Ever have one of those trading sessions where you look up at noon and half your watchlist is either on fire or completely melting down?
Yeah, today is one of those days.
The market is serving up a classic mixed bag – AI darlings flying, some old-school retail names reminding everyone they still exist, bitcoin miners riding crypto’s latest mood swing, and a handful of software companies getting absolutely punished for guidance misses. In short, the perfect environment for active traders and a nightmare for anyone trying to stay fully invested without watching the tape.
Let’s dive into the names actually moving the needle right now, because some of these swings are too big to ignore.
The Midday Leaders Everyone Is Talking About
Dell Technologies – The AI Server King Strikes Again
I’ve been saying it for months: if you want pure-play AI infrastructure exposure without paying Nvidia’s nosebleed multiple, Dell has quietly become one of the best ways to ride the wave.
Today the market finally rewarded that thesis in a big way.
Shares jumped about 4.5% after the company dropped guidance that made analysts do a double-take. Management now sees fourth-quarter revenue around $31.5 billion – that’s almost $4 billion above consensus. The entire beat-and-raise story is almost exclusively tied to explosive demand for AI-optimized servers.
Think about that for a second. While half of Silicon Valley is talking about the “next big model,” Dell is happily shipping the actual metal boxes those models live on. Sometimes the pick-and-shovel play really is the smartest one.
“AI server demand continues to outstrip supply in a meaningful way.”
– Dell CFO, basically
Translation: orders are still backlogged into next year. That kind of visibility in this environment? Gold.
Urban Outfitters – Wait, Retail Isn’t Dead?
Raise your hand if you had Urban Outfitters as one of today’s top performers on your bingo card.
Exactly.
The stock ripped roughly 12% after reporting numbers that can only be described as “shockingly good.” Earnings came in at $1.28 per share against $1.20 expected, while revenue hit $1.53 billion versus the $1.47 billion street forecast. Same-store sales actually grew across nearly every brand – something we haven’t seen from mall-based apparel in what feels like forever.
Free People and Anthropologie continue to carry the show, but even the core Urban brand showed signs of life. In a world where most teen retailers are barely hanging on, this feels almost miraculous.
Perhaps the most interesting part? Management finally sounds confident again. That alone might be worth a few extra points.
Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals – Biotech Lottery Ticket Pays Out
Small-cap biotech doing small-cap biotech things: shares exploded 19% on revenue that actually beat (yes, really).
The company posted $829 million for the fiscal year against expectations around $861 million – close enough to call it a win when you just got the first-ever FDA approval for a drug treating familial chylomicronemia syndrome complications. That’s the kind of ultra-rare disease indication where pricing power is basically unlimited.
These moves are always volatile, but when the binary event goes your way the upside is stupid. Just don’t get married to the name post-spike.
Cleanspark – Bitcoin Miners Still Have Pulse
While everyone argues about whether bitcoin has topped at $98k or is heading to $150k, the miners keep doing what they do best – levered beta to crypto price.
Cleanspark rose over 4% after reporting fiscal 2025 revenue of $766 million – more than double last year’s number. Hashrate expansion plans remain aggressive, and the stock continues to act like it wants to retest recent highs.
Love them or hate them, the miners remain one of the highest-conviction ways to play digital asset upside with actual operating leverage.
The Ugly Side – Where the Pain Is Real
PagerDuty – The 23% Haircut Club
Ouch doesn’t begin to cover it.
PagerDuty actually beat earnings (33c vs 25c expected) but missed revenue by a hair and the stock got obliterated anyway. That tells you everything about current software sentiment – growth deceleration is a death sentence right now.
When even a solid beat gets you down 23%, you know the bar for SaaS names has moved to “perfection or bust.”
Nutanix – Another One Bites the Dust
Down 15% and looking ugly.
First-quarter revenue missed and – worse – management slashed full-year guidance from ~$2.92 billion to $2.82-$2.86 billion range. In cloud infrastructure land, cutting numbers this early in the fiscal year is basically waving a white flag.
The stock had been a darling for a while. Today feels like the moment the music stopped.
Zscaler, Workday, Ambarella – Guilty by Association
Zscaler down 12% despite beating numbers (classic “sell the news in cyber), Workday off 10% on slightly soft subscription guidance, Ambarella down 14% even after a clean beat. The pattern is clear: anything that isn’t accelerating growth dramatically is getting punished without mercy.
It’s brutal out there for software.
Quick-Hit Movers Worth Watching
- Kohl’s – Still riding yesterday’s 43% explosion, tacked on another 7% today. Dead-cat bounce or actual turnaround? Jury’s out.
- Autodesk – Quietly up 3% on a clean beat. Boring software sometimes wins.
- Petco – Raised EBITDA guidance and jumped 12%. Apparently pets are still eating in this economy.
- Deere – Beat estimates but dropped 5%. Farmers aren’t spending like they used to.
- HP Inc – Announced 4-6k layoffs and weak guidance, down 2+%. The PC cycle remains ugly.
Look, I’ve been doing this long enough to know that midday moves don’t always hold until the close. But the themes today are crystal clear:
- AI infrastructure = still the hottest trade on earth
- Selective retail strength = possible rotation brewing
- Bitcoin leverage = alive and kicking
- Enterprise software without perfect growth = toxic
If you’re sitting on cash, there are real opportunities forming in the wreckage (Nutanix at these levels starts to get interesting from a take-under perspective, for example). If you’re long the high-flyers, congratulations – but keep those stops tight because when the sentiment flips, it flips fast.
Either way, days like this are why we love markets. Chaos creates opportunity.
Now go do something with it.
