Stock Market Today (LIVE): AMD Stocks Up as AI Demand Spikes; Peace Talks and Profits Lift Markets

📌 Top story — scroll down for more updates

Top of the Morning

10:00 am — AMD -1.9%

Large-scale spending on chips and systems supporting AI is unlikely to slow soon. That’s how I read the inventory data reported by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 1.37%) last night.

As a percentage of its $8.045 billion worth of inventory on hand at the end of Q1, 31.6% was finished goods. Only 9.3% was raw materials.

At the same point last year, 8.7% of AMD’s inventory was registered as raw materials while 21.1% was finished goods.

AMD is working feverishly to bring more chips to market, faster. CEO Lisa Siu would only commit to bigger chunks of finished goods inventory if demand for her company’s products was spiking rather than moderating.

It’s unclear whether institutional investors are paying attention to the underlying inventory data. I’m not sure it matters. Revenue (up 38%) and per-share profit (up 91%) showed more than enough growth to light up AMD’s first-quarter report.

In response, the stock is up over 18% in today’s pre-market trading. The surge may also be due to predictions for accelerating growth. Q2 revenue is expected to up 46% year-over-year.

More inventory to meet more demand, in other words.

Nvidia (NVDA +2.41%) still dominates the AI compute market, but AMD is a strong competitor growing stronger with each passing quarter.

Whirlpool’s Red Flags Keep Piling Up

10:05 am — WHR -11.9%

For Whirlpool (WHR 13.58%) it has been a parade of red flags the last couple of years:

• Consistently disappoint earnings results
• Eroding operating margins
• Loss of market share to lower-priced products from Asia
• Management’s myopic focus on ever-elusive tariff benefits
• And most devastatingly for dividend investors, a severe cut to a dividend that had gone without one for nearly 70 years!

Unfortunately, the kitchen and bathroom appliance maker’s first-quarter results only deepened the misery for investors. Lower sales volumes and a near complete collapse in profitability in the company’s major domestic appliance business contributed to a major earnings miss, a slashed full-year outlook, and, gulp, a dividend suspension. As I write, shares are down more than 20% in pre-market trading.

At this point even a long-overdue recovery in the U.S. housing market — my top (and really only) reason for continuing to assign any hope for the company looks like it won’t be a panacea for Whirlpool’s many ills. The balance sheet is still loaded with debt; savings from the dividend and planned price increases should boost cash flows in the short term, but improvement to margins and profits might be short-lived if sales volumes continue to struggle. At the same time, any benefits from new tariff policies designed to insulate domestic manufacturers aren’t likely to help the company overcome a decidedly weak long-term competitive position vis-a-vis its low-cost Asian competitors.

Opening Bell

9:35 am — DASH +3.7%, FTNT +20.8%

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq edged higher Thursday, extending a record-shattering run fueled by easing geopolitical friction and blockbuster earnings. DoorDash (DASH +2.26%) surged 8% on a rosy second-quarter order outlook, while cybersecurity stalwart Fortinet (FTNT +23.10%) skyrocketed 19% after lifting its full-year billings guidance. Sentiment remains high as West Texas Intermediatefutures continue to slide on reports that the White House is finalizing a 14-point memorandum of understanding to end the conflict with Iran. This potential de-escalation, combined with a “secular bull market” in tech, has kept investors focused on bottom-line growth over geopolitical noise.

Fortinet’s Hardware Revival Is Real

9:25 am — FTNT +14.0% in pre-market trading

Yesterday was a good day to own Fortinet (FTNT +23.10%), and maybe even profitable depending on where you bought it. (My track record there hasn’t been awesome.) The company reported Q1 results that were so far ahead of what analysts expected that the stock jumped around 17% in after-hours trading. That kind of gap between what people expected and what actually happened is worth paying attention to, not because it makes you feel clever for noticing, but because it suggests the business is doing something real. OT security billings up over 70%, free cash flow over a billion dollars in one quarter … this is not a company limping along. Now the question is whether it can keep delivering against the very high bar it just set for itself.

PRODUCT (HARDWARE)

Product revenue came in at $645 million in Q1 2026, up 41% from $459 million in Q1 2025. That’s the faster-growing half of the business right now, driven by demand for higher-performance FortiGate appliances, AI infrastructure build-outs, and OT security deployments. Pricing changes had a low single-digit impact on product revenue growth meaning the volume underneath the headline number was even stronger than it looks. On the billings side, secure networking billings grew 32% and OT billings grew over 70%, both of which flow through as product-adjacent demand.

Product was 35% of total revenue this quarter, up from about 30% in Q1 2025, so the mix is shifting noticeably toward hardware.

SERVICE

Service revenue came in at $1,205 million, up 11% from $1,081 million a year earlier. That’s the slower-growing piece right now, but the leading indicators are pointing the right direction: service billings growth reaccelerated to 27%, and deferred revenue increased 15%, driven in part by SecOps growth. AI-driven security operations billings specifically grew 23%.

Service was 65% of total revenue this quarter, down from ~70% a year ago — hence the mix shift. The CFO flagged this directly on the call, noting the conversion from service billings into recognized revenue just takes time because contracts are recognized ratably.

Today’s Change

(23.10%) $20.78

Current Price

$110.73

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$67B

Day’s Range

$104.55 – $112.38

52wk Range

$70.12 – $112.38

Volume

420K

Avg Vol

6.1M

Gross Margin

80.46%

Morgan Stanley Undercuts Rivals With Crypto Push

8:30 am — MS -0.13% in pre-market trading

Morgan Stanley (MS 1.05%) is aggressively expanding its digital asset footprint by launching spot cryptocurrency trading on its E*Trade platform. By opening the service to 8 million customers at a competitive fee of half a cent per dollar traded, the bank is directly undercutting rivals like Charles Schwab (SCHW 1.67%). While many major institutions have remained on the sidelines due to regulatory ambiguity, Morgan Stanley is leaning into a friendlier domestic political climate and the potential passage of the Clarity Act. The move follows the April launch of the bank’s own Bitcoin fund, which has already attracted $231 million, signaling a major institutional push into crypto despite a recent market downturn that has pressured tokens like Bitcoin and Ether.

• Mainstreaming the Asset Class: This rollout marks a rare instance of a top-tier U.S. bank offering direct “spot” trading rather than just ETFs, effectively blurring the lines between traditional brokerage and crypto exchanges.
• Pricing as a Moat: The aggressive fee structure leverages E*Trade’s massive scale to capture market share from specialized crypto platforms, potentially forcing a broader fee compression across the industry.

DoorDash’s Revenue Miss Doesn’t Tell the Story

8:15 am — DASH +9.86% in pre-market trading

DoorDash (DASH +2.26%) delivered a quarter that leaned heavily on scale and acquisitions to keep its growth story intact, even as the costs of that strategy pressed on margins and cash flow. Revenue climbed 33% to $4.04 billion, lifted in large part by the late-2025 acquisition of British delivery firm Deliveroo, and total orders rose 27% to 933 million. Marketplace gross order value, the total dollar value of food and goods sold across the platform, jumped 37% to $31.6 billion, suggesting the company is not just adding orders but capturing larger ones, particularly in faster-growing grocery and retail categories.

The trade-off shows up below the top line. Diluted EPS slipped to $0.42 from $0.44 a year earlier because integration costs from Deliveroo, a $50 million driver gas-relief program, and continued spending on autonomous delivery and AI weighed on profits. Free cash flow fell 15% to $420 million for the same reason, and net revenue margin compressed to 12.8%. Management held its full-year outlook for modest margin gains but made it clear that heavy investment will continue, which puts the burden on the company to prove these bets eventually translate into operating leverage.

This Morning’s Breakfast News

7:30 am — ARM -6.91% in pre-market trading

Arm Holdings (ARM 7.66%) fell over 6% in pre-market trading as results warned of slower growth in the smartphone market due to a memory chip shortage, even as the outlook for AI data center growth was upgraded, providing an insight for the major tech companies that rely on Arm’s services.

• CEO sees unit growth for phones “flip to negative”: The shortage of memory chips was a key factor as Rene Haas flagged the slowdown in the smartphone division, an area it still relies on significantly for revenue. Arm provides the computing architecture that powers the iPhone for Apple (AAPL +1.20%).
• New Arm CPU has over $2 billion of customer demand across the next two financial years: The move to start to sell homegrown chips has been well received, with it being able to build on its existing scale in the cloud. The company has a 50% market share of the CPU compute market among top hyperscalers, including Amazon (AMZN 0.54%) and Alphabet (GOOG 0.32%).

Energy Drink Wars: Celsius Hits Record High

7:25 am — CELH +4.60% in pre-market trading

Celsius Holdings (CELH +5.52%) shares charged higher in premarket trading following a blockbuster first quarter that saw revenue skyrocket 137.7% to a record $782.6 million. The performance was largely fueled by a 144% surge in North American sales, as the company’s strategic alignment with PepsiCo (PEP 0.22%) continues to pay massive dividends. While the core Celsius brand saw a steady 6% uptick, the real story was the explosive growth of Alani Nu, which delivered $368.1 million in quarterly sales. This jump reflects the massive scale unlocked as Alani Nu transitioned into the expansive Pepsi distribution network, further solidifying the partnership’s dominance in the functional energy category.

• Distribution Powerhouse Synergy: Moving Alani Nu into the PepsiCo system has front-loaded orders and widened retail availability, proving the immense value of Pepsi’s logistics moat for smaller brands.
• Portfolio Diversification: With Rockstar Energy contributing over $66 million, the broadening stable of energy brands under the Pepsi umbrella is successfully capturing diverse consumer segments beyond traditional caffeine seekers.

Celsius Holdings

Today’s Change

(5.52%) $1.81

Current Price

$34.61

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$8.4B

Day’s Range

$32.46 – $35.00

52wk Range

$31.80 – $66.74

Volume

343K

Avg Vol

6.7M

Gross Margin

49.20%

Today’s Take: PayPal Earnings: Win or Lose?

6:45 am — PYPL -0.43% in pre-market trading

Here’s a sneak preview, but head to the article to share whether you think PayPal beats the market over the next five years, or to submit questions to any of the featured analysts today!

My takeaway from PayPal‘s (PYPL +1.68%) Q1 is that the parts of the business growing fastest earn the least per dollar of volume. Branded checkout, where PayPal makes the most on every transaction, grew just 2%. On the other hand, Venmo grew 14% and enterprise Braintree grew mid-teens, but both run at much lower take rates (albeit Venmo’s monetization is slightly improving).

So even though total payment volume grew 11%, the blended take rate slipped and transaction margin dollars only grew 3%. That imbalance is why I’d stop watching for branded checkouts to reaccelerate against Apple (AAPL +1.20%) Pay and Stripe. What I care about is whether Enrique Lores can monetize Venmo harder and sell more high-margin add-ons to Braintree merchants to offset this gap.

Today’s Change

(1.68%) $0.78

Current Price

$47.05

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$42B

Day’s Range

$46.40 – $47.06

52wk Range

$38.46 – $79.50

Volume

264K

Avg Vol

20M

Gross Margin

41.78%

Dividend Yield

0.61%

Memory Stocks Fly as Scarcity Continues

6:00 am — MU -1.10% in pre-market trading

Micron Technology (MU +0.55%) closed over 4% higher yesterday, with Western Digital (WDC 2.80%) not far behind, as memory sector stocks continue to rally amid chip shortages and continued AI demand.

• Mag 7 earnings detail higher capex spending: The jump over recent days can be partly attributed to big tech companies actions, with Microsoft (MSFT +2.74%) raising its capex forecast for the year by $25 billion, with Meta (META +1.84%) adding $10 billion. Both spoke of higher component costs as the justification.
• Micron due to generate 80 cents of gross profit for each dollar of revenue in 2026: Companies in the sector are able to have strong pricing power due to the current market backdrop, although some are cautious about the future prospects given historical volatility in related stocks.

Micron Technology

Today’s Change

(0.55%) $3.66

Current Price

$670.25

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$752B

Day’s Range

$641.00 – $683.08

52wk Range

$83.36 – $683.08

Volume

667K

Avg Vol

42M

Gross Margin

58.54%

Dividend Yield

0.07%

ICYMI: Wednesday’s Scoreboard

5:15 am — DOCS -0.23% in pre-market trading

Doximity (DOCS +2.18%) was the subject of the latest Scoreboard video.

Before the Opening Bell

5:00 am

U.S. stock futures extended their record-shattering climb Thursday as Wall Street braced for a potential geopolitical breakthrough. Iran is expected to deliver its 14-point response to a U.S.-led peace proposal today, a move that could permanently end a 10-week conflict and has already dragged crude oil prices back toward $94. While diplomacy buoys sentiment, fresh labor data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas revealed that artificial intelligence is no longer a peripheral threat to the workforce, having led all reasons for job cuts in April. As investors digest weekly jobless claims–forecasted at 205,000–the focus remains on whether AI’s productivity gains can offset a cooling labor market ahead of Friday’s monthly payrolls report.

• Tech Giants Lead the Charge: Buoyant sentiment in the chip sector continues to lift Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 1.37%) and Nvidia (NVDA +2.41%), with investors betting that a de-escalation in the Middle East will secure vital semiconductor supply chains.
• The AI Displacement Reality: April’s layoff data confirms a strategic pivot by major employers like Meta (META +1.84%) and Alphabet (GOOG 0.32%), which are reallocating headcount budgets toward AI infrastructure and automated agents.