Walmart flagged cautious consumers, and the market flagged Walmart right back. Moderna’s historic 177% rally on Wednesday reversed hard as the short squeeze unwound.
Today’s edition covers the retail concern, the biotech reversal, and a crypto move that ran counter to the grain.
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Markets
Walmart posted its slowest US same-store sales growth since 2020 after management said shoppers are "making choices between necessities," a phrase that hit consumer stocks hard and sent American Express, Home Depot, and Amazon all down over 2%.
Moderna's 177% Wednesday gain was powered partly by a short squeeze on 13.7% short interest, and Thursday's 23% retreat is that squeeze finishing its work; the mRNA cancer vaccine data with Merck is still real, the price just got a bit ahead of it.
Trump met crypto executives at the White House and backed industry-friendly legislation, sending Bitcoin to $72,600 while Strategy, Coinbase, and American Bitcoin all jumped.
US debt crossed $40 trillion for the first time; Bessent called it "nothing magic" and promised bond buybacks above $4 billion per operation, though the 30-year yield hit 5.25% anyway.
DJIA [-1.32%]
S&P 500 [-0.87%]
Nasdaq [-1.00%]
Russell 2000 [-1.36%]
Defense & Aerospace
Amentum Lands $974 Million NASA Deal
Amentum secured a $974 million NASA contract for maintenance and engineering services at Langley Research Center in Virginia, extending a relationship with the agency that spans more than six decades and covering research systems including wind tunnels, laboratories and utilities.
The work also includes project management, construction oversight, pressure-system recertification and infrastructure modernization, giving Amentum a long-duration role supporting some of NASA’s core research facilities while adding another sizable federal contract to its engineering backlog.
Sypris Wins Next-Generation Satellite Manufacturing Work
Sypris Solutions landed a satellite power-unit manufacturing contract, with subsidiary Sypris Electronics handling engineering, materials procurement and high-volume production as protoflight and pilot builds begin in the third quarter of 2026.
Flight-unit deliveries are scheduled through mid-2028, while the program requires Sypris to establish specialized manufacturing, testing and integration capacity for orbital power systems, expanding the company’s role across commercial and government space missions.
Energy Infrastructure & Digital Power
MARA Makes a Bigger Move Into AI Power
MARA Holdings agreed to acquire Long Ridge Energy, expanding its access to large-scale power infrastructure as the company pushes beyond Bitcoin mining and builds capacity for high-performance computing and AI workloads.
The deal strengthens MARA’s effort to turn its energy assets into a broader digital-infrastructure business, adding to a network that already includes 19 data centers and a roughly 2-gigawatt Texas site.
LandBridge’s Texas Shift Opens Another Door
LandBridge drew fresh attention after its planned Texas corporate conversion moved into focus alongside the company’s growing Permian Basin land and infrastructure business, with the restructuring potentially widening its eligibility for major U.S. indexes.
The company also enters the transition with record second-quarter revenue of $66.8 million, up 41% from a year earlier, while maintaining full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance of $210 million to $230 million.
Enterprise IT & Cybersecurity
Connection Gets a Bigger Lane Into Federal IT
Connection won a position on NASA’s Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement VI contract vehicle, expanding the technology provider’s ability to support federal agencies buying infrastructure, software and IT modernization services through one of the government’s major procurement channels.
The award gives Connection another route to compete for federal technology spending as agencies upgrade legacy systems, strengthen cybersecurity and expand cloud and data capabilities, extending the company’s reach beyond its core commercial and public-sector technology distribution business.
Rubrik’s Security Momentum Gets Stronger
Cantor Fitzgerald raised its Rubrik price target to $120 from $95 after partner checks showed a sharp improvement in demand, with every respondent tracking at or above plan and 57% running ahead of expectations for the cybersecurity company’s fiscal second quarter.
The checks also pointed to growing contributions from Rubrik’s Identity Resilience and Agent Cloud products, supporting a business already posting 46% revenue growth as enterprises spend more heavily on cyber resilience, identity protection and recovery infrastructure.
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Services & Restaurants
Starbucks Pushes Its Cost-Cutting Plan Further
Starbucks eliminated 104 positions as it continues a broader corporate restructuring push, including roles tied to store design and construction, while another roughly 120 employees are leaving after declining to relocate from Seattle to the company’s new Nashville office.
The moves bring Starbucks to more than 2,300 corporate job reductions since last year as management works toward $2 billion in cost savings over two years, while the Nashville office is eventually expected to house about 2,000 employees.
DoorDash Gets a Fresh Vote of Confidence
Wolfe Research named DoorDash among its top picks, pointing to resilient consumer demand, grocery expansion, international market-share gains and improving unit economics as drivers that can push revenue growth and 2027 EBITDA above current expectations.
DashPass, autonomous delivery, merchant integrations and advertising remain additional growth engines, while DoorDash enters the next phase after second-quarter revenue climbed 36% to $4.5 billion and its grocery and retail operations continued expanding beyond restaurant delivery.
Retail & Consumer
Cosmos Health Opens a Bigger Saudi Retail Channel
Cosmos Health signed an exclusive Saudi distribution agreement with Innova Healthcare for its Sky Premium Life supplements, giving the company access to pharmacies, retail stores and online channels across Saudi Arabia under an initial five-year deal.
The agreement starts with a 126,000-unit purchase order, while Innova operates more than 250 pharmacies, and Cosmos said it expects orders to exceed 5 million units over the initial five-year term as the brand expands its consumer-health reach.
BJ’s Gets a Fresh Test of Its Value Strategy
BJ’s Wholesale Club heads into Friday’s quarterly report with Wall Street expecting earnings of $1.17 per share on $5.97 billion in revenue, as analysts look for evidence that the warehouse retailer’s pricing investments are restoring stronger comparable-store growth.
Attention is also on BJ’s Texas expansion, where its first four stores have ranked among the company’s strongest openings, while its 20% to 25% price advantage versus conventional grocers remains central to attracting cost-conscious shoppers.
Top Winners and Losers
Wetour Robotics [WETO] $27.52 (+32.59%)
Wetour Robotics makes intelligent transportation and logistics automation systems. The company completed a 1-for-100 reverse split in early August to regain Nasdaq compliance, and the stock has been oscillating between sharp gains and losses as the new float settles.
Today’s 33% move reflects institutional positioning in a name where the post-split mechanics still dominate price formation over any single business development.
ARB IOT Group [ARBB] $5.30 (+30.86%)
ARB IOT Group is a Singapore-based IoT solutions provider that ran 25% today on 50 times its average daily volume — that kind of relative volume for a company with this market cap almost always signals a specific institutional or strategic buyer rather than retail momentum.
The company’s IoT platform serves enterprise and industrial connectivity applications.
MindForge [MF] $18.11 (+22.36%)
MindForge provides commercial services through an AI-powered workforce platform that helps organizations manage field teams, compliance, and service delivery.
The stock jumped 22% today on light volume as the company builds momentum from its positioning at the intersection of enterprise software and AI labor tools — a category getting investor attention as the AI infrastructure selloff sends capital toward software names that monetize the workforce rather than the hardware.
Profusa [PFSA] $7.57 (-44.22%)
Profusa makes implantable biosensors for continuous metabolic monitoring. The stock was up 491% on Tuesday when the Amylyx PBH trial win sent metabolic-adjacent companies into a frenzy of speculative buying.
Two days later, it’s down 44% as that frenzy evaporates. The sensor technology is real and has genuine long-term applications — the Tuesday move just had nothing to do with Profusa specifically.
Tenon Medical [TNON] $7.07 (-38.04%)
Tenon Medical makes the Catamaran SI joint fusion system for sacroiliac joint pain. The company completed a 1-for-35 reverse split in early August, and yesterday ran over 100% on Q2 results showing 127% revenue growth and FDA clearance for an updated device.
Today the split mechanics and reality of the balance sheet — negative equity, convertible notes maturing this year, $4.1M Q2 net loss — are pulling the price back toward what the fundamentals actually support.
Moderna [MRNA] $133.32 (-23.55%)
Moderna and Merck announced positive Phase 3 results for their personalized mRNA cancer vaccine on Wednesday — genuinely important data, the first ever late-stage trial for this approach. The stock surged 177%, the biggest single-day S&P 500 gain in 25 years.
Thursday’s 23% pullback is the short squeeze unwinding: 13.7% of Moderna’s float was short heading into Wednesday, and as those shorts covered, the stock moved far beyond what the clinical data alone justified. The mRNA cancer thesis is intact. The pricing is normalizing. Neutral rated.
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Everything Else
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✈️ China’s exports of a key aerospace rare earth to the U.S. increased, easing some supply concerns around a material critical to aircraft and defense manufacturing.
📉 U.S. stocks fell as an early rally in Treasury bonds quickly faded, putting renewed pressure on Wall Street as investors weighed the interest-rate outlook.
🧲 Rare earths are back in focus as U.S. supplies from China rise, highlighting the importance of these materials across advanced manufacturing and aerospace.
📺 Charter Communications finalized its $34.5 billion takeover of Cox Communications, expanding Spectrum’s reach to millions more customers.
💵 The government could further expand its newly upsized bond buybacks as officials respond to pressure in the U.S. Treasury market.
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