U.S. stocks finished mixed Monday as rising oil revived inflation concerns and AI hardware dragged technology lower.

The S&P 500 finished roughly flat, the Nasdaq fell 0.7%, the Dow gained 0.3%, and the Russell 2000 lost 0.4%.

Eight sectors finished green, with Energy up 1.4% as crude climbed 1.5%. Technology fell 1.2%. Plenty of the market held up. The companies supplying the AI buildout had a much rougher afternoon.

Cerebras sank 10.7% to a record closing low as reports about OpenAI using Nvidia hardware and an approaching share unlock pressured the stock. Stocktwits users remained 89% bullish. That is a stubborn crowd.

Tuesday brings the official start of the fresh new earnings season with major banks and investment firms. JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Citi, UnitedHealth and J&J are reporting before the bell. Analysts expect JPMorgan to earn $5.93 per share on $51.23B in revenue and UnitedHealth $4.14 on $111.31B. Bank lending income and medical costs will give traders plenty to work through before the market opens.

Today's Briefing: Powered by Stocktwits Community API.

Nine AI hardware and infrastructure stocks fell between 3.9% and 10.7% Monday. Barron’s linked broader chip weakness to a report that OpenAI’s recurring revenue could fall short of expectations, but the names within each little slice of the datacenter hardware industry had their own separate pressures.

The RIP: $LITE fell 9.8%, $CIEN 10.0%, $COHR 7.9%, $CRDO 7.3% and $ALAB 5.3%. Memory names $MU and $SNDK lost 3.9% and 6.0%, respectively. $CBRS sank 10.7%.

Lumentum CEO Michael Hurlston told Bloomberg TV Friday that optical parts are almost sold out through 2029, Barron’s reported. Some shortages could send customers toward competitors. Lumentum gained 5.2% Friday, then gave back that gain and more Monday. Having orders is one thing. Having enough parts to fill them is another. 📉

Memory stocks faced fresh competition concerns after China’s CXMT outlined a denser server-memory design, according to MarketWatch. Micron’s 10-K disclosed a $35.16B repurchase authorization, but CHIPS Act restrictions prevent buybacks until December.

Cerebras remained under pressure after a late-September report said OpenAI’s GPT-6.1 Sol “Ultrafast” tier runs on Nvidia GPUs rather than Cerebras hardware, challenging its biggest customer relationship, with another roughly 19.4M shares reportedly eligible for sale October 14.

OpenAI accounted for $20B of Cerebras’ $24.6B year-end backlog, according to Barron’s. Microsoft also announced Monday that Maia will become its primary inference system starting in 2027. Cerebras closed at $146.62 after touching a record $145.75 low. Stocktwits sentiment remained 89% bullish. That optimism is taking a beating.

Finally, AI cloud provider Nebius, which rents Nvidia GPU capacity to companies training and running models, fell 5.0% Monday.

Quantum-computing company IonQ agreed Monday to buy Zero Trust cybersecurity firm Elisity, extending its full-stack strategy into security software.

The RIP: $IONQ sank 9.0% to $36.28 on 31.2M shares, 1.8 times its recent pace. The proposed all-stock transaction is valued at up to $1.3B, including a performance-based earnout of up to $150M.

IonQ completed nine acquisitions through June, then closed its SkyWater purchase in July. Elisity would make 11 deals since January 2025, spanning quantum computing, networking, sensing, satellites, photonics, software, and semiconductor manufacturing.

Based on disclosed purchase prices and announced deal values, that spree now totals roughly $6.1B, including Elisity. It is not $6.1B of cash out the door because several deals leaned heavily on stock. Still, that is nearly 47 times IonQ’s $130M 2025 revenue and more than 13 times its $450M to $460M 2026 forecast.

IonQ is buying a full quantum stack faster than it could build one. Shareholders are supplying a lot of the construction material. 🔐

$IONQ chatter leaned bearish as traders weighed expansion against dilution.

Google and Constellation Energy signed a long-term nuclear agreement last Tuesday covering 3.59 gigawatts of power across the PJM grid.

The RIP: $CEG ( ▼ 1.4% ) fell 1.4% to $293.89 Monday after gaining 9.8% over five sessions. The stock traded just 2.6M shares, roughly 0.4 times its recent pace, before slipping another 0.6% after hours. Sell the news, I guess.

The agreement includes a 20-year purchase of 890 megawatts of new capacity created by upgrading 11 existing nuclear units. Constellation expects the work to require more than $4.3B of investment, with the first uprate arriving in 2028.

The remaining 2.7 GW comes through a separate 15-year supply agreement covering existing generation. So the 3.59 GW headline is enormous, but only about one-quarter represents new electricity. Google also gets steadier power for its data centers, while Constellation gets years of revenue visibility without waiting for a new reactor to clear the starting line. ⚛️

$CEG sentiment stayed bullish as traders debated the post-deal pullback.

234.4K WATCHERS · BULLISH · NORMAL ACTIVITY

Snap jumped after CNBC reported a large options trade betting on another 30% rally, feeding breakout chatter even without a fresh company announcement.

37.4K WATCHERS · BULLISH · HIGH ACTIVITY

Ondas slipped after launching Regna AI, an Ondas-owned defense venture that will use Palantir’s infrastructure to build mission-specific models, with Ondas serving as its first customer.

BEARISH · NORMAL ACTIVITY

POET sank as traders questioned whether its optical-engine qualification work and production ramp will produce named customers, delivered orders and meaningful revenue, leaving the AI optics story short on numbers investors can check.

NORMAL ACTIVITY

Shopify climbed toward record highs as traders bet its Meta Muse integration and broader AI shopping push could send more transactions through its merchant and checkout network, though that optimism still needs to become sales.

62.4K WATCHERS · BULLISH · EXTREMELY HIGH ACTIVITY

Chipotle fell Monday after Starbucks denied considering an acquisition, according to Investing.com, deflating takeover speculation that lifted shares last Thursday and putting the focus back on restaurant traffic and its upcoming earnings report.

Bearish 🐻 | Bullish 🐮 | It’s Complicated 😵‍💫

AustiniConnections, Atreides and Valor are bringing together the CEOs, investors and operators driving TMT for two days at the Moody Center.

Main stage keynotes span public and private markets — Nvidia, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Databricks, Arm, Cerebras, Crusoe, Vercel, DoorDash, 8VC and more — with breakout tracks across labs, silicon, power and capital. 

*3rd Party Ad. Not an offer or recommendation by Stocktwits. See disclosure here.

📊 Saudi Attacks Put U.S. Airlines on Alert

🤖 China’s Chip Push Split the Dow and Nasdaq

💾 Ondas and Palantir Built a Defense AI Company

⚡ Red Cat’s New Drone Goes the Distance

👀 The Fed’s Hammack Wants Smaller Rate Moves

₿ Ledger Traced an $87M Drain to One Reseller

📰 The Nobel Went to a Crisis-Smoothing Playbook

🪙 Your daily crypto email, data-driven and short enough to finish

Macro: Fed Governor Christopher Waller speaks (3:45 AM ET), Existing Home Sales (9:00 AM ET), Monthly Treasury Statement (9:00 AM ET), Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin speaks (1:00 PM ET), Boston Fed President Susan Collins speaks (4:00 PM ET), +1 more. 📊
Pre-Market Earnings: $JPM JPMorgan Chase & Co., $UNH Unitedhealth Group Inc, $WFC Wells Fargo & Co., $JNJ Johnson & Johnson, $C Citigroup Inc, +3 more. ☀️
After-Market Earnings: $FNGR FingerMotion Inc. 🌙

P.S. You can listen to all of these earnings calls on Stocktwits.

Want to see some change? Respond to this email and reach me, Kevin Travers, with feedback. Follow me on Stocktwits. Send me charts and ideas! Refer a friend for this quarter’s edition of The RIP Forecast 😎

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