GOOG

The company reported better-than-expected earnings but analysts are focused on the AI product pipeline.

New research from Goldman Sachs was headlined by an 8,000 year-end target on the S&P 500 Index ($SPX), nearly 10% higher than this year’s already strong up move. This major upgrade is driven by what analysts describe as “robust, corporate earnings power.” The mainstream narrative is simple: Corporate America is thriving, the bull market is charging ahead, and the fundamental backdrop has never looked healthier. But if you look past the sensational headline and pop the hood on the underlying data, the reality is starkly different. Dear Intel Stock Fans, Mark Your Calendars for June 2 Why Micron Stock Might Have a Math Problem Palantir Might Soon Take Over the Intelligence Agencies. Here’s What It Means for PLTR Stock Our exclusive Barchart Brief newsletter is your FREE midday guide to what's moving stocks, sectors, and investor sentiment - delivered right when you need the info most. Subscribe today! The broader index isn’t experiencing a healthy, diversified economic advance. Instead, the entire S&P 500 has effectively mutated into an extreme, highly concentrated two-stock dependency model. And while I have been chronicling the stock market’s increasingly narrow participation here for a while now, it is getting worse, not better. That’s what Goldman’s data tells me. According to the firm’s own numbers, a staggering one-third of all S&P 500 earnings growth in 2026 will be driven by just two companies: Nvidia (NVDA) and Micron Technology (MU). This is so absurd! The S&P 500 is supposed to represent a broad, diversified cross-section of the 500 largest publicly traded corporations in the United States. Yet, a single GPU designer and a single high-bandwidth memory manufacturer are projected to shoulder roughly 33% of the entire index’s bottom-line expansion this year. Goldman notes that when you widen the lens to the 10 largest corporate giants — a list heavily rounded out by tech hyperscalers like Alphabet (GOOG), Broadcom (AVGO), and Meta (META), they represent an astonishing 64% of all projected S&P 500 EPS growth for 2026. This is not a story of widespread corporate prosperity. It is a story of a historic, unprecedented capital expenditure haul. A massive chunk of global liquidity is being extracted from traditional economic sectors and poured directly into a singular destination: AI data center infrastructure. NVDA and MU are sitting at the toll booth of th...

AI stocks rally amid SpaceX, OpenAI IPO buzz as investors eye surging demand for compute capacity and monetization.

Interested in Target Corporation? Here are five stocks we like better. Walmart, Home Depot, and other retailers say consumers remain active but increasingly price-sensitive. Buy-Now-Pay-Later delinquencies are rising sharply, signaling growing financial stress among lower-income consumers. Investors may need a more selective approach toward retail and consumer-facing stocks in a bifurcated economy. The stock market and the economy are not the same thing, but in 2026, they share one trait: skepticism. Despite blockbuster earnings reports from companies like NVIDIA (NYSE: NVDA), Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ: PLTR), and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL), this may be the most reluctant bull market in history. That doesn’t mean investors are leaving the market, but the concentration of market winners is still not broadly expanding to other sectors. The recent retail earnings reports aren’t going to change that. On the surface, the consumer looks resilient. The retail sales data continues to at least meet, if not exceed, expectations. However, all may not be as it seems. Retail giants like Walmart Inc. (NASDAQ: WMT), Home Depot (NYSE: HD) and TJX Companies (NYSE: TJX) have been telling a cautious story. → Voya Financial Grows Earnings Across All 3 Business Segments Consumers are still spending, but with real intentionality. And since investors are also consumers, it may be getting harder to separate the two. The investor deciding whether to add a retail stock to their portfolio and the shopper deciding whether to remodel their kitchen are, increasingly, the same person making the same calculation: is now the right time to commit? The word "choiceful" has become part of the retail lexicon. Walmart used it explicitly on its Q1 earnings call to describe a customer who is still showing up but making sharper trade-offs at every price point. Management also pointed to consumers shifting toward private-label brands, even among higher-income consumers. → SpaceX Gets the Attention, But These 4 Stocks Could Get the Returns Home Depot offered one of the more telling data points of the earnings season: same-store sales growth remained modest, with customers completing smaller repair and maintenance projects while continuing to defer large remodels. Lowe's (NYSE: LOW) also spoke of a consumer who is engaged but not confident. Both stocks have held up reasonably well because repair-and...

Semtech (SMTC) is likely to report "upside" to fiscal Q1 results and fiscal Q2 outlook as demand for

Interested in Arqit Quantum Inc.? Here are five stocks we like better. Arqit Quantum reported higher first-half fiscal 2026 revenue of $623,000 versus $67,000 a year earlier, with management saying revenue has now grown for two straight reporting periods. The company also saw more activity across 11 contracts, up from six in the prior-year period. Management says urgency around post-quantum cybersecurity is accelerating, citing Google, Cloudflare and IonQ as evidence that organizations are moving faster toward crypto migration. CEO Andy Leaver said the focus has shifted from whether to upgrade to how quickly it can be done. Arqit’s new products and partnerships are gaining traction, including the Encryption Intelligence risk tool, which landed its first contract and a first European partnership, and NetworkSecure, which is being used by Sparkle for quantum-secure networking. The company also highlighted ongoing opportunities in telecom, government and defense, including an imminent U.S. defense contract renewal discussion. Big Gains Alert: These 3 Tech Stocks Are Surging This Month Arqit Quantum (NASDAQ:ARQQ) reported higher first-half fiscal 2026 revenue and said it is seeing increased commercial activity as governments, telecom operators and defense-related customers evaluate post-quantum cybersecurity needs. Chief Executive Officer Andy Leaver told investors that the market has shifted from debating whether organizations need to upgrade cryptographic security to determining how quickly they can do so. He pointed to public comments and research from Google, Cloudflare and IonQ that, in his view, have accelerated the urgency around migration to post-quantum cryptography. → CAVA Group’s Stock Looks Delicious After Strong Earnings 3 Quantum Computing ETFs to Know—And Why 2 Don't Hold D-Wave “What has become clear in the first half of our current fiscal year is that when is becoming now,” Leaver said, referring to the timing of post-quantum security upgrades. Chief Financial Officer Nick Pointon said Arqit generated $623,000 in revenue for the first half of fiscal 2026, compared with $67,000 in the same period of fiscal 2025. He said the increase reflected revenue from a Middle East customer contract that began late in the first half of fiscal 2025, as well as activity under 11 contracts during the latest period, compared with six in the prior-year first half....

(Bloomberg) -- For much of the year, chip stocks have been powering the market higher. Now, Nvidia Corp.’s earnings have a chance to confirm that the rally has more room to run — or add another brick to investors’ wall of worry. Most Read from Bloomberg Spot the Difference: Putin Gets Trump Treatment From Xi in China Iran Threatens to Retaliate Beyond Middle East If US Attacks Hasbro Cancels Dungeons & Dragons Game From ‘Star Wars’ Veteran US Lawmakers Plan New $130 Fee for Electric Vehicle Owners US Treasuries Rebound on Optimism for US-Iran Deal Progress The leader in artificial intelligence semiconductors reports its results after the market close on Wednesday. Wall Street is expecting the latest in a series of strong prints from chipmakers as Big Tech continues to shower the companies with cash to build out AI infrastructure. So investors will be looking for indications about what the growth outlook is from here. “Nvidia’s results or guidance and the discussion on the call can give investors more confidence that this AI buildout will last not just a quarter, not just 2026, but into 2027 and 2028 and beyond,” said JoAnne Feeney, a portfolio manager at Advisors Capital Management, which owns Nvidia shares. “That will be reassuring.” A disappointment, however, could give credence to investors’ fears that the group has gotten overextended. The Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index has soared more than 60% this year, but it tumbled 6.4% over Friday and Monday as inflation concerns weighed on the stocks. Nvidia shares were up 1.8% on Wednesday afternoon, extending gains to 20% in 2026 and nearly 36% since hitting a recent low in late March, but they lost 6.4% in three sessions through Tuesday’s close. They’re still outperforming the technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index, which has gained nearly 16% this year. “Nvidia unfortunately created the expectation that it’s going to beat and raise every quarter, if they don’t, that’s going to be disappointing,” Feeney said. The stock has declined the day after Nvidia’s last three earnings reports even though the company posted solid results. The options market is pricing in a 5.5% move in either direction in the wake of this report. Despite its relatively underwhelming performance in 2026, Nvidia remains the biggest stock in the market, accounting for almost a fifth of the S&P 500 Index’s more than 8% advance this...

Our analysts just identified a stock with the potential to be the next Nvidia. Tell us how you invest and we'll show you why it's our #1 pick. Tap here. Management has streamlined the business to focus exclusively on two high-impact markets—pharma and ag-chemicals—where its ChemPass AI engine provides a distinct competitive advantage. The company's mission is now centered on designing novel, highly potent small molecules that are easier to synthesize and better aligned with target product profiles. A key strategic pillar is the collaboration with Google to integrate AI agents into the ChemPass platform, aimed at automating the extraction of insights from scientific literature to build proprietary datasets. The business model utilizes a dual-channel approach: establishing strategic partnerships to reduce financial risk and advancing an internal pipeline to secure better commercial terms later. Pharma activities, launched only in early 2025, have rapidly expanded to four ongoing collaborations, demonstrating strong initial market validation for the AI-driven discovery platform. Management believes that success in one segment, such as agriculture, serves as a proof of concept that accelerates engagement and credibility with partners in the pharmaceutical industry. The company expects to advance its existing pharma and ag-chemical pipelines toward key value-creating milestones throughout the remainder of 2026. Management is actively evaluating opportunities to establish a new internal drug development pipeline to complement its current collaborative projects. In the agriculture sector, the company anticipates that its internal Septoria fungicide program will continue to show improved hit rates through iterative AI-driven design. The Castor cultivation activity in Brazil is being positioned for a commercial launch, with sales of seeds expected to commence for the 2027 growing season. Strategic discussions are ongoing with 'big pharma' and other technology giants similar to Google, though management notes that equity-linked strategic deals in pharma may take several quarters to materialize. One stock. Nvidia-level potential. 30M+ investors trust Moby to find it first. Get the pick. Tap here. Evogene has terminated its research collaboration with Bayer for herbicide development due to inherent problems with the biology of the target protein, though the partnership...

All three major US stock indexes were down in late-morning trading Tuesday, as the 30-year Treasury

Investors will get highly anticipated quarterly results from Nvidia (NVDA) on Wednesday in what’s expected to be the marquee earnings event of the week. Nvidia’s report serves as a barometer of artificial intelligence trade and comes as the AI chipmaker faces increasing competition from rivals such as Cerebras (CBRS) and AMD (AMD), as well as its customers Amazon (AMZN) and Google (GOOG). So far this earnings season, S&P 500 companies have impressed market watchers by printing profits, even amid ongoing risks from the Iran war, and the index is on track for double-digit earnings growth. Reports from semiconductor companies so far underscore that the artificial intelligence boom remains a key market driver. Also reporting this week are a handful of retail companies, including The Home Depot (HD), TJX Companies (TJX), Lowe’s Companies (LOW), Target Corporation (TGT), and Walmart (WMT), which will provide insights on the state of the US consumer.

Xponential Fitness's first quarter results fell short of Wall Street’s expectations, with revenue and non-GAAP earnings both missing consensus estimates. Management attributed the underperformance to lower digital traffic, which was impacted by significant changes in advertising platforms like Meta and Google. CEO Michael Nuzzo noted that these digital shifts reduced the company's ability to generate new member leads, while ongoing brand divestitures also played a role. On the positive side, Nuzzo pointed to improving member retention, stating, “March marked our best member retention month since Q1 2024,” and highlighted the company’s focus on new studio openings and operational upgrades. Is now the time to buy XPOF? Find out in our full research report (it’s free). Revenue: $60.71 million vs analyst estimates of $64.01 million (21% year-on-year decline, 5.1% miss) Adjusted EPS: -$0.04 vs analyst estimates of $0.13 (significant miss) Adjusted EBITDA: $20.41 million vs analyst estimates of $25.1 million (33.6% margin, 18.7% miss) EBITDA guidance for the full year is $105 million at the midpoint, in line with analyst expectations Operating Margin: 21.5%, up from 12.6% in the same quarter last year Market Capitalization: $213.6 million While we enjoy listening to the management's commentary, our favorite part of earnings calls are the analyst questions. Those are unscripted and can often highlight topics that management teams would rather avoid or topics where the answer is complicated. Here is what has caught our attention. John Heinbockel (Guggenheim Partners) asked about Club Pilates member retention and when comps might return to flat. CEO Michael Nuzzo emphasized strong member loyalty and said improved digital lead flow is key to better comps. Richard Magnuson (B. Riley Securities) pressed for updates on CRM tools targeting specific audiences. Nuzzo highlighted automated email campaigns showing early conversions and a focus on tailoring outreach by brand and cohort. Chris O’Cull (Stifel) inquired about the timeline for resolving Meta and Google marketing issues and future marketing spend. Nuzzo expects meaningful progress in the coming quarters and said ROI will determine the pace of additional investment. Chris O’Cull (Stifel) also asked about Club Pilates franchisee consolidation. Nuzzo noted stronger ties with larger franchisees, which help with growth...

Baidu stock climbed higher early Monday after the Chinese search engine company reported first-quarter results ahead of analyst expectations. Baidu said that it earned an adjusted 12.06 yuan per American depositary share for the March quarter, down 34% from a year earlier. Often compared to Google, Baidu was one of the quickest Chinese tech companies to embrace AI.