Like skinny jeans and crop tops, Intel is making a comeback. The old school tech giant just posted earnings that obliterated expectations: Adjusted EPS came in at $0.29, far above the $0.01 Wall Street expected, while revenue rose 7.2% year over year, snapping a streak of declines in five of the past seven quarters.

Guidance for the current quarter came in well above estimates as its data center business continues to grow. Revenue in its data center segment jumped 22% last quarter as AI workloads shifted from training massive models to running agents—pushing demand beyond GPUs (long dominated by Nvidia) and back toward CPUs, Intel’s core business.

The firm is also benefiting from its advanced packaging capabilities: According to CNBC, it’s one of just three chipmakers in the world able to connect multiple chip dies into a unified system.

The ripple effect

While Intel enjoyed a 23.64% surge today—one of its largest single-day gains on record—some other names were lifted by the news as well:

• The US government: After backing Intel as part of its domestic chip push last year, Washington’s $8 billion investment (in exchange for a 9.9% stake) has ballooned to roughly $38 billion—an unrealized gain of nearly $30 billion.
• AMD: Shares jumped 13.91% as Intel’s results reinforced that CPU demand is holding up. Fellow CPU maker Arm Holdings also rose 14.76%.
• Don’t forget about the internet’s favorite punching bag: One guy put his grandma’s $800k inheritance into Intel two years ago, got relentlessly mocked as shares sank, and—if he held—is now sitting on about $1 million in profit. Who’s laughing now?

Wall Street weighs in

For those of you wishing you’d done the same, some Wall Street analysts think there could still be room for Intel to run, even after a 123.77% rally this year and an 84% climb in 2025.

Evercore analyst Mark Lipacis upgraded Intel to Outperform, arguing AI could become far more CPU-heavy, and highlighting a stronger balance sheet and US policy tailwinds. Meanwhile, Jefferies’ Blayne Curtis maintained a Hold, looking for clearer traction with large customers and more progress in the company’s foundry business, but noted that AI momentum is starting to overshadow many of Intel’s earlier concerns.

Morgan Stanley’s Joseph Moore, on the other hand, is less optimistic, and flagged that the vast majority of Intel’s CPUs still sit outside data centers, meaning AI tailwinds only apply to part of the business. He also raised concerns around the structure and visibility of Elon Musk’s Terafab project and Intel’s role in it.

Either way, it comes down to whether the latest AI trade trend actually sticks. If demand structurally shifts from GPUs toward CPUs, that provides real upside for companies like Intel and AMD. So instead of blowing your inheritance on that Ferrari or shiny new watch, maybe follow in that Redditor’s footsteps and make grandma proud.—SY

🟢 What’s up

• TSMC popped 5.17% to a record high as Taiwan moved to loosen limits on funds’ allocations to single stocks.
• SAP rose 7.33% as the German software giant beat first-quarter profit expectations and reiterated its 2026 cloud revenue outlook.
• Electronic hardware company MaxLinear surged 76.12% after it reported strong Q1 results, raised full-year guidance, and revealed major hyperscale orders for its next-gen networking products.
• Organon climbed 30.93% on reports that Sun Pharma is preparing a $13 billion offer for the pharmaceutical company.
• Hims & Hers Health gained 8.56% as JPMorgan initiated coverage at Overweight, citing the Novo Nordisk partnership as a potential turning point.
• Procter & Gamble rose 2.46% after beating earnings and revenue estimates, with product volumes growing for the first time in a year.

What’s down

• Comcast fell 13.04% as Deutsche Bank downgraded the stock to Hold, arguing that the company looks stable but is no longer positioned for meaningful growth.
• Charter Communications dropped 25.5% after it reported losing 120,000 internet subscribers and 60,000 video subscribers last quarter. Liberty Broadband, which owns over a quarter of Charter’s common stock, was dragged 25.73% lower as well.
• Eli Lilly slid 3.67% as early prescription data pointed to a soft launch for its GLP-1 pill Foundayo.
• HCA Healthcare declined 8.77% after higher costs, weaker surgeries, and a milder flu season weighed on first-quarter results.
• Education company Coursera sank 11.56% after disappointing Q1 results and weak guidance for the current quarter.

Would you let a robot make investment decisions for you? What about an army of them?

Instacart co-founder Apoorva Mehta just launched a hedge fund called Abundance. What makes this one unlike all the others is that it uses thousands of AI bots instead of portfolio managers to find investment ideas, research stocks, and even execute trades. So…basically everything a human advisor would do.

“Even for the exceptional investor, the process is locked inside their mind. AI changes that entirely,” Mehta told Bloomberg.

While hedge funds and quant traders have been incorporating AI into their investment process for years, Abundance is taking it to the next level by cutting humans out of the process pretty much entirely. The question now is whether this army of bots can really outpace indexes, or if it’s just another fad.

With or without the heavy hand of robots, hedge funds already have a hard time beating the broader market—in fact, the average hedge fund has underperformed the S&P 500 over the past two decades. Mehta might be inadvertently confirming a suspicion many hold about hedge funds: portfolio managers don’t really have any secret sauce when it comes to stock picking.

On the bright side, if you’re one of the many people now using ChatGPT to pick stocks or manage finances, it turns out the wealthiest are doing pretty much the same thing. Hey, if you’re outsourcing your grocery shopping, why not outsource your entire portfolio?—LB

Companies are laying on the layoffs lately, and the body count is particularly high in tech.

According to Layoffs.fyi, 81,272 tech workers have gotten the boot in 2026—more than half the 124,201 cuts logged in all of 2025. And no, it’s not because bots are coming for everyone’s jobs, since only 6% of positions are expected to be automated by 2030, according to Forrester Research.

The bigger problem is that these companies have poured billions into ramping up their AI infrastructure, and are now being forced to make up those margins by trimming headcount. It’s gotten so bad that some companies are using buyouts to coax employees toward the exit, while temp hiring jumped 9% between February and March to pick up the slack on the cheap.

These layoffs are tough not only for the throngs scouring Linkedin, but an ominous sign that the US economy is starting to crack. Although the Federal Reserve is focused on battling inflation and the effects of the war in Iran, a wobbly job market may soon add to their headaches. Here’s a snapshot of the layoff landscape:

• Meta plans to slash 10% of its workforce (about 8,000 employees) on May 20, with more cuts potentially coming later this year. Back in January, the social media giant cut 10% (1,500 employees) from its virtual reality division.
• Oracle laid off 30,000 employees on March 31, about 18% of its global workforce, to free up $8—$10 billion in annual cash flow for the $50 billion going toward AI this year.
• Amazon has laid off a total of 30,000 employees in multiple rounds of layoffs from October through January—the largest workforce reduction in the company’s history.
• Microsoft had multiple rounds of layoffs in 2025, cutting 15,000 employees. On May 7, the company will roll out its first-ever voluntary buyouts targeting 7% of its staff—mainly senior directors and workers below that level whose years of employment and age add up to 70+.
• Snap, maker of Snapchat, slashed 16% of its employees, or roughly 1,000 people, in April.

How layoffs hit stocks: In the short term, stocks often rise, since shareholders see cuts as an easy way to trim costs. This time, however, the results are mixed. Meta and Microsoft dipped, while Snap and Amazon inched up. In other words, job cuts are no longer a guarantee of a stock pop, as investors fret over the effects of enormous AI spending.

What’s next: Layoffs don’t look like they’re easing up anytime soon, but the outlook isn’t entirely grim. Forrester forecasts that over the next five years, AI could actually expand 20% of jobs rather than replace them. Take it as just one more sign that cozying up to Claude will keep your paychecks coming.—JD

• The AI financing circle is still circling: Google will invest about $40 billion in Anthropic.
• In more circular news, Meta struck a deal with Amazon for CPUs to power AI.
• The government is prosecuting a special forces sergeant for using inside knowledge of the capture of Nicolás Maduro to make over $400,000 on Polymarket.
• Tesla is about to splash out more in capital spending this year than it ever has. Here’s why that might not be the greatest idea.
• Consumer sentiment is sitting at record lows, below where it fell during the Covid pandemic.
• Jane Street reported $39.6 billion of trading revenue last year, a Wall Street record.

Monday: Verizon, Cadence Design Systems, and Domino’s Pizza kick off a wild week of earnings.

Tuesday: Visa, Coca-Cola, Novartis, T-Mobile US, Welltower, Corning, Booking Holdings, S&P Global, BP, Starbucks, Spotify, UPS, Sherwin-Williams, Barclays, Ecolab, Hilton, Robinhood Markets, Mondelez, Vale, General Motors, Teradyne, NXP Semiconductors, Sysco, and Kimberly-Clark keep the earnings train on the tracks. We’ve also got the S&P Case-Shiller home price index and an April consumer confidence reading.

Wednesday: Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta are the Magnificent highlights of an extremely big day for earnings. They’ll be joined by AbbVie, AstraZeneca, KLA, Amphenol, Qualcomm, UBS, GSK, Carvana, Automatic Data Processing, Mercedes-Benz, Ford, Old Dominion Freight Line, eBay, Porsche, Universal Music Group, and Adidas. Investors should also keep an eye on durable goods orders, a report on housing starts and building permits, and of course, the FOMC’s latest interest rate decision.

Thursday: Apple headlines yet another big day of earnings, followed by Samsung Electronics, Eli Lilly, Mastercard, Caterpillar, Merck & Co., Amgen, ConocoPhillips, Sandisk, Western Digital, DBS, Parker-Hannifin, Bristol Myers Squibb, BNP Paribas, Altria, Agnico Eagle Mines, ING, Royal Caribbean Cruises, L3Harris Technologies, Societe Generale, Standard Chartered, Volkswagen, Hershey, Reddit, Stellantis, and Blue Owl Capital. Initial jobless claims, a reading of Q1 GDP, and the March PCE report are all highlights worth watching.

Friday: Exxon Mobil, Moderna, Chevron, Linde, Colgate-Palmolive, Estée Lauder, and Dominion Energy wrap up what is sure to be yet another wild week.