Advanced Micro Devices will “effectively guarantee” a $300 million loan to data center company Crusoe from Goldman Sachs, according to The Information.

That is, Crusoe is taking out a loan to purchase AMD’s chips, and the chips that it’s purchasing are being used as collateral for that loan.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that this sounds an awful lot like a very common form of borrowing done by American families: borrowing money to buy a house, and having the home be collateral for the mortgage.

One big difference, of course, is that your home is expected to appreciate in value, while AI chips are expected to depreciate in value as they’re used. (The silver lining, however, is that so far these processors haven’t lost value too quickly.)

Another difference is that AMD, per the report, has agreed to rent these chips from Crusoe if it can’t find customers for this compute, which helped reduced the interest rate Crusoe will pay on this loan.

Similarly, in September, Nvidia agreed to buy any of CoreWeave’s unused cloud computing capacity through April 13, 2032, for $6.3 billion.

Rather than get overly hung up on “circular financing” elements, I’d probably frame the issue here like this: everyone wants AI chips. AMD sells AI chips. And yet, in both this deal and the most high-profile one we know about (AMD’s pact with OpenAI), the chip designer seems to be having to go the extra mile to get companies to use its AI chips. You might recall that as part of the OpenAI agreement, AMD issued warrants that enable the ChatGPT developer to receive 160 million shares, or about 10% of the company, if certain operational and stock price targets are hit over time.

Why is it so tough to get buyers on normal terms? My guess would be that this either says something negative about the financing environment for AI startups or the perception of AMD’s AI chips.

Rental car company Avis shed roughly $1 billion in market cap on Thursday as its stock fell more than 23% following the company’s Q4 results, which CEO Brian Choi called “unacceptable.”

Avis’ adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization came in at $5 million on the quarter, a massive miss compared to the $145.4 million expected by Wall Street analysts polled by FactSet.

Avis said commercial rental days fell 11% in November, as thousands of flights were canceled amid the government shutdown. That led Avis to reduce its fleet size in Q4, “the most difficult period to sell used vehicles.” The company also took a $500 million write-down on its EV fleet at year-end.

“When operational performance speaks for itself, we earn the right to focus on the bigger picture. This quarter, we didn’t earn that right. We fell significantly short of guidance. That’s unacceptable, and I have no excuses to offer,” Choi said on the company’s earnings call.

Avis said it expects lower earnings in the first quarter of 2026, as January was also impacted by weather-related flight cancellations. Rival Hertz was dragged down in the sell-off, dropping more than 14%.

Ad tech company AppLovin has designs on starting a social networking platform of its own after it was unable to get its hands on TikTok’s US operations.

Shares are up today on the heels of a massive gain on Wednesday, though it’s unclear whether this has much to do with this potential foray or if traders are aiming to call a bottom in the stock after last week’s post-earnings tumble took shares below $360 for the first time since July.

These social plans were discussed in a podcast days ago, and the company has had a job posting for a software engineer to build this platform, though a Bloomberg headline on the subject was only shared this morning.

“We aim to build a completely new next-generation social media platform,” Chief Product and Engineering Officer Giovanni Ge said on the “Valley 101” podcast.

He described the course the company is charting as the opposite of Meta’s, which started by gathering eyeballs and then built advertising around it.

Presumably, such a venture would give AppLovin more digital real estate to run ads, and any data it collects from its users may be useful in offering better targeted ads on other apps.

Last April, CNBC’s Marc Faber reported that the ad tech firm had made an offer for TikTok, and that the Trump administration had been “fully aware” of its interest.

AppLovin’s post-earnings swoon last week, despite solid Q4 results and a better-than-expected Q1 outlook, came as investors have worried about competitive threats to its business from new AI entrants as well as Meta.

A jump in call activity has propelled shares of Super Micro Computer sharply higher, above their 50-day moving average.

As of 10:45 a.m. ET, call volumes of 114,333 are on track to handily surpass the 20-day average of 166,558 for a full session (a period that encompasses the release of its quarterly results earlier this month).

The action has a bullish tilt, with a put/call ratio of less than 0.16 compared to a 20-day average of 0.38. Call options that expire this Friday and next Friday with strike prices between $32 and $33.50 are seeing the most activity.

The AI server company’s post-earnings bounce had been short-lived, with shares returning to near a 52-week low before today’s surge.

Buy now, pay later, issue guidance that Wall Street likes even later.

Shares of Klarna are tumbling in early trading after the fintech payments company’s Q1 outlook came in below analysts’ projections.

Management sees Q1 revenues between $900 million and $980 million, the midpoint of which is below Wall Street’s call for $965.1 million. The company’s range for gross merchandise value in the current quarter of $32 billion to $33 billion is fully below the consensus estimate for $33.37 billion.

(Gross merchandise value is the dollar figure associated with all purchases made via Klarna’s different modes of payment.)

This disappointing outlook outweighed a solid set of Q4 top-line results. Revenues of $1.08 billion came in $10 million above expectations, gross merchandise volume beat estimates at $38.7 billion (consensus: $38.06 billion), and active consumers of 118 million were nearly a full million above what Wall Street had penciled in.

The stock is poised to open at an all-time low.

Palantir is lower in premarket trading amid news that the stock has been removed from Bank of America’s US 1 List.

That list is the best of the best: the subset of “buy”-rated stocks that BofA selects as its top US-listed investment ideas.

Between this news, Michael Burry, and, well, just the share price, it certainly seems like investor sentiment has decisively shifted on the once high-flying AI retail darling.

Palantir recently traded at its biggest discount to Wall Street’s average price target since late 2022.

SIUUUUUU!

Herbalife is soaring in premarket trading after announcing that longtime partner Cristiano Ronaldo has invested $7.5 million into one of its subsidiaries.

The football/soccer legend acquired a 10% equity interest in Herbalife’s HBL Pro2col in a deal that also sees him commit to providing services and sponsorship rights to this entity.

Pro2col offers individualized health and wellness tips based on user-input information, data from wearable tech, DNA analysis, and more.

Herbalife reached a deal to acquire these assets in March 2025. At that time, Ronaldo was tapped as an adviser who would be supporting the development and deployment of this technology. He’s endorsed Herbalife products since 2013.

The company made this announcement along with the release of Q4 earnings, which were mixed to roughly in line with estimates.

Used car retailer Carvana plummeted after fourth-quarter profits came in shy of estimates.

Adjusted EBITDA of $511 million came in below the consensus call for $535.7 million, more than offsetting better-than-expected sales of $5.6 billion (estimate: $5.27 billion).

Carvana sold 163,522 used vehicles to retail customers in the quarter, up 43% from last year and ahead of expectations. With that result, Carvana further closes its retail sales gap with rival CarMax, which sold 169,557 vehicles in its most recent quarter.

Carvana posted a retail gross profit per vehicle of $3,076, down 7.7% from the same period last year. In a letter to shareholders, Carvana said its reconditioning costs came in higher than expected in Q4, which led to an additional impact on retail gross profit per unit. Lower shipping fee revenue, higher non-vehicle costs, and higher industrywide retail depreciation rates also drove the decline, the company said.

Carvana said it expects to see elevated reconditioning costs again in the first quarter, but expects a sequential increase in retail GPU. Carvana said it expects “significant growth in both retail units sold and Adjusted EBITDA” in the first quarter and full year ahead.

As of Wednesday’s close, Carvana shares were down about 24% since an all-time closing high in January, after a report from short seller Gotham City questioning its accounting practices sent the stock reeling. A Carvana spokesperson told Sherwood News that the report was “inaccurate and intentionally misleading.”

DoorDash reported earnings results that missed Wall Street expectations and provided underwhelming earnings guidance Wednesday after the bell, which it attributed to harsh weather and increased spending. The stock rebounded in premarket trading on Thursday.

For the final three months of 2025, DoorDash reported:

• Earnings per share of $0.48, compared to the $0.59 analysts polled by FactSet were expecting.

• Revenue of $3.9 billion, in line with the $3.9 billion analysts were penciling in.

• Gross order value (the total amount spent on the platform) of $29.7 billion, compared to the $29.2 billion analysts were expecting.

For the current quarter, the company expects:

• GOV between $31.0 billion and $31.8 billion, versus the $30.7 billion analysts are expecting.

• Adjusted EBITDA between $675 million and $775 million, far below the $801.9 million analysts are expecting. The company said spending on Deliveroo, its recent UK acquisition, as well as extreme winter weather in the US are weighing on its profit guidance.

Shares fell as much as 11% following the release of its results on Wednesday, before climbing as much as 13% in Thursday’s early trading, recovering its losses. The stock is down more than 15% so far this year.

DoorDash’s costs have gone up as it ramps up investment in autonomous delivery and international expansion, among other things. “This is a massive and expensive undertaking and honestly one you shouldn’t do if you thought your best days were behind you,” CEO Tony Xu said in a letter to shareholders.

Ethan Feller, a strategist at Zacks Investment Research, said the underlying business remains strong even if the stock faces pressure in the near term.

“None of these are structural issues, but soft guidance is soft guidance — and the market rarely gives credit for context when a stock is already under pressure,” he said.

Figma reported Q4 results that exceeded Wall Street’s expectations and robust sales guidance for the current quarter and full year.

Shares are spiking in after-hours trading.

For the final three months of 2025, the digital design and development platform company reported:

• Revenue of $303.8 million, compared to the $293.1 million analysts were penciling in.

• Adjusted earnings per share of $0.08, compared to the $0.07 analysts polled by Bloomberg expected.

For sales, management expects:

• Q1 revenue between $315 million and $317 million (estimate: $293.6 million).

• Full-year revenue between $1.366 billion and $1.374 billion (estimate: $1.29 billion).

The lower ends of these ranges are above the highest analyst sales estimates for both Q1 and 2026 as a whole.

This marks the company’s second earnings report since going public over the summer. Its share price has taken a hit this year alongside many of its software peers, and management will be looking to show that AI can be an accelerant, rather than a threat, to its business. On Tuesday, Figma announced a partnership with Anthropic to integrate AI coding tools.

“Our healthy balance sheet and positive free cash flow gives us the flexibility to continue investing in AI and the platform while maintaining financial discipline for sustainable, long-term growth,” CFO Praveer Melwani said in the press release.

As of the close on Wednesday, the stock was down 35% for the year and roughly 80% below its closing level at the time of its July IPO.

Ethereum is trading below $2,000, a nearly 40% drawdown in the last 30 days and a 60% decline from its all-time high of $4,946 set in August 2025. Despite the pullback, institutions are still expanding their presence in the ethereum ecosystem. 

• BlackRock took a step toward listing its staked ethereum ETF, a Tuesday amendment filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission shows. The financial titan purchased $100,000 worth of seed shares where the proceeds will be used to purchase ethereum. 

• Ethereum’s largest treasury firm, BitMine Immersion Technologies, announced on Tuesday that it acquired 45,759 tokens worth $90.1 million at current prices and increased its staking operations to 3 million tokens, bringing annualized staking revenue to $176 million, a press release stated.

• Meanwhile, Harvard University’s endowment gained exposure to the second-largest cryptocurrency for the first time by purchasing 3.9 million million shares of BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust ETF, worth around $86.8 million, per an SEC filing. Simultaneously, the Harvard Management Company sold about 1.5 million shares of the iShares Bitcoin Trust, decreasing its stake by 21%. 

The changes in institutional exposure to ethereum comes as investor sentiment is at “rock bottom,” according to BitMine Chairman Tom Lee, reminiscent of the forlornness during the 2018 crypto winter and 2022 November lows amid the collapse of the now bankrupt exchange FTX. 

“Crypto has remained weak since the ‘price shock’ and massive deleveraging seen on October 10th. For us at Bitmine, we cannot control the price of Ethereum, and the company is acquiring ETH regardless of price trend, as the long-term outlook for Ethereum remains outstanding,” Lee said in a statement.