its historic IPO, SpaceX (SPCX) is set to join the Nasdaq 100 before the opening bell on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve will release minutes from last month's meeting on interest rates, which could offer a clearer picture of how Fed board members see inflation and interest rates moving this year, after several indicated that they expect at least one rate hike by the end of the year to help tame inflation.

OPEC Announces Plan to Increase Oil Production

Oil prices are slightly lower this morning after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) announced Sunday that several of its member nations are increasing oil production. OPEC said that Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman have agreed to increase production by about 188,000 barrels per day starting next month. The news could be seen as an indication that the oil production cartel sees the oil market returning to normal soon, as the U.S. and Iran are still working on a long-term agreement that would permanently reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the key oil shipping passageway that has been largely closed for the last several months due to the Iran war.

Strategy Stock Volatile After Last Week's Gains

Shares of Strategy (MSTR) are bouncing around Monday following a big jump last week that came after the software company announced plans to sell some of its bitcoin stash. The company, which is the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, had seen its stock tumble alongside bitcoin prices over the last year, recently hitting a new two-year low. That slide raised concerns about how it would manage to keep paying dividends on its preferred shares, until last week's announcement that it would sell about $1.25 billion worth of the cryptocurrency helped address investor concerns. Shares rose in three of the four trading sessions last week, and ended the week up 22% from where they started it. The stock was down 2% in recent trading after surging in earlier premarket action.

Pepsi is slated to report its latest quarterly financial results this week.
Credit: Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images

This week will be bookended with new beginnings: SpaceX is set to join the Nasdaq 100 index, and another quarterly earnings season will begin with results from Pepsi and Delta.

Elon Musk's space exploration, communication and AI company is slated to join the Nasdaq 100—a selection of companies that doubles as a shorthand for tech stocks—before the opening bell on Tuesday. Inclusion in the Nasdaq 100 will broaden the reach of SpaceX, given that a number of funds are set up to mirror major indexes. SpaceX is already a member of the Russell 1000 and some S&P Dow Jones Indices, though not the S&P 500.

SpaceX shares' early days have been marked by volatility. Its shares finished last week at $162, up from where they first opened on June 12; it has risen past $225, briefly making SpaceX more valuable than Amazon, and dipped as low as $147. Analysts don't expect the stock to become more stable in the near future.

Investors will get a look at how uncertainty—and volatile oil prices—have impacted consumers, with PepsiCo and Delta Airlines set to report their latest quarterly results this week. Pepsi announced price cuts this winter as food companies said geopolitical tensions and inflation were prompting consumers to bypass full-price items. Delta described demand as “really great” in March, though the carrier cut capacity and raised prices as the war wore on.

Market Recap

The major stock indexes had an upbeat week: all three ended the second quarter on Tuesday with double-digit gains, and all three finished the holiday-shortened week in the green after an end-of-week session that saw the Nasdaq fall, the Dow rise and the S&P 500 end about flat. Data released Thursday depicted the labor market as softer than expected, alleviating some concerns that the Fed will soon raise rates. For more onlast week's action, read Thursday's market recap here.

This Week's Top Events

Here's a look at major events scheduled in the week ahead. TradingView publishes a more detailed calendar, but clicking the link will take you off the Investopedia site.

• Tuesday, July 7: SpaceX (SPCX) is set to join the Nasdaq 100 index before the opening bell. Technology businesses dominate the index, which includes the 100 largest non-financial companies on the exchange.
• Wednesday, July 8: The Federal Reserve is scheduled to release minutes from the last Federal Open Market Committee meeting at 2 p.m. ET. With inflation double the desired rate, half of the committee members indicated that they foresee a rate hike before the end of the year. Minutes from the June meeting may shed more light on how they're thinking. Investors would welcome new details, given that they're adjusting to a relatively tight-lipped new Fed chair.
• Wednesday: Levi Strauss (LEVI) is slated to hold a conference call on its fiscal second-quarter (ended May 21) results at 5 p.m. ET, with the figures expected shortly before then. The retailer reported better-than-expected results and lifted its outlook last quarter, sending its shares up by double digits. Levi's is starting to see the benefit of newer strategies—including increasing direct-to-consumer sales and focusing more on non-denim apparel, its executives said.
• Thursday, July 9: PepsiCo (PEP) is set to release its second-quarter (ended June 13) results at 6 a.m. ET, followed by a live question-and-answer session at 8:15 a.m. ET. The snack and soda giant cut prices with encouragement from activist investment firm Elliott Investment Management, noting that, where tested, the strategy improved sales.
• Friday, July 10: Delta Air Lines (DAL) is set to host a conference call on its June-quarter results at 10 a.m. ET, with the numbers expected earlier that morning. Delta beat expectations last quarter and its stock soared, though shares were also reacting to the U.S. and Iran announcing a ceasefire. Investors will try to discern whether jet fuel prices continue to strain Delta, and if so, how it is responding. Carriers have increased prices, but tickets are selling well, according to industry leaders and analysts.

More Investopedia Reads

Investors can buy a piece of AOL and Vimeo now that their owner, a digital private equity firm, is public, Colin Laidley reports. Americans haven't been this pessimistic about the job hunt since the pandemic, Diccon Hyatt reports. Investopedia examined how stocks, bonds, crypto and gold have fared so far this year, and highlighted what to watch in the second half of the year. And you can read our midyear updates on the economy here.

Shares of Elon Musk's EV Maker Dropped Following the Report

High gas prices likely lifted EV demand in the second quarter.
Credit: Photo by Mads Claus Rasmussen / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP via Getty Images

Key Takeaways

• Tesla reported substantially more second-quarter deliveries than Wall Street expected, likely a partial reflection of EV demand pushed higher by high U.S. gas prices amid the U.S.-Iran conflict.
• Rivian also topped its own second-quarter projections, and lifted its full-year guidance.
• Shares of Tesla tumbled Thursday morning, while Rivian stock jumped more than 10%.

Tesla's deliveries delivered today.

Elon Musk's EV company on Thursday morning said second-quarter deliveries came in above 480,000, substantially topping both Visible Alpha's average of Wall Street analysts' expectations and an average compiled by the company.

That data—along with news that Rivian (RIVN) said its own Q2 deliveries came in higher than it expected, leading it to lift its full-year guidance—may in part reflect an uptick in EV demand driven by gas prices that were pushed higher by the U.S.-Iran conflict. Shares of Rivian were recently up 11%, while Tesla (TSLA) was off more than 6% in early Thursday trading.

Why This Matters to Your Money

High gas prices can affect consumer behavior in a number of ways, including restraining other types of spending and sending drivers to the fuel pump more frequently for less gas. Data from the second quarter indicated that they may also have driven car buyers to EVs as they sought relief.

The average price of a gallon of regular unleaded, recently a bit above $3.80 according to AAA data, is down from a month ago but well above year-earlier levels. (Here's Investopedia's take on what to expect from gas prices over the balance of 2026.)

Some market experts think gas prices might have had little effect on second-quarter buying habits. "Although there is a tremendous amount of economic and policy uncertainty these days, the new-vehicle market seems to be relatively unfazed," Cox Automotive said last month.

Tesla shares had an interesting first half to 2026. They rose about 13% in the second quarter, slightly underperforming the S&P 500, but they were down for the year while the benchmark index rose nearly 10%. More broadly, the Magnificent 7 group of stocks, of which Tesla is a member, retreated over the first six months of the year, reflecting some unease about the health of the Big Tech rally.

CEO Elon Musk has sought to retrain investors from thinking of Tesla as an EV company, encouraging focus on emerging lines of business such as autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence and robots. Some market watchers, meanwhile, believe the company's long-term future is as a division of SpaceX (SPCX), which Musk brought to public markets last month. Both companies are among the world's most valuable.

Shares of SpaceX, meanwhile, were up about 1% Thursday morning at $159. They're holding above the $150 price at which they started trading on IPO day three weeks ago; earlier this week, the company picked up fresh Wall Street analyst coverage, with Wedbush setting a $190 price target on the shares. That's well above recent levels, but below the stock's post-IPO highs.

A dollar invested in U.S. stocks in the 1800s would have become over $4 million by the end of 2025.
Credit: Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein / Corbis via Getty Images

Key Takeaways

• The U.S. stock market has returned roughly 9% annually from 1800 to 2025, meaning $1 invested then would now be about $4.2 million.
• Market history shows that years of fat returns lead to years of meager ones. That cyclicality washes out over time, but for those who are concerned about valuations, Meb Faber says to look beyond the U.S.

Meb Faber wants to teach new investors how to invest—and how not to. The former, he says, is pretty simple.

To "get rich," says Faber, co-founder and CIO of Cambria Investment Management, all an investor has to do is park their money in U.S. stocks and wait for the "magic of compounding." His latest book, Investing In America: The Rise of A 250-Year Bull Market, set for release Saturday, examines the U.S. stock market decade-by-decade from 1800 to 2020: In it, he observes that $1 invested in the 1800s would have turned into over $4 million by the end of 2025, compared to $51,000 if that money was parked in the rest of the world's markets.

Faber says he was inspired to write the book during Covid, when "a whole generation turned their gaze to the stock market" but was led to it through services that got them interested in meme stocks and would "shoot confetti in the air" whenever they made a trade. Faber, who says his investing brain is half value and half momentum, in the book offers his take on markets past, present, and future—including the notion that stocks falling 50% between now and 2030 would be "totally normal."

He spoke with Investopedia in a recent interview. Here are highlights from that conversation, edited for clarity and length.

INVESTOPEDIA: Why do you think there are market cycles, where there are recognizable, maybe predictable, periods of fat and thin, whether the businesses driving those gains are railroads or the internet or whatever else?

FABER: There are boom times and, yes, we may overspend in certain areas, but that's the beauty of free markets: creative destruction. You have these incredible periods of innovation and entrepreneurship, but also excess and capital that's not thoughtfully spent.

On the flip side, there are bear markets and recessions, but that cleans out a lot of the bad actors, the over-leveraged people—and it exposes, as Warren Buffett would say, people swimming naked when the tide goes out.

The ebb and flow of markets is a feature, and not a bug.

It sounds like you're saying market cycles exist because humans tend to repeat past mistakes.

The way most investors and humans operate is they extrapolate their own lived experience. The problem with that: If you look over the past 15 years in financial markets, and you're American, it has been a straight-up, 15%-a-year, stock market, so you buy the dip and it just goes to the moon.

But you look back and it's happened before in the 1920s, the 1950s, during the internet boom. They didn't last forever. There was the Great Depression, the inflationary '70s and '80s, the internet bust, and the Great Financial Crisis.

Do you think that changes if AI becomes a thing and we increasingly outsource our decision-making to a bot?

When people ask me about AI, I say: "There's constant disruption." That's true of computers. It was also true of microprocessors, plastics, railroads, and canals. If you go back to the first half of the 19th century, firewood was a quarter of U.S. [gross domestic product].

So you're not worried about the near-term future for U.S. stocks?

The struggle right now is that there's no question that the stock market is expensive, on par with the late 1990s, which has historically led to muted future returns. The CAPE [Cyclically Adjusted Price-to-Earnings] ratio for U.S. stocks is low 40s. It's been as low as five, and on average tends to be around 18. The reality is almost any valuation metric should say the same thing. Coming into this year, for the first time since we've been tracking this, the U.S. was the most expensive stock market in the world. That's kind of bad news.

The good news is you don't have to accept U.S. stocks as just the S&P 500, or market-cap weighted. The good news is foreign, emerging markets have totally reasonable valuations—low 20s, high teens. The cheapest bucket of countries by long-term valuation metrics is in the low teens, and that bucket did 55% last year. But not a lot of people talk about that, because foreign stocks have done so poorly relative to the U.S. for so long that people, professional investors, and advisors have totally abandoned them, and are all-in on U.S. stocks at this point.

Take Japan as an example. It was the world's largest stock market in the 1980s, as the U.S. is today. Japan went nowhere for three decades and went from being a third of the world's market cap to 5% now. I'm not saying that's going to happen to the U.S., but it is two-thirds of the world's market cap. Could it go down to 50% or 40% or a third? I don't think that's a totally implausible scenario to be prepared for.

Is there something about this decade that made investors trade in an anarchic way, bidding things up for no reason at all except that it's funny?

We've always had speculators, risk takers, the "degen" sort of mentality, where people almost comically try to lose money and think it's funny. It is an odd evolution of a certain mindset.

Bear markets tend to reset a lot of behavior, where people all of a sudden get slapped in the face, like "What was I doing?"

So if you were to mock up 2021 to 2030, what do you think the key events will be?

I'm an optimist, so I'm excited to see what it brings. But when it comes to markets, there's some constant truths you want to be prepared for. If the U.S. stock market goes down 50% between now and 2030, that's totally normal.

The Nasdaq went down over 80% in the early 2000s, but that's really hard for a lot of people, so if you can't withstand that, have a financial advisor, or some fiduciary, help you diversify into foreign equities, value, and real assets. They can make the path smoother to endure so that when you go to check your [account], you won't go running for the hills.

Nvidia shares have slipped 16% from their highs in May
Credit: Daniel Ceng / Anadolu / Getty Images

Key Takeaways

• Nvidia, Broadcom, and other AI chip leaders have seen their stocks pull back from their highs in recent weeks, while investors have piled into memory stocks.
• Analysts at Citi and other firms suggested that could mean an opportunity for investors to snap up the stocks at a discount.

AI chip stocks have pulled back from recent highs. Some Wall Street analysts are saying buy the dip.

Not all chip shares have suffered lately. Investors have piled into memory maker Micron Technology (MU) with gusto in recent weeks, sending its stock to record highs last week. But other leading AI-related semiconductor stocks haven't felt the same love: Shares of Nvidia (NVDA), which dropped about 1% Wednesday, have slipped 16% from their highs in May, while custom AI chipmaker Broadcom (AVGO) is 25% off its early June record.

That could leave them primed for a rebound, according to some experts.

Why This Matters to Investors

A pullback in some corners of the semiconductor sector in recent weeks may have created an opportunity to snap up some top AI names at a discount, according to Wall Street analysts.

"Some of our favorites, even tech companies that we don't formally cover, are screaming buys," Freedom Capital Markets's Paul Meeks said in a note Wednesday. He pointed to Nvidia as a prime example: Meeks believes "skeptics have exaggerated the threats" to its AI chip franchise, and investors' reluctance to reward Nvidia for strong growth in its fundamentals "ain't right."

Jefferies and JPMorgan analysts recently told clients they would buy the dip in Broadcom, anticipating strong AI-driven demand will lead its shares to new highs in the next 12 months.

Analysts at Citi, who've said they view the recent pullback as "healthy," highlighted Nvidia and Broadcom as top picks in the semiconductor sector in a note Monday. They also highlighted Qualcomm (QCOM), which has plunged 30% from its highs in late May, and AI chipmaker Cerebras (CBRS), which recently traded nearly 40% off its opening price in May and even further below post-IPO highs.

"Fundamentally, AI compute demand remains undersupplied," Citi wrote, which bodes well for these stocks.

Citi also said Micron, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Intel (INTC), and Marvell (MRVL), which took a big hit Wednesday amid a broad slide in chip stocks, could still be set for more gains.

D.A. Davidson's Gil Luria this week on CNBC said he believes Nvidia and Micron have been trading "as if the cycle is peaking now." That, he said, could reflect both a disconnect in the way investors are thinking about their growth potential, and uncertainty around the future of AI.

“If the cycle continues to 2030, Micron is worth maybe four times more than it's trading at now,” he said. “That's a really big discrepancy, and we see that as the biggest opportunity.”

Meeks, who said "good times" for the AI infrastructure trade could last at least through 2028, wrote that investors should "worry about AI infrastructure supply. We're good for demand."

In a good sign for workers, not many employees are getting laid off. However, it's hard to find a job if you don't already have one.
Credit: Zak Bennett / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Key Takeaways

• The U.S. economy added 57,000 jobs, the fewest in three months and a sharp drop from the month prior.
• The unemployment rate stayed relatively low at 4.2%.
• The market stayed in a "low-hire, low-fire" pattern, according to economists, with employers reluctant to add to or subtract from their workforces too much.

Employers added fewer jobs to the economy than expected in June.

U.S. employers added 57,000 jobs in June, down from 148,000 in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Thursday. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.2%, marking the first change in four months. Both figures were lower than forecasters' expectations, according to a survey of economists by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

Despite the dip, it was the fourth straight month the U.S. economy added jobs. The additions marked a recovery from a rough patch from mid-2025 through February, when the economy often lost jobs.

Still, jobs were added at a slower pace than in 2024, indicating the "low-hire, low-fire" trend remains in effect. The pattern has fueled frustration among consumers, according to public opinion polls. In June, for example, the percentage of U.S. adults saying jobs are hard to find hit its highest since 2021.

As in recent months, the healthcare sector continued to add workers at a significant rate, with 22,000 jobs added. However, that was a slowdown in the momentum seen earlier in the year. The leisure and hospitality sector declined by 61,000 positions in June. Some economists had expected a temporary boost to hiring in that sector because of the World Cup.

News of the Day for July 2, 2026

U.S. jobs data for June is set for release this morning before the market opens.
Credit: Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Stocks looked on track for a mixed open premarket Thursday, with Dow futures advancing slightly and S&P 500 futures creeping lower; Investors were watching for June U.S. jobs numbers, due before the open; Shares of Strategy looked on track to extend an upbeat week; Tesla watchers are eyeing the company's latest quarterly deliveries numbers; and traders (along with everyone else) are looking forward to the end of a holiday-shortened week.

Here's what you need to know today.

S&P 500 Futures Inch Lower Premarket

Stocks could be poised for a quiet session to end the week. Futures tied to the Dow industrials were pointing 0.1% higher early Thursday, while those that track the S&P 500 were down 0.1%. There was more action in futures that track the Nasdaq 100, which were 0.5% lower. Yesterday the three leading U.S. indexes dropped as chip stocks fell, though the Dow managed an intraday record high before turning downward. Oil prices were ticking lower, with global benchmark Brent crude just above $70 per barrel, while gold was a bit below $4,100 per ounce. Here's our full coverage of today's trading.

Stepping back from the day's action, Investopedia recently wrapped up the first half's activity—and then sought to look ahead at what might be likely in the second. Here are our looks at stocks, bonds, crypto, gold, the Federal Reserve and IPOs, as well as our roundup of economic observations.

June Jobs Data Expected to Show Growth, Steady Unemployment

U.S. job-market data for June is slated for release this morning at 8:30 a.m. ET. The government's latest monthly report is expected to show that employers added 115,000 jobs last month, down from 172,000 in May, with the unemployment rate holding at 4.3%. A report along those lines would signal a relatively healthy job market, experts say. The jobs number will be closely watched by policymakers at the Federal Reserve; Chair Kevin Warsh yesterday said that while inflation remains too high, he sees those risks diminishing.

Tesla Q2 Deliveries Expected

The big story in the Elon Musk Financial Universe these days may not be Tesla's (TSLA) latest quarterly deliveries numbers. Still, those figures are expected today, and investors will be watching. An analysts' mean estimate provided by Visible Alpha is around 403,000. These announcements are perhaps viewed by investors as less crucial than in years past—though they can still surprise—as the conversation has turned to Tesla's other businesses including automation and robotics, as well as whether Musk might seek to combine Tesla with SpaceX (SPCX), which went public in mid-June. Shares of Tesla were 0.7% higher in premarket trading today, while SpaceX stock was down slightly.

Strategy's Latest Rise Poised to Extend

Shares of Strategy (MSTR), the big bitcoin buyer once known as MicroStrategy, rose more than 6% premarket. The stock has already climbed some 13% this week, showing signs of life after a brutal run lower since late 2024 and, more recently, last year's bitcoin highs. The company earlier this week said it could continue, and expand, its sales of bitcoin, as well as that it planned to buy back its own common and preferred stock; that news has helped allay some concerns about its ongoing financial health. Bitcoin recently traded up over the past 24 hours at above $61,000.

Get Ready For a Holiday Break

Today is the week's final trading session: U.S. stock and bond markets will close tomorrow, July 3, in observation of Independence Day. (Bond trading will also close today a bit early, at 2 p.m. ET.) That will mark the last summer trading holiday until August, when markets pause again for Labor Day.

Wall Street analysts initiated coverage on SpaceX's stock, and they're mostly bullish.
Credit: Michael Nagle / Bloomberg / Getty Images

Key Takeaways

• SpaceX's stock has seen volatility since the company's IPO nearly three weeks ago, but analysts project significant long-term growth.
• Analysts highlight the Starship reusable rocket as a pillar of the company's future success, and point to growing AI revenue and the potential for acquisitions as additional reasons for optimism.
• Risks include high cash burn and reliance on aggressive growth assumptions for future success.

Wall Street is starting to size up SpaceX (SPCX), and the stock is getting stellar reviews.

Analysts who have launched coverage of the stock since the company's IPO have said SpaceX stands to become "a major hyperscaler" and "the largest communications, cloud and AI company in the world." That positivity didn't translate into gains today—the stock fell 8% to around $157.50—but Wall Street sees plenty of room for SpaceX shares to rise in the months ahead.

The average price target from three firms that have initiated coverage of the stock recently stands at $203. While well below the $225 all-time high hit two weeks ago, it's nearly 30% above current levels, and 35% higher than the opening price for SpaceX shares when they began trading on June 12.

WHY THIS MATTERS TO YOU

Elon Musk's space exploration, connectivity and AI company is now a part of major benchmark indexes and the funds that track them, and will be joining some more, which means the stock's performance is likely represented in your retirement account.

The latest bullish view was delivered Tuesday by analysts at Wedbush led by Dan Ives, who initiated coverage of SpaceX with an "outperform" rating and a price target of $190. That target is derived from revenue estimates for 2028, which is expected to be the first year that all three of SpaceX's businesses scale.

They view SpaceX's spacecraft and rocket called Starship as "the essential layer" driving the company's success. Its reusability is a strategic advantage from a cost perspective, but also generates a "feedback loop" through which the company can improve its flight rates without driving up capital expenditures, according to Ives and his team. They add that without it, the company's broadband business Starlink would not have reached the scale it has so far, and that SpaceX's ambitions to build orbital data centers would otherwise not be "feasible."

Oppenheimer's Timothy Horan started coverage on the stock on June 11, prior to the company's IPO, with an "Outperform" rating and a $190 price target. A week later, the firm raised the target to $250 following SpaceX's acquisition of AI startup Cursor. Horan's models suggest that Cursor revenue will hit $6 billion by the end of this year, raising SpaceX's AI business revenue by 84% to $8.75 billion in the fourth quarter.

Horan expects more acquisitions. SpaceX could, for example, partner with a large language model company such as Anthropic, with the existing lease for the AI shop to use the company's Colossus data center representing the "seed of a deeper relationship." He also thinks the company could buy additional power or data centers on earth, and even acquire its way into becoming a mobile operator given its existing broadband business.

The main risk to SpaceX's otherwise rosy future is that it runs out of money before it reaches its ambitious goals. "Cash burn means the thesis can expire," Ives and his team said in the report. "The bull case requires conviction that the burn converts into a durable franchise before the capital runs ahead of the proof."

Susquehanna Investment Group's Charles Minervino started coverage on June 23 with a "Neutral" rating, and a price target of $170. Though the analyst acknowledged the company's dominance in launching rockets, Starlink's "significant runway," its AI offering, and a "proven operator" in Musk, he also said that the company stock—which was then trading around $150—required "premium multiples on very aggressive revenue and EBITDA growth assumptions."

"With some of the markets that SPCX operates in being relatively unproven, we believe a wide range of outcomes exist," Minervino wrote. "This introduces quite a bit of risk into future expectations and therefore would recommend waiting for a better entry point on the stock."

UPDATE: This article has been updated to reflect Wednesday's closing share price information.

Meta was one of the best-performing stocks in the S&P 500 Wednesday
Credit: Joan Cros / NurPhoto / Getty Images

Key Takeaways

• Meta shares rallied Wednesday following a report that the company is considering launching a business to sell excess compute capacity.
• The move could put Meta in competition with cloud services from Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon.

Meta's stock is soaring on signs it could be on the verge of launching a new business.

Meta Platforms (META) shares jumped close to 9%, making it one of the best-performing stocks in the S&P 500 Wednesday, following a report that it aims to launch a cloud computing business. Meta has created an internal initiative called "Meta Compute" to manage the massive amounts of compute the company is acquiring, and is considering selling excess capacity, according to a Bloomberg report.

The social media giant is also considering building a business selling access to AI models from several companies hosted through its existing AI infrastructure, akin to Amazon Web Services' offerings through the Bedrock platform, Bloomberg reported. Meta declined to comment on the report.

Such an operation could bring the Facebook and Instagram parent in competition with cloud services from Alphabet's (GOOGL) Google Cloud, Microsoft's (MSFT) Azure, and Amazon's (AMZN) AWS.

Why This Matters to Investors

The move could also help Meta soothe concerns about its massive spending plans to build out its AI infrastructure.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at Meta's annual investor day back in May that "almost every week" Meta's partners ask them about a business to sell compute or model access. At the time, he said Meta had not yet pursued selling its compute because the company expected to have a use for all of it, but said it could be an option if Meta gets to "a point where we feel that we have overbuilt," per an AlphaSense transcript.

Shares of so-called "neocloud" companies Nebius Group (NBIS) and CoreWeave (CRWV) tumbled to lead decliners in the Nasdaq 100 following the news, dropping about 17% and 14%, respectively.

Even with Wednesday's rally, Meta shares are down about 7% year-to-date, after a slump amid concerns about its AI progress and the scale of its investments.

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

A federal judge struck down President Donald Trump's rule limiting Public Service Loan Forgiveness eligibility.
Credit: Samuel Corum / Bloomberg / Getty Images

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• A federal judge blocked a Trump Administration rule limiting eligibility for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
• The rule sought to exclude nonprofits that the department accused of aiding illegal immigration or providing gender-affirming care to minors.
• The Department of Education said it is now evaluating its next steps.

A day before President Donald Trump's administration was set to limit access to Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), a federal judge blocked the rule.

The PSLF program forgives borrowers' remaining federal student loan balances after they make 120 qualifying monthly payments—10 years' worth—while working full time for the government or a nonprofit. The Department of Education finalized a rule in October, following an executive order Trump issued in March 2025. The order instructed the Education Department to restrict PSLF eligibility for employees of what the administration said were "activist organizations" that "harm our national security and American values."

U.S. District Judge Myong J. Joun found the Department of Education's rule unlawful and blocked it Tuesday, a day before it was set to take effect.

Why This Matters

Receiving forgiveness through the PSLF program is essential to the financial health of many public service and nonprofit workers, as they tend to earn less and hold more student debt than workers in the private sector.

The Department of Education said its rule would block nonprofit organizations that violate federal immigration laws, support terrorism, or engage in gender-affirming care for minors or illegal discrimination. Many student loan advocates criticized it, saying the rule would politicize PSLF.

The judge said the rule failed on multiple grounds: the Education Department lacked the authority to impose it, and the rule was too vague to show how it would curb nonprofit employers' alleged illegal activity.

Joun also found it violated the First Amendment by threatening PSLF eligibility for nonprofits and public service workers engaged in speech the administration disfavors, such as teaching diversity practices, assisting immigrants, and facilitating gender-affirming care.

Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent told the Washington Post the Education Department is evaluating its next steps and still supports the rule.