The market was climbing high Wednesday, bombshell guidance from AMD and fresh OpenAI news sent semiconductors and AI adjacent stocks through the roof, while gas tripped and fell after reaching multiyear high prices.

Gas hit $4.50/gal on average in the U.S., higher in states like California. Gas records are not that far off from the Ukraine war high set at an avg. $5 in ‘22. But Iran and the U.S. might be near a deal again, Axios reported, sending the energy sector lower while tech exploded instead.

$DIS Walt Disney, $UBER Uber Technologies IncInc., and NVAX were climbing after their morning reports that showed demand in the face of heightened inflation and gas prices.

The real winners Wendsweay were AMD and SMCI of course, towering higher with massive quarterly reports Tuesday and guidance for even more yet to come.

Today's Briefing:

Snap's Perplexity Problem 📉 Snap, the parent of social-camera app Snapchat, beat on Q1 revenue and users Wednesday but fell -5% after-hours after disclosing in its investor letter that the $400M generative-AI partnership with Perplexity announced last November, the deal that sent shares up +15% at the time, was terminated in Q1.

The RIP: $SNAP ( 0.0% ) Q1 revenue $1.53B vs. $1.52B estimate, up +12% year-over-year; DAU hit 483M, up +5%; EPS came in at a -$0.05 loss. Q2 revenue guidance landed at the cautious end of consensus, and Snap noted the range "assumes no contribution from Perplexity."

The Perplexity money was supposed to start hitting in 2026 and underwrite Snap's pivot into "AI-driven transformation" — the same pivot used to justify a 16% workforce cut announced in April. With that revenue gone, $SNAP needs the next AI integration story or sustained ad-market strength to defend the multiple. Watch Q2 ad-revenue commentary and any new partnership disclosure on the call. 📉

Beyond Meat Keeps Bleeding 🫠 Beyond Meat, the El Segundo-based plant-based protein maker behind the Beyond Burger, reported a sixth straight quarter of revenue declines Wednesday, with sales falling -15% year-over-year as the plant-based meat category continues to contract.

The RIP: $BYND ( ▲ 13.22% ) Q1 revenue was $58.2M vs. $59.6M estimate; gross margin 3.4%; operating loss was $41.1M on a -70.6% margin. The firm is sitting on roughly $411M in debt against $205M in cash, and the category isn't recovering on a timeline that fixes that gap. The stock trades under $1, the share count keeps growing through restructuring deals, and the company has missed revenue estimates in 6 of the last 7 quarters. 🫠

IonQ Books Its Biggest Quarter 🪙 IonQ, the trapped-ion quantum computing company that sells full-stack quantum systems, blew past its own Q1 revenue guidance by 30% Wednesday and raised full-year 2026 guidance, with CEO Niccolo de Masi calling it the biggest quarter in company history "thus far."

The RIP: $IONQ ( ▲ 9.52% ) Q1 revenue was $64.7M vs. $49.7M estimate, up +755% year-over-year; adjusted EPS -$0.34 vs. -$0.52 estimate; adjusted EBITDA -$96.8M; cash and equivalents were $3.1B. Remaining performance obligations grew +554% to $470M. Full-year 2026 guidance raised to $260M–$270M from $225M–$245M.

IonQ also sold its first 256-qubit, 6th-generation chip-based system in the quarter, which the company frames as the start of commercial scale. The risk is the price tag: $IONQ trades near 59x forward sales versus a sector average closer to 6.5x, leaving zero room for an execution miss. The pending SkyWater Technology foundry acquisition, still under U.S. government review, is the next catalyst. 🪙

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Disney and Uber both reported Wednesday morning, and both beat with clean numbers across the board. The caveat nobody on the calls flagged loudly enough: the Iran war was barely a month old when these quarters closed. The strain on the Strait hasn't fully shown up in the data yet, but consumers were strong in the past quarters for these two giants.

The RIP: $DIS Q2 revenue is up +7%, adjusted EPS $1.57 vs. $1.49 estimate; parks revenue hit $9.5B, streastreaming isming profitable. $UBER delivery revenue surged +34% to $5.1B; ride-hailing was up +5% to $6.8B; trips were up +20% to 3.6B with 10M earners on platform. $DIS reaffirmed +12% adjusted EPS growth for FY2026.

Novavax Cashes In Its Science 🔬 Novavax, the Maryland-based vaccine developer behind the Matrix-M adjuvant, posted a Q1 beat Wednesday driven less by shot sales than by a licensing deal with Pfizer that reframes the company as a platform business.

The RIP: $NVAX Q1 revenue hit $140M vs. $79M estimate, a +76% beat; EPS landed at -$0.06 vs. -$0.24 expected.

Sentiment across the semiconductor sector shifted violently on Wednesday as $SMCI surged +25% and $AMD climbed +16%, signaling that the high-performance computing trade has found a second wind through a combination of margin recovery and massive data center demand.

Get the full rundown and tell us if this is a second wind or a final blow-off top →

Anthropic, the AI safety lab behind Claude, signed a deal Wednesday to lease the entire 300-megawatt Colossus 1 data center in Memphis from Elon Musk's SpaceX. The facility was originally built to train xAI's Grok models, and Musk is now renting it out because xAI moved training to a newer site.

The agreement covers more than 220,000 Nvidia GPUs, with financial terms undisclosed. Anthropic said the capacity will expand availability for Claude Pro and Max subscribers, alongside existing compute deals with $AMZN, $GOOGL, $MSFT, and $NVDA.

Get the rundown, is this an admission that Grok can't fill the racks →

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😨 ANET Stock Sinks After CEO Says Chip Shortages Will Weigh On Margins Through 2026

🏠 Apollo CEO Rowan warns of market correction, slams ‘egregious’ practices at rival insurers

💰 Nvidia to invest up to $3.2 billion in Corning as part of massive optical fiber deal with 3 new factories focused on AI

📺 CNN founder Ted Turner, a pioneer of cable TV news, dies at 87

👀 MSTR Stock Slips Even With Bitcoin Above $81,900 – Michael Saylor’s ‘Never Sell’ Pivot Gets Wall Street Support

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Macro: Initial + Continuing Jobless Claims (8:30 AM ET), Non-Farm Productivity (Q1 Prelim) (8:30 AM ET). 📊

Pre-Market Earnings: $PTON Peloton Interactive Class A Inc, $ALT Altimmune Inc, $MCD Mcdonalds Corp, $U Unity Software Inc, $DCTH Delcath Sys Inc, +55 more. ☀️

After-Market Earnings: $XYZ Block Inc Class A, $MARA Mara Holdings Inc, $COIN Coinbase Global Inc Class A, $DKNG DraftKings Inc, $GEVO Gevo Inc, +169 more. 🌙

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

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