Stocks Retreat as Tech Shares Remain Under Pressure; Dow Hits New All-Time High Before Slipping

A Bad Week for Oracle Stock Got Worse on Friday

58 minutes ago

A bad week for software maker Oracle (ORCL) ended on a sour note. 

Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that Oracle had delayed by a year the delivery of some data centers it’s developing for ChatGPT maker OpenAI. The delays were caused by material and labor shortages, according to Bloomberg.

The report weighed on Oracle’s shares, already under pressure following the release of its results earlier in the week, pulling them another 4.5% lower Friday to levels not seen since June.

The company in a statement said “all milestones remain on track.”

“There have been no delays to any sites required to meet our contractual commitments,” an Oracle spokesperson told Investopedia. “We remain fully aligned with OpenAI and confident in our ability to execute against both our contractual commitments and future expansion plans.”

Friday’s losses extended Oracle stock’s Thursday drop, when shares tumbled nearly 11% after the company’s quarterly earnings fell short of expectations and revived concerns about its AI ambitions.

Oracle is aggressively investing in AI infrastructure to compete with cloud computing in***bents Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOG), and Amazon (AMZN). However, unlike its largest competitors, whose profits are paying for their data center projects, Oracle is borrowing heavily. Some investors are concerned the company will struggle to repay its debt if AI demand falls short of expectations. 

Oracle’s business with OpenAI has added to investor concerns. OpenAI accounts for $300 billion, or more than half, of Oracle’s cloud computing backlog, but the start-up isn’t expected to turn a profit until the end of the decade.

Whether Oracle realizes all of its future revenue from OpenAI will depend to some extent on the latter’s ability to raise money from investors or lenders. 

–Colin Laidley

Dow Gains for Third Consecutive Week

1 hr 4 min ago

All three major stock indexes entered Friday poised to end in the green for a third straight week. Only one of them made it.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.1% this week, while the S&P 500 fell 0.6% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.5%.

With just a few weeks left in the year, the Nasdaq is the biggest gainer among the three main indexes in 2025, up 20%. The S&P 500 and the Dow have risen 16% and 14%, respectively, this year.

Wealthfront’s IPO Is Here. Its CEO Says Go-Go Speculators ‘Aren’t Our Clients’

3 hr 57 min ago

Fast-paced speculative investing might be in vogue. But at least one money manager says it isn’t trying to make a quick buck.

Neither, it seems, are its investors. Wealthfront, a robo-advisor that promotes investing for the long haul, today listed on the Nasdaq under the ticker “WLTH.” Its stock opened at around $8 per share, below its $14 IPO price, on a down day for the major U.S. indexes. But it then managed to recover, trading just above that level in afternoon action, implying a market value above $2 billion.

The company’s public debut lands amid heightened competition to woo retail investors. Its investing platform rivals those of fintech heavyweights like Robinhood (HOOD) and SoFi (SOFI), which have ramped up growth plans with new products and services and seen their stocks soar this year. Wealthfront, for its part, offers similar services—such as stock trading, savings accounts and lending—but says it’s targeting a specific slice of the market: those interested in investing for the long-term.

“There are people that want to speculate and want to trade a lot,” Wealthfront CEO David Fortunato said in an interview with CNBC. “Those aren’t our clients.” (Butressing its bona fides in that department: Burton Malkiel, author of the seminal book on pblockive investing A Random Walk Down Wall Street, is the company’s chief investment officer.)

Wealthfront had more than $88 billion in blockets and more than 1.3 million active users as of the end of July, with nearly 80% of them born after 1980, according to the firm’s IPO do***ents.

Read the full article here.

–Crystal Kim

Instacart Was Charging Wildly Diverging Prices for Different Shoppers, an Investigation Found—So I Checked My Costco Orders

4 hr 18 min ago

The U.S. government may have minted the last penny last month, but Instacart’s algorithms are still fighting for every last cent.

While shoppers have grown accustomed to prices ending in .99—a psychological trick as old as the cash register—Instacart (CART) users like me see something different: $4.17 for eggs, $17.37 for Nature Valley bars, $11.43 for basil pesto. The company’s pricing shifts seemingly every time you log in, with price changes down to the penny.

A major investigation published this week suggests just how far Instacart’s pricing precision has been taken. Consumer Reports and Groundwork Collaborative found that Instacart has been running AI-powered pricing experiments on millions of shoppers, charging customers different prices for identical items at the same stores, sometimes as much as 23% extra.

I reviewed a year’s worth of my own Costco Wholesale (COST) orders through Instacart and found the same pattern—double-digit price swings on items I buy regularly, with no obvious explanation.

Read the full feature here.

–Peter Gratton

Rivian’s Stock Pops 15% Friday. The EV Maker Is Leaning Into Autonomy and AI

4 hr 29 min ago

Are investors ready to buy into Rivian’s vision for its autonomous vehicles and AI?

Shares of the electric vehicle maker were up about 15% in recent trading, erasing yesterday’s losses after an “Autonomy & AI Day” event where Rivian (RIVN) announced a custom AI chip and plans to roll out enhanced self-driving software. The move higher Friday came during a down day for broader markets as worries about an AI bubble continued to pressure shares of big AI names such as Broadcom (AVGO) and Micron Technology (MU).

Rivian said Thursday it will soon issue an update to its second-generation R1 vehicles that will expand the ability for hands-off driving to more than 3.5 million miles of roads in the U.S. and Canada, compared to under 150,000 miles previously. That would bring Rivian closer to Tesla’s (TSLA) base Autopilot system in covering most roads in the U.S., Barclays blockysts said in a note following Thursday’s event.

The blockysts said the development, along with other updates, showcased Rivian’s shift in strategy to focus more on autonomous and AI features as a way to differentiate its offerings in the face of a challenging EV market, and open up new high-margin revenue streams through subscriptions and licensing.

Read the full article here.

–Aaron McDade

Wanted: New CEO with ‘Growth Experience.’ The Company: Lululemon

5 hr 4 min ago

Lululemon’s once high-flying stock has plummeted this year. Now a new CEO will be brought in to help coach the athleisure brand through its recovery.

Lululemon Athletica (LULU) said Thursday that Calvin McDonald’s roughly eight-year tenure will conclude at the end of January. The transition process is unfolding in a somewhat dramatic manner, with the company announcing a search rather than immediately naming a permanent replacement, and founder Dennis “Chip” Wilson publicly grousing about what he sees as insufficient planning.

 “As one of the largest active shareholders of Lululemon, I am deeply concerned about what appears to be a tremendous failure by the Board to competently plan for the future and manage an effective succession process,” Wilson said in a Friday statement.

Wilson, who was listed as owning more than 8% of the company’s stock in an August regulatory filing, said the company’s “premium brand value” has eroded and the board “does not understand its target customers anymore or what will drive shareholder value.”

Lululemon didn’t respond toInvestopedia’s questions in time for publication.

Read the full article here.

–Sarina Trangle

These Student Loan Borrowers Will Have to Resume Payments for the First Time in Nearly 6 Years

5 hr 29 min ago

Millions of borrowers on the Saving for a Valuable Education repayment plan will soon have to make payments for the first time in over a year, and for some, it’ll be their first payment in almost six years.

About 7.7 million borrowers on the SAVE plan will need to find a new repayment plan soon. The Department of Education recently announced it will be shutting down the income-driven repayment plan as part of a lawsuit settlement.

Borrowers enrolled in the plan will have to transfer to another, likely less generous repayment plan. This could be problematic for many SAVE borrowers, especially those who, through administrative forbearances and $0 monthly payments on SAVE, have not made a payment since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

In March 2020, payments for all borrowers were paused to provide some budgetary relief during the COVID-19 pandemic. And when repayments restarted at the beginning of October 2023, the SAVE plan had already been introduced.

Borrowers flocked to the plan, which significantly lowered many borrowers’ payments. While many borrowers on the SAVE plan began repayments in October 2023, the Biden administration simultaneously announced a grace period that lasted until Sept. 30, 2024. During this time, payments would be due, but borrowers had little incentive to resume payments, as missed payments did not immediately harm their credit or lead to default.

In addition, more than half of all borrowers on SAVE had $0 monthly payments, and many borrowers never expected their payments to increase beyond $0 for the remainder of their loan term.

Read the full article here.

–Elizabeth Guevara

Costco’s Business Has Been Booming. But Its Stock Has Lagged the Market in 2025

5 hr 47 min ago

Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST) posted better-than-expected results as its e-commerce business boomed and revenue from membership fees increased.

The biggest U.S. warehouse club retailer late Thursday reported first-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings of $4.50 per share, 19 cents more than what blockysts surveyed by Visible Alpha were looking for. Revenue rose 8.3% from a year ago to $67.3 billion, with membership fee revenue growing 14.0% to $1.33 billion. Both were better than forecasts. 

Investors appear to have wanted more, as Costco shares were down nearly 2% in afternoon trading. The stock has now lost about 5% of its value in 2025, significantly lagging the performance of the benchmark S&P 500 index and the gains posted by rival Walmart (WMT).

What Costco calls “digitally enabled comparable store sales” jumped 20.5% in the latest quarter, while overall comparable store sales were up 6.4%.

Read the full article here.

–Bill McColl

Broadcom’s AI Business Is Growing Fast. Here’s Why the Stock Is Tanking Anyway

6 hours ago

Broadcom’s custom AI chip business is growing rapidly. Wall Street, however, is wary about how much upside that growth suggests.

Broadcom (AVGO) on Thursday predicted its AI-related revenue will double year-over-year to $8.2 billion in the current quarter. That would be an acceleration from the most recent quarter, when it grew 74% to $6.5 billion. But the forecast came with a caveat—and that weighed on the shares today. The stock was recently down about 10% in intraday trading.

Broadcom expects its gross margin to contract 100 basis points, or 1 percentage point, quarter-over-quarter, “primarily reflecting a higher mix of AI revenue,” said chief financial officer Kirsten Spears on a call with blockysts Thursday night.

The notion that higher AI sales might be a drag on profitability wasn’t what investors wanted to hear. But investors have lately upped their scrutiny of tech earnings due to concerns about stretched stock valuations and unsustainable infrastructure spending, meaning that even good news is getting put under a microscope.

That’s led to less-than-rollicking market responses to corporate results. Nvidia (NVDA), the leading supplier of AI chips and Broadcom’s largest competitor, blew past estimates with its numbers last month, but its stock slumped under the weight of AI bubble concerns. Software giant Oracle (ORCL) on Wednesday said its backlog now exceeds $500 billion, but it failed to convince investors that its huge AI investments will pay off soon. Its stock slumped yesterday to lead an AI sell-off.  

Read the full article here.

–Colin Laidley

Marijuana Stocks Are Soaring Friday on Anticipation Trump Could Soon Make This Change

6 hr 18 min ago

Cannabis stocks surged Friday following reports President Donald Trump could soon reclblockify marijuana as a less dangerous substance.

Tilray Brands (TLRY) was up close to 30% in recent trading, while Canopy Growth (CGC) shares jumped nearly 40%.

President Trump could be set to issue an executive order changing the clblockification of marijuana from a Schedule I drug such as heroin to a less dangerous Schedule III drug as soon as Monday, CNBC reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. Other Schedule III drugs include medicines such as steroids and codeine.

Axios reported the reclblockification could take place next year.

A White House spokesperson told Investopedia no final decisions have been made.

Read the full article here.

–Bill McColl

Why Gen Z Can’t Find Work—and How It Could Shape Their Future

7 hr 34 min ago

Young people are struggling to find jobs, and that could have negative consequences for them long after they land a new role.

According to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the unemployment rate for recent college graduates was 4.8% as of June 2025. In contrast, the unemployment rate for all workers was 4.0%.

On his Substack, Paul Krugman, economist and Nobel Laureate, pointed out that a higher unemployment rate for recent college grads is atypical and could be a indicator of worse times ahead for this cohort.

“What we’re looking at now isn’t the worst job market college graduates have ever seen. It is, however, the worst such market compared with workers in general that we’ve ever seen, by a large margin,” wrote Krugman.

While some have speculated that this trend could be due to businesses using AI to do the work of entry-level employees, experts like Chris Martin—a lead researcher for Glblockdoor—have suggested that companies may be reducing hiring due to uncertainty about economic policies like tariffs.

“I think it’s too soon to tell from the data whether AI is driving this downturn for new grads in particular. I’m not convinced that it is…” said Martin in an August interview with Investopedia.

And although the economy isn’t in a recession right now, previous studies have shown that young people who enter the labor market during a downturn, or a period of high unemployment, can experience lower earnings as well as worse marriage and health outcomes for years afterwards.

Read the full article here.

–Trina Paul

The AI Trade Is Getting Hammered Again Friday, This Time Led by Broadcom

7 hr 49 min ago

Broadcom (AVGO) led AI hardware stocks lower Friday, extending Thursday’s tech rout despite a stronger-than-expected earnings report from the chipmaker. 

Shares of Broadcom were down nearly 9% in recent trading, leading decliners on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. AI investor favorites Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Micron Technology (MU), and Palantir (PLTR) also lost ground, as worries about an AI bubble continued to weigh on exposed stocks in the tech sector.

Broadcom late Thursday reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.95 on a record $18.02 billion in revenue for its fiscal fourth quarter as demand for its AI chips surged. Both figures topped blockysts’ estimates, but they weren’t enough to sway growing investor skepticism around the AI trade.

For some AI bulls, Friday’s pullback could look like an opportunity to buy the dip, however.

William Blair blockysts told clients following Broadcom’s report that they “continue to see a favorable risk/reward equation for the stock on the back of sustained AI demand,” and called Broadcom as a “leading alternative” to AI chip leader Nvidia (NVDA).

While blockysts’ ratings are still in flux, most on Wall Street remain bullish about Broadcom. All of the 12 blockysts with current ratings tracked by Visible Alpha have said they consider it a “buy” with room to rise. Even with Friday’s losses, the stock is up close to 60% for 2025.

–Aaron McDade

Survey Reveals Majority of Americans Struggle With Emergency Expenses and Financial Stress

8 hr 42 min ago

More than half of Americans say they worry about their ability to pay emergency expenses that could pop up this year, according to a recent survey.

Fifty-three percent of respondents said they were at least somewhat concerned about covering an emergency expense, according to a survey of more than 7,000 consumers conducted earlier this year by PYMNTS Intelligence and Splitit, a payment platform that enables installment plans.

The prospect of an emergency expense was a greater source of concern among parents, lower-income households, and younger generations. About two-thirds of respondents with annual incomes under $50,000 said they would be at least somewhat worried about covering an emergency expense, a greater share compared to those earning $50,000 or more. But close to half of those with six-figure or larger incomes felt the same way, the research found.

About 43% of those who had an emergency expense costing over $250 in the past year reported covering it with cash, while nearly half of those surveyed used a form of credit. The research also highlighted many consumers are using installment payment plans or Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) to handle unexpected expenses.

This was more common among younger generations. When covering emergency expenses with credit cards, more than half of Gen Z and over a third of millennials and bridge—or older—millennials opted to use an installment plan. By comparison, 28% of Gen X and 16% of baby boomers elected to pay emergency credit card expenses in installments, the research found.

–Sarina Trangle

RH Stock Soars Despite Profit Miss, Mostly Trimmed Outlook

8 hr 55 min ago

RH (RH) had a mixed third quarter and mostly cut its full-year outlook. Investors appear to be happy with the furniture retailer regardless.

Shares of the former Restoration Hardware surged 11% Friday, a day after the Corte Madera, Calif.-based company reported slightly better-than-expected revenue but missed blockysts’ profit projections.

RH posted Q3 adjusted earnings of $1.71 per share, below the consensus forecast of $2.19 of blockysts surveyed by Visible Alpha. Revenue of $883.8 million grew 9% year-over-year and was a tick above expectations of $883.1 million.

RH also cut its fiscal 2025 guidance for adjusted operating margin and adjusted EBITDA margin, and narrowed its full-year revenue growth forecast to 9.0% to 9.2% from the prior 9% to 11%. The “outlook includes an approximate negative 210 basis point operating margin impact from investments and startup costs to support our international expansion and a 90 basis point impact from tariffs, net of mitigations.”

Still, investors cheered the results and comments on the earnings call from CEO Gary Friedman, who said the revenue growth demonstrated “the disruptive nature of our brand, despite the worst housing market in almost 50 years and the polarizing impact of tariffs.”

Even with today’s jump, shares of RH are down roughly 55% this year.

Foreclosures Jumped 21% in November. Here’s What That Means For Buyers

10 hr 32 min ago

For years, prospective home buyers have been faced with high prices and very little inventory for sale. However, a recent surge in foreclosures could alter that dynamic.

Real estate data firm ATTOM reported that November foreclosure activity rose by 21% compared with the same month last year, with default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions moving higher on an annual basis. The ATTOM report showed that one in every 3,992 U.S. housing units had a foreclosure filing in November 2025.

“The data suggests the market is still normalizing as some homeowners contend with higher housing costs and shifting economic pressures,” said Rob Barber, CEO at ATTOM. 

It’s the ninth straight month of year-over-year increases in foreclosure activity, highlighting a growing trend in 2025 for the U.S. housing market, which has been hampered by weak inventory levels that offer buyers too few options.

Read the full article here.

–Terry Lane

Fermi Stock Plummets on Lost $150M Funding Deal

11 hr 12 min ago

Fermi (FRMI) lost a lucrative funding deal. Its shares are tumbling in response.

Shares of Fermi, which is in the early stages of developing a mblockive data center and energy complex in the Texas Panhandle, plummeted 45% in premarket trading after the Amarillo, Texas-based firm said it was notified Thursday that it was notified by its “First Tenant” that it was terminating its Advance in Aid of Construction Agreement, or AICA.

In September, Fermi had announced that it had entered into a non-binding letter of intent with an investment grade-rated tenant to lease a portion of its Project Matador power grid site. Last month, the tenant agreed to advance up to $150 million to cover construction costs, but “no funds have been drawn under the AICA,” Fermi said.

Fermi said it has “commenced discussions with several other potential tenants for power delivery at the Project Matador Site in 2026,” and “remains confident that it will be able to meet its expected power delivery schedule at Project Matador as the demand for behind-the-meter power for AI remains robust over the near and long term.”

Shares of Fermi entered Friday having lost more than 50% of their value since the company’s IPO on Oct. 1.

Leadership Change Looms Over the Fed’s Latest Interest Rate Decision

11 hr 32 min ago

Everything the Federal Open Market Committee said and did at its meeting Wednesday came with a huge asterisk: New leadership could push the central bank to move its key interest rate in a different direction in a few months. 

The Fed’s policy committee voted to lower the fed funds rate by a quarter point this week for the third consecutive meeting, aiming to stabilize the faltering job market by reducing borrowing costs. It was one of the last scheduled meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee before Chair Jerome Powell’s term ends in May, and investors and economists have been speculating about what direction the central bank will take under new, Trump-appointed leadership.

That fact came up several times at Wednesday’s post-meeting press conference. A question about whether the impending end of his term hindered Powell’s ability to do his job or change his thinking prompted his shortest answer of the conference: “No.”

Nonetheless, the leadership change complicates Powell’s job of informing the public about the future course of the federal funds rate, which affects borrowing costs on all kinds of loans.

Read the full article here.

–Diccon Hyatt

Inflation Worries Keep the Fed on Alert. Could This Mean No More Interest Rate Cuts Anytime Soon?

12 hr 15 min ago

Inflation is likely to get worse before it gets better, and the Federal Reserve will be keeping a close eye on prices and tariffs next year before making its next move on interest rates, Fed Chair Jerome Powell warned Wednesday.

“In the near term, risks to inflation are tilted to the upside and risks to employment to the downside, a challenging situation,” Powell said after the Fed moved to reduce interest rates for the third straight meeting.

While the Fed sees inflation moderating overall next year, price pressures could remain high as the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs is just beginning to be felt, Powell said. “What’s happening here is services inflation coming down, and that’s offset by increases in goods, and that goods inflation is entirely in sectors where there are tariffs,” Powell said. 

According to the Summary of Economic Projections released Wednesday, Fed officials see the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, the central bank’s preferred inflation gauge, falling to 2.4% in 2026, compared to the September forecast of 2.6%. The projection for “core inflation,” which excludes volatile food and energy costs, is also down slightly.

But before that, inflation could move higher, Powell warned, as it can be nine months or more before Trump’s tariffs can be fully factored into prices. The U.S. initiated a round of “reciprocal tariffs” in early August that raised import taxes on a number of trading partners.

Read the full article here.

–Terry Lane

Broadcom Turned In Strong Earnings. But Will They Revive the AI Trade?

12 hr 45 min ago

The AI trade has sputtered lately. Investors looking for Broadcom’s latest quarterly results to get it running again have been disappointed so far.

Shares of chipmaker Broadcom (AVGO) first jumped in extended trading Thursday, rising after it posted results that topped blockysts’ estimates on growing AI demand. That was welcome for bullish investors who saw the Nasdaq and many of the Dow’s tech-focused components left out of today’s market surge.

Not long after, however, they were in the red again, extending losses from the regular session—and suggesting that the latest tech selloff, led by database giant Oracle (ORCL) after it failed to impress investors with its own results, might not be done.

Oracle slightly missed Street sales estimates. But Broadcom topped forecasts with a 28% year-over-year jump in quarterly revenue to a record $18.02 billion. It also posted adjusted earnings per share of $1.95 for the fiscal fourth quarter, above the $1.88 blockysts surveyed by Visible Alpha were looking for.

CEO Hock Tan said the supplier for Meta (Meta) and Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Google sees that momentum continuing in the current quarter, and projected first-quarter revenue of $19.1 billion, ahead of blockysts’ estimates.

Read the full article here.

–Kara Greenberg

Stock Futures Mixed to End Week

13 hr 5 min ago

Futures contracts connected to the Dow Jones Industrial Average pointed 0.2% higher.

S&P 500 futures ticked 0.1% lower.

Nasdaq 100 futures pointed down 0.5%.