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Investors want SpaceX (SPCX) to show that it can grow fast enough to justify its price, and a new deal gives the clearest proof so far.

At the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Technology Conference, Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen said SpaceX closed an artificial intelligence hosting deal worth about $1.11 billion a month. Billing starts Dec. 1, 2026, and the agreement adds roughly $13.3 billion in yearly revenue.

For investors, this win points to a faster, higher-margin path for SpaceX to make money and support its near-$2 trillion valuation.

What SpaceX signed, and how the company makes money

SpaceX builds and launches rockets. It also runs the Starlink satellite internet service that brings in most of its sales, and now rents out AI computing power from large data centers. 

Johnsen said the deal gave SpaceX’s management more conviction about reaching a $100 billion annual recurring revenue target by the end of 2026, Benzinga reported. Annual recurring revenue is the yearly income a company expects from contracts already in place.

SpaceX did not name the customer. This is the company’s fourth major AI hosting deal in recent months. It comes alongside an agreement with Anthropic worth about $1.25 billion a month and one with Google (GOOG) worth roughly $920 million a month, Investing.com reported. 

Together, these deals turn scarce data-center capacity into steady monthly revenue. 

How the new AI deal changes SpaceX’s revenue outlook

In the second quarter, SpaceX was making sales at an annual pace of about $31 billion. Johnsen now says the company can reach $100 billion in annual recurring revenue by year-end, and this contract is a big step toward fulfilling that goal.

SpaceX rents its data-center capacity for about $30 to $50 for each watt of power, and its management says some of these projects pay for themselves in under a year, Yahoo Finance reported. 

Elon Musk has said that with 10 gigawatts of AI computing power, that rate could bring in $300 billion to $500 billion a year. SpaceX plans to grow its ground-based capacity from an expected 2 gigawatts by the end of 2026 to between 5 and 10 gigawatts in 2027.

SpaceX is preparing Starship Flight 14, set to be the rocket’s first revenue-generating mission.Walter Cicchetti / Getty Images

Why Starship’s next flight starts bringing in money

The second reason for hope is Starship, the giant rocket SpaceX has invested more than $15 billion to develop. That investment has brought in little income so far, and that is changing. 

Starship Flight 14, planned for later this month, is set to be the rocket’s first revenue-generating mission, carrying production Version 3 Starlink satellites into orbit.

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“I love the demonstration flights, and now I am excited that we are moving into production cadence,” Johnsen said, according to AviationWeek.

SpaceX wants to launch its first Starmind satellites, which act as small data centers in space, in 2027. Running AI work in orbit gives access to plentiful solar power and easier cooling. Reusable Starship flights would also make it a solid competitor for ground-based data centers.

The risks SpaceX investors still have to consider

Even after the announcement, SPCX stock traded near $151, up only about 2% on the day, which is a small move for a deal this size. 

Many of these hosting agreements run for roughly six months with early-exit options, so the revenue is not locked in, and SpaceX still has to expand its capacity quickly to hit its targets.

Analysts also disagree on valuation. Morningstar calls the stock significantly overvalued and holds a fair value estimate of $62, far below today’s price. Scott Galloway, a New York University marketing professor and widely followed commentator, has argued that SPCX could be worth as little as $10 to $30.

Bulls see it differently. Pivotal Research set a year-end 2027 target of $220, and JPMorgan holds a $240 target, both well above today’s price. The sensible next step is to watch whether Flight 14 succeeds, and whether these hosting deals get renewed.

Related: Morgan Stanley doubles down on SpaceX stock for investors

Chip stocks entered Tuesday, Sept. 15, trying to recover from a sharp sell-off tied to renewed concerns that artificial-intelligence development could slow.

Nvidia (NVDA), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and other semiconductor stocks fell after AI-industry leaders raised concerns about the pace of frontier-model development.

The rebound was uneven around midday on Sept. 15. The PHLX Semiconductor Index was up about 0.3%, with AMD gaining roughly 1.85% to $502.55, Nvidia rising about 0.41% to $211.83, and Marvell Technology (MRVL) adding about 1.63% to $222.38.

Applied Materials (AMAT) fell about 1.36% to $418.45, and Lam Research (LRCX) dropped roughly 2.21% to $267.44.

Bank of America’s latest semiconductor forecast gives investors a much longer time horizon.

BofA semiconductor analyst Vivek Arya and his team raised their estimate for global semiconductor sales through 2030 in a Sept. 14 report shared with TheStreet.

BofA’s preferred names span compute with Nvidia and AMD, networking with Marvell, analog chips with Analog Devices (ADI) and onsemi (ON), and equipment with Lam Research and Applied Materials.

The firm rates all seven Buy. Its price objectives include $350 for Nvidia, $620 for AMD, $365 for Marvell, $385 for Lam Research, and $650 for Applied Materials.

BofA raises 2030 chip market estimate by nearly $470 billion

BofA now expects global semiconductor sales to reach $3.2 trillion in 2030, up from its prior estimate of about $2.7 trillion.

The new forecast implies an 18% compound annual growth rate from 2026 through 2030, compared with 14% previously.

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The industry would nearly double from the roughly $1.7 trillion in semiconductor sales BofA forecasts for 2026.

Memory chips and servers account for much of the increase.

BofA expects memory sales to reach about $1.85 trillion in 2030, up from $937 billion in 2026.

Server semiconductor sales are projected to increase from about $360 billion to $849 billion over the same period.

PCs and smartphones are moving in the opposite direction in the near term.

BofA expects semiconductor sales into PCs to fall about 9% in 2026 and smartphone semiconductor sales to decline roughly 9%, leaving data centers and memory responsible for a much larger share of industry growth.

OpenAI unveils Jalapeño, its first custom chip, designed in-house and built with Broadcom.SweetBunFactory / Getty Images

AI servers and memory carry most of the growth

BofA expects server-chip sales to grow at about 24% annually through 2030, faster than any major end market in its forecast.

Memory is projected to grow about 19% annually over the same period.

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AMD provides one example of the server demand already reaching chip suppliers.

It reported record second-quarter revenue of $11.5 billion, up 50% from a year earlier. Its data-center revenue also more than doubled to $6.7 billion on demand for EPYC server processors and Instinct GPUs.

BofA’s $620 AMD price objective reflects the potential for further share gains in AI accelerators and server processors.

Execution of AMD’s MI400 rack-scale products and the timing of large AI projects remain risks to that target.

Marvell captures another part of AI infrastructure through custom processors and networking chips.

The company reported record fiscal second-quarter revenue of $2.74 billion, up 37% year over year, with data-center revenue rising 46%.

BofA’s $365 target for Marvell reflects improving visibility for major custom-chip projects and continued demand for networking and connectivity inside AI data centers.

Chip factories could spend $360 billion on equipment by 2030

Higher processor and memory demand also requires manufacturers to add factory capacity and more production steps.

BofA raised its 2026 wafer-fab equipment forecast to $156 billion from $144 billion.

It expects spending to reach about $210 billion in 2027 and roughly $360 billion by 2030, compared with its previous 2030 estimate of around $300 billion.

Wafer-fab equipment includes machines that deposit material onto silicon wafers, etch microscopic structures, and perform other steps needed to manufacture processors and memory chips.

Memory drives much of BofA’s latest equipment upgrade.

Related: Burry says AI leaders have ‘nothing to slow down’

The bank expects memory-equipment spending to increase from about $61 billion in 2026 to $85 billion in 2027, primarily because of additional DRAM investment.

High-bandwidth memory used with AI processors adds more manufacturing work.

HBM uses substantially more wafer capacity than conventional DRAM and requires additional stacking and advanced packaging steps.

BofA expects those changes to keep increasing the amount of manufacturing equipment required per wafer through 2028.

The spending directly affects Applied Materials and Lam Research.

BofA previously estimated that global cloud capital spending could reach $1.18 trillion in 2027, creating more demand for processors and memory and eventually pushing chipmakers to expand factories.

Applied Materials reported record fiscal third-quarter revenue of $9.12 billion, up 25% year over year.

The company also said it expected strong demand in DRAM, leading-edge foundry and logic, and advanced packaging.

BofA’s $650 price objective for Applied Materials assumes semiconductor equipment spending continues expanding through 2026 and 2027. 

Lam Research has heavier exposure to the deposition and etch processes used in memory and advanced processors.

It reported record June-quarter revenue of $6.72 billion, up 15.1% sequentially.

BofA’s $385 target is based on Lam’s exposure to memory investment and leading-edge foundry and logic production, as well as the increasing number of etch and deposition steps required to manufacture more complex chips.

Equipment orders and memory prices are the key risks

The semiconductor index remains about 6% lower over the past five trading days, even after the modest Sept. 15 rebound, showing that investors have not fully dismissed concerns about the durability of AI spending.

Demand outside AI also remains uneven.

BofA expects wireless communications semiconductor sales to fall about 8% in 2026 and consumer semiconductor sales to decline about 7%. PC and smartphone demand are also expected to contract.

The bank has yet to see evidence of a broader AI hardware slowdown.

BofA said customer orders, long-term agreements, capacity commitments, and semiconductor pricing remain firm. It described 2027 as largely booked or contracted across compute, networking, and memory suppliers.

Those indicators provide concrete tests for the forecast.

Falling equipment orders would show that chipmakers are becoming less willing to add manufacturing capacity. Weaker memory pricing would point to softer supply-demand conditions. Reduced capacity commitments would suggest that customers no longer need as much future production.

A sustained deterioration in those three areas would be the clearest evidence that the physical buildout behind BofA’s long-term semiconductor forecast is beginning to slow.

Related: BofA’s $1.18T cloud forecast puts 3 chip stocks in focus

Meta has spent months telling investors where its artificial intelligence (AI) dollars are going, but a deal most of them missed says more than any earnings slide.

Meta acquired Stilla.ai, a Stockholm-based startup founded in 2024, to accelerate development of Meta Business Agent, Axios reported.

The commerce tool is embedded in WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram, and Stilla raised just $5 million in pre-seed funding before Meta moved to acquire it.

The acquisition points toward the monetization of commerce through messaging as the company’s operating priority, rather than the chatbot arms race dominating AI headlines.

Stilla.ai gives Meta’s Business Agent a coordination layer it lacked

Stilla emerged from stealth in January 2026 with backing from General Catalyst. Its co-founders, Siavash Ghorbani and Kaj Drobin, previously built Shop and Shop Pay at Shopify, giving them direct experience in commerce infrastructure.

That background matters because Meta Business Agent handles customer inquiries, recommends products, books appointments, and qualifies sales leads across WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. More than one million businesses already use the tool.

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Stilla’s core product connects workplace tools like Slack, Linear, GitHub, and Notion to maintain shared context between humans and AI agents, Tech.eu reported.

Enterprise customers, including Spotify and Ramp, were already using the platform, CoinDesk reported.

The technology fills a gap for Business Agent, which currently draws on product catalogs and frequently asked questions to respond to customers. Stilla’s coordination layer could allow those agents to work with deeper context across a merchant’s full tool stack.

Meta’s non-advertising revenue crossed $1 billion in a single quarter

The financial case for the deal shows up in Meta’s second quarter 2026 earnings. “Other revenue” within the Family of Apps segment hit $1 billion for the first time, up 73% year over year, Meta’s earnings presentation showed.

That growth rate outpaced Meta’s core advertising business, which rose 27% during the same period. Total revenue grew 28% year over year to $60.8 billion. 

Meta announced global availability of Business Agent on June 3, 2026, and began charging for the tool on August 1 through WhatsApp Business Premium subscriptions and token-based pricing at $2.00 per million tokens, Techtimes reported.

Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has described Business Agent as central to Meta’s plan to move beyond advertising, telling investors and the audience at Meta’s Conversations event in London what the tool is designed for, CNBC reported.

As our models advance, your agent will take on more and eventually help you run your whole business

WhatsApp has more than 200 million small business users globally, and paid messaging had already crossed $2 billion in annualized revenue by the fourth quarter of 2025, Quartz reported.

Meta’s non-advertising revenue topped $1 billion as Business Agent and paid messaging expand its push beyond traditional advertising models globally.Bloomberg / Getty Images

Meta’s capital spending frames why this small Stilla deal matters

Meta narrowed its full-year 2026 capital expenditure guidance to $130 billion to $145 billion after the second quarter, up from a prior floor of $125 billion. The company spent $31.1 billion on capital expenditure in the second quarter alone.

That spending compressed free cash flow to $784 million, down from $10.9 billion two years earlier. Shares fell 9.6% in after-hours trading on earnings night, even as revenue beat Wall Street estimates.

Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak sees untapped revenue streams beyond advertising. AI search could add about $2.89 per share in earnings, subscriptions approximately $1.88, and application programming interface revenue roughly $1.22, the firm estimated.

Meta plans to grow its footprint in Sweden after the Stilla deal closes, a move that suggests the company sees long-term value in the region’s AI talent pool, Axios reported.

What the Stilla deal means for investors tracking Meta’s AI returns

Meta Chief Financial Officer Susan Li told investors that scarcity of AI compute capacity gives Meta an edge. “The industry has under-built historically for the wave of AI adoption, making existing capacity, including our own, extremely valuable,” Li argued.

Morgan Stanley views those figures as evidence that the current share price does not fully price in the revenue potential of products like Business Agent.

The Stilla acquisition tells a specific story about where Meta’s AI commerce returns will come from. The company is funneling resources into tools that convert messaging conversations into completed sales.

Commerce revenue grew faster than any other Meta segment in the most recent quarter. Wall Street has focused on the size of the spending, but the destination for those dollars is becoming harder to dismiss, Morgan Stanley analysts noted.

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While not a primary destination for Mexico-bound American tourists as an inland city in the west-central part of the country, Guadalajara is often referred to as Mexico’s “cultural heartland.” That’s because so many of the nation’s most-recognized cultural symbols emerged there: mariachi music, “charrería” Mexican rodeo, and tequila (the blue agave fields from which the spirit is made begin just outside the city limits while the namesake town of Tequila is a 45-minute highway drive away).

As tourism numbers to Guadalajara continue to increase (Guadalajara International Airport saw, at over one million passengers, the highest June on record this year), airlines are rushing to launch new routes before competitors do the same.

Volaris, a publicly-traded budget airline based in Mexico City, just announced plans to start three routes to Guadalajara (GDL) from the U.S. this fall: the flights to Raleigh-Durham International (RDU), Boston Logan (BOS) and Nashville International (BNA) will debut on Oct. 16.

This news comes after Volaris already announced new routes to Washington Dulles (IAD) and Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson (ATL) earlier this year. The launch date of these two routes was pushed up to the same Oct. 16 start date after initially being slated for the end of the summer.

Volaris to start flights to Guadalajara from Raleigh-Durham, Boston and Nashville

Volaris already flies more than 30 routes to different cities in the U.S., including routes to Guadalajara from smaller California cities like Fresno and Sacramento.

“Volaris’ arrival in Nashville marks an important milestone in the expansion of our international service for the Middle Tennessee region,” Doug Kreulen, the president and chief executive of the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority, said in a statement. “This new nonstop route to Guadalajara gives our travelers direct access to one of Mexico’s most important cultural and economic hubs, along with convenient connections to key destinations across the country and beyond through Volaris’ largest hub.”

The heads of the airport authorities in Raleigh-Durham and Boston put out similar statements praising the routes as meeting demand amid both leisure and business travelers (Guadalajara is also home to thousands of tech companies and so often called the “Silicon Valley of Mexico”).

Volaris is a budget airline based in Mexico with a significant network of flights to different U.S. cities.Image source: Shutterstock

“We are extending our wings to new U.S. cities”: Volaris

The routes were launched ahead of the sun-seeking season during which more travelers from colder U.S. cities look to book trips to Mexico and other warmer destinations. Some, like the Atlanta route, will run daily while others will fly three times a week on different days.

Tickets on all five new routes are already available to purchase. Volaris has a fleet of predominantly Airbus A320-200, Airbus A320neo and A321 aircraft.

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“Guadalajara is one of the pillars of our connectivity strategy,” Holger Blankenstein, Volaris’ executive vice president of commercial and operations, said in the airline’s own statement. “From here, we are extending our wings to new U.S. cities so our customers can travel more, discover new destinations, visit their loved ones, and take advantage of new opportunities, always with accessible fares, direct flights, and the quality of service that defines Volaris.”

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FINRA is expected to release August margin debt data around Sept. 15 to 21. Investors will be watching that number closely.

In June, margin debt hit a record $1.502 trillion. In July, it pulled back to $1.417 trillion. If August shows a second straight decline, the pattern will match every major market crash of the past 30 years.

Margin debt surged 77% from $850.6 billion in April 2025 to that June record, according to FINRA.

In the 30-year history of this data, a jump of that size in such a short window has happened three other times. Each one was followed by a significant stock market decline.

The August data arriving this week is the next test of whether this cycle follows the same path.

What is margin debt, and why does it matter?

Margin debt is borrowed money investors use to buy stocks through their brokers. It works well in a rising market. In a falling one, it can force investors to sell everything.

Brokers can demand immediate repayment through a margin call. Investors who get margin calls must add cash or sell stocks to cover what they owe. They cannot wait for prices to recover.

Outstanding margin debt grows over time as the overall market grows. Slow, steady increases do not alarm anyone.

A 77% jump in 14 months is a different situation. That kind of move shows investors borrowing aggressively to chase a rising market, far beyond what normal market growth would explain.

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Margin debt went from $850.6 billion in April 2025 to $1.502 trillion in June 2026. That is 77% in 14 months. In the 30-year history of this data, that kind of move has happened three other times. All three were immediately followed by significant stock market declines.

April 2025 is worth noting as a starting point. Stocks sold off sharply that month during the tariff uncertainty. Investors pulled back on borrowing. Then markets recovered. The AI rally picked back up. Investors started borrowing again, and kept borrowing all the way through June 2026 without stopping.

Retail investors borrowing through brokerage accounts are one piece of the leverage picture. Hedge fund gross borrowing hit $7.2 trillion in July 2026, with gross leverage approaching a 10x multiple, Seeking Alpha reported.

Leveraged ETFs, which use borrowed money to amplify market returns, have more than doubled in assets over the past year. The FINRA margin debt record is the easiest number to track. The full extent of leverage in the system is larger.

What happened the last 3 times margin debt surged?

Between March 1999 and March 2000, outstanding margin debt soared 80%. The dot-com bubble then burst. The S&P 500 lost nearly half its value. The Nasdaq Composite fell by more than three-quarters.

Between June 2006 and July 2007, margin debt grew by 66%. The financial crisis followed. The S&P 500 lost more than half its value before bottoming in March 2009.

Between March 2020 and October 2021, margin debt jumped 95%. The 2022 bear market followed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell roughly a fifth. The S&P 500 lost about a quarter of its value. The Nasdaq dropped by about a third.

Three separate cycles, three different catalysts, three different interest-rate environments. Each time, a parabolic run in margin debt reversed and markets fell sharply. Leveraged investors do not get out quietly. When margin calls hit across the market at the same time, selling feeds more selling.

The margin debt figure is not the only number worth looking at. Investor credit balances, which track the cash available to cover margin obligations, fell to a record low of -$1.06 trillion in June, according to Advisor Perspectives.

Investors are carrying record margin obligations while sitting on record-low cash reserves to back them up.

Nobody can say a decline is guaranteed. What can be said is that a heavily leveraged market has less cushion.Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images

Why the pullback in margin debt is worth watching

Margin debt briefly dipped for two months in February and March 2026 before resuming its climb to the June record. July confirmed one month of pullback.

The August reading, due from FINRA this week, is the critical data point. A second straight monthly decline would extend the pattern that preceded all three prior crashes. A rebound would suggest investors are still borrowing to buy, and that the June peak was not the turning point.

In all three prior episodes, a peak in margin debt was followed by a market decline. Fast on the way up. Fast on the way down.

Nobody can say a decline is guaranteed. What can be said is that a heavily leveraged market has less cushion.

A sharp rise in Treasury yields, a geopolitical shock or a bad earnings season can trigger waves of margin calls across multiple sectors at once. Forced selling from margin calls is what takes a normal pullback and accelerates it into something much worse.

FINRA has reported outstanding margin debt every month since 1993. The current 14-month run of 77% growth stands out. It does not tell you when a reversal happens. It tells you how stretched the current positioning has become.

The AI rally pushed the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq to multiple record highs over the past two years. Strong markets attract more investors and more borrowing.

Record valuations on top of record margin debt are where all three prior episodes started. This cycle also has oil above $100 a barrel and a 30-year Treasury yield at a 19-year high, sitting alongside the margin debt record.

The previous three cycles did not have all of those factors running together.

What investors should do

Selling everything is not the right response to the margin-debt data. Markets can remain elevated far longer than anyone expects, and nobody can call the exact timing of a reversal.

What investors can do is review their own leverage and concentration before a reversal happens, rather than scrambling during one.

If you are using margin, this is a good time to review how much you are borrowing and what happens to your portfolio if the market drops sharply. A margin call forces you to sell when prices are falling, which locks in losses and removes you from the recovery.

Investors who hold positions without margin can wait through a downturn. Leveraged investors often cannot.

Concentration is the other risk. The current rally has been heavily driven by a small group of AI and technology companies. If those stocks correct sharply, investors who are both leveraged and concentrated in that sector face compounded losses.

Checking whether your portfolio is overweight in one theme is worth doing now, not after prices have moved.

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I rarely see double-upgrades from Wall Street. JPMorgan analyst Richard Choe moved an AI stock directly from Underweight to Overweight on Sep. 14, skipping a neutral rating entirely, in a note shared with TheStreet. 

JPMorgan may have underestimated this one. Now it’s slamming the brakes, making a U-turn and hitting the gas.The double-upgrade is JPMorgan’s second such move in the AI-adjacent space in recent months. The bank made the same jump with Circle Internet Group, a fintech and digital financial services company tied to the growing stablecoin economy in Nov. 2025, Yahoo Finance reported.

Before that, Lanxess, a German specialty chemicals maker, got the double upgrade in March 2026.

Now IREN gets the same dose, with JPMorgan upgrading from Underweight to Overweight and raising its price target to $65 from $46, a 41% increase.

IREN Limited (IREN) trades at $43.17, up 14.30% year-to-date and 27.12% over the past year, according to Yahoo Finance. The three-year return is an aggressive 761.68%.

We can attribute that massive explosion to the impact of the company’s pivot from Bitcoin mining to AI cloud infrastructure on long-term shareholders. Choe’s reasoning comes down to one word, and it is a good one: Nvidia.

Also Read: IREN Limited Latest News and Stories 

What actually drove the IREN double-upgrade

JPMorgan’s upgrade rests on a specific structural development that transformed IREN’s competitive positioning.

IREN secured a five-year partnership with Nvidia worth around $5.5 billion. The deal is worth approximately $3.4 billion over five years, and also granted Nvidia a five-year option to buy up to 30 million ordinary shares at $70 each, representing up to $2.1 billion in conditional investment rights. Both total down to $5.5 billion.

IREN also achieved “Exemplar Cloud” status on the Nvidia GB300 NVL72 system, according to IREN disclosures. 

I take that designation as Nvidia’s validation that IREN’s infrastructure meets the highest standards for deploying its most advanced GPU systems.

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Beyond Nvidia, IREN has been stacking contracts across the AI ecosystem: Microsoft receiving the first Horizon 1 deployment, Cohere, Prometheus, Perplexity, Figure AI, Fal AI, and Higgsfield AI signed, plus a new multi-year contract with an undisclosed leading frontier AI lab, according to IREN’s fiscal year 2026 results. 

Customer prepayments on recent contracts cover 45% to 55% of GPU capital expenditure, meaning customers are partially funding IREN’s buildout.

JPMorgan also flagged the pricing shift. AI compute services are now fetching $15 to $20-plus per watt, up from the prior $10 to $15 range. 

The same fiscal year 2026 report notes that the recent three-year contracts are priced above $20 million in revenue per megawatt, with active discussions at approximately $25 million per megawatt.

This business transition justifies the upgrade

The scale of what IREN has accomplished in fiscal year 2026 is the foundation beneath JPMorgan’s conviction.

AI Cloud Services revenue grew 8x to $128.8 million in FY26 (versus FY25 $16.4m) 

Raised its 2026 contracted annualized run-rate revenue (ARR) guidance to $4 billion

2026 ARR capacity is largely sold out 

Late-stage customer discussions are underway for a significant portion of 2027 capacity, with 2028 financing and customer discussions progressing in parallel.Source: IREN’s FY26 Results

The capital structure behind the expansion is notable for its scale and efficiency. IREN secured $3.6 billion in investment-grade GPU financing for the Microsoft contract at 6.0%, funding 96% of the associated GPU capital expenditure together with customer prepayments. 

A separate $2.8 billion in GPU financing from Blue Owl and PIMCO at 9.0% supports non-investment-grade customer deployments. Total committed capital, including cash, GPU financing, and prepayments, reached $14 billion.

Management committed to winding down all Bitcoin mining by December 2026, eliminating the strategic ambiguity that has historically weighed on investor perception of the business.

“We have spent years assembling what is difficult to replicate: power, land, data centers, compute, software and people,” said Co-CEO Daniel Roberts in the earnings commentary. “This is only the beginning.”

IREN officially delivered Horizon 1, the first of four 50-megawatt liquid-cooled GPU deployments at Childress, to Microsoft.Shutterstock

The deployment roadmap and why the physical infrastructure is the real deal

Competitors rent data center capacity. IREN owns the land, electrical grid interconnections, and physical data centers outright across North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region. That all-around ownership structure gives it cost management advantages and capacity control that asset-light competitors cannot replicate.

The deployment targets are aggressive: 0.3 gigawatts of IT capacity in 2026 and 0.8 gigawatts in 2027, with additional liquid-cooled deployments planned at Mackenzie, Canal Flats, and Prince George in 2027, IREN reported. 

Global expansion is progressing at Sweetwater in Texas, Kiowa in Oklahoma, Bundey in Australia, and Badajoz in Spain.

Horizon 1, the first of four 50-megawatt liquid-cooled GPU deployments at Childress, has been delivered to Microsoft. Horizon 2 is already in commissioning, while Horizons 3 and 4 are in late-stage construction and targeted for delivery in Q4 2026. That’s a serious buildout.

The net cash position, existing GPU financing commitments, and contracted customer prepayments give IREN approximately $14 billion in available capital to fund the buildout. That removes the near-term dilution risk that has historically constrained smaller AI infrastructure companies.

At $43 against a $65 price target from a firm that just skipped neutral entirely, JPMorgan’s conviction is visible. Also, the 2026 capacity ramp and the Q4 Horizon deliveries are likely to show up in the financial results sooner or later.

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Target has spent years building out its fashion and homewares departments, turning itself into a go-to spot for the trendy consumer. But there’s one area where it’s struggled to get a foothold: grocery.

Unlike Walmart, its nearest competitor in the big-box space, grocery accounts for a relatively small share of Target’s overall sales. 

Food and drink make up less than one-quarter of the Minneapolis-based retailer’s revenues, but nearly two-thirds of Walmart’s, according to data reported by Reuters.  

Recently, though, Target has been on a mission to make grocery a larger part of its mix to compete more effectively with retailers like Walmart and Kroger. In an August 2026 investor call, CMO Cara Sylvester talked about the company’s ambitions to “make food a destination, not simply a category a guest shop while they’re in our stores, but a reason they choose to come to Target.”  

Its latest launch is a clear example of how Target is trying to establish itself as that grocery destination. 

The Wild Alaskan Company launches at Target

In September, the Wild Alaskan Company, a premium seafood brand, announced its partnership with Target.

The partnership is particularly notable because the Wild Alaskan Company isn’t a traditional grocery brand. Founded in 2017, it was initially built on a direct-to-consumer subscription model.

Now, for the first time, five of the brand’s best-selling products will hit shelves across the country: Pink Salmon, Sockeye Salmon with Lemon & Herb Butter, Wild Alaska Pollock Fillets, Wild Alaska Pollock Quick Cuts, and Sablefish.

All of the products included in the launch are 100% wild-caught, sustainably harvested, and frozen at peak freshness to preserve quality and flavor. 

“High-quality seafood isn’t just for special occasions — it should be something people can enjoy at home any day of the week,” Wild Alaskan Company CEO Aaron Kallenberg said in a statement.

“This partnership gives us another powerful way to make premium, wild-caught seafood more accessible as an everyday protein.”

In September, Target announced a partnership with the Wild Alaskan Company, a move that will help the retailer further differentiate its grocery assortment as it seeks to compete with companies like Walmart.Bloomberg / Getty Images

Target is trying to carve out its own grocery niche

In the second quarter of the 2026 fiscal year, Target’s food and beverage sales increased by 7%, according to the company’s earnings report. 

While the increase is promising, some experts think the retailer should place even more emphasis on grocery’s growth.

“It’s mission-critical,” Sarah Henry, ​managing director at Target shareholder Logan Capital Management, told Reuters.

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Grocery purchases bring shoppers through the doors more regularly than discretionary categories like fashion and homewares, giving retailers like Target a greater opportunity to capture a larger share of consumer spending.

This is especially important in an economic climate where shoppers are watching every dollar.

Still, it’s unlikely that Target will be able to directly compete with retailers like Walmart when it comes to grocery spending. 

Walmart has spent decades establishing itself as the budget-friendly option for basics like milk, bread, and eggs. Its enormous grocery footprint and extensive private-label assortment make it difficult for Target to compete head-on.

Instead of attempting to establish itself as a replacement to Walmart, Target seems to be attempting to carve out a niche as the place to go for curated, trend-focused, niche products that shoppers can’t find just anywhere.

It’s a strategy that could give Target an opening.

“Winning [in grocery] requires a differentiated offering,” McKinsey & Company’s 2026 State of Grocery in North America report says. “Consumers are no longer shopping one way for all needs but splitting trips across value stock-ups, fresh and prepared-food occasions, convenience-led delivery, wellness-driven baskets, and fill-in missions.”

In other words, shoppers aren’t necessarily looking for one retailer to handle all of their grocery needs. 

That could give Target an opportunity to win a larger share of the grocery trip without trying to replicate Walmart’s massive food business. 

If partnerships like Wild Alaskan can give shoppers a reason to make Target part of their grocery routine, the retailer could see increased sales in its food and beverage categories. 

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Why we love this deal

A narrow space in a home isn’t a lost cause. With the right piece of furniture, you can make the most of the area, even if it seems impossible at first. Slim cabinets come in handy in these situations, creating extra storage where you often need it the most. They come in different heights, but tall and slim cabinets in particular are especially useful, as they take advantage of vertical storage space even while taking up little floor space.

The Iwell Tall Storage Cabinet has a compact design, requiring less than a 12-by-12-inch area to use. It’s on sale for only $90 at Amazon, which is 18% off its regular retail price of $110. However, as a limited-time deal, there’s no telling how long you’ll be able to get this cabinet for less than $100.

Iwell Tall Storage Cabinet, $90 (was $110) at Amazon

Courtesy of Amazon

Shop at Amazon

Why do shoppers love it?

Measuring 11.8 inches long by 11.8 inches wide by 67.1 inches high, this slim and tall cabinet can provide storage in unlikely places. Take the bathroom, for example. Bathrooms are notorious for being small and having awkward spaces that are unable to accommodate many cabinets. (The areas between a sink and a toilet or a tight corner, in particular, come to mind.) But with this cabinet, all you need is a clearance of 12 inches in length and 12 inches in width to make it a near-perfect fit. 

At around 5.5 feet tall, this cabinet can create vertical storage without having to deal with installing wall-mounted shelves or cabinets. It has two one-door cabinets that are separated by a single drawer. Each cabinet features adjustable shelves that you can customize to different heights. This gives you the flexibility to store a variety of items, from tall paper towels to compact rolls of toilet paper. The drawer in the middle, which measures 9.6 inches long by 10.7 inches wide by 5.7 inches high, is a great spot to hide away smaller items, including makeup, skincare, and other small bathroom essentials. 

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Details to know

Dimensions: 11.8 inches long by 11.8 inches wide by 67.1 inches high.

Material: Engineered wood.

Storage: Two one-door cabinets with adjustable shelves and a drawer.

A cabinet like this isn’t only perfect for bathrooms. Its elevated farmhouse-style design with clean lines and paneled doors can be used in small areas throughout your home, like a kitchen, a laundry room, or a hallway. One reviewer said it solved the issue of limited kitchen cabinet space, and they were able to upgrade the hardware to match their kitchen color scheme. 

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On sale for only $90, the Iwell Tall Storage Cabinet is an excellent option for adding more storage in small spaces.

Every industry has a technology that stays permanently three years away. In cars, it is the solid-state battery.

I have read versions of the same press release, in different corporate fonts, since roughly 2017. Longer range. Faster charging. None of the flammable liquid sloshing around under your floor. Always arriving just past the horizon of whatever product cycle the executive happened to be defending that quarter.

Nobody calls it out, because the physics is real. Swap the liquid electrolyte for a solid one and you get a denser, safer cell in the laboratory. Keeping that cell alive through a Michigan winter, a pothole on Interstate 94 and 1,000 charge cycles in a customer’s driveway is the part that keeps slipping.

So the calendar became the product. Toyota (TM) has owned 2027 to 2028. Samsung SDI has owned 2027. Detroit has owned a research budget and a shrug.

BYD (BYDDY) just moved the meeting up.

The Chinese automaker plans to have a vehicle running its solid-state battery technology on the road next year, Executive Vice President Stella Li said in an interview with Carwow.es in Valencia, Spain, according to CarNewsChina.

BYD is “in the leading position for the commercial line, and for the technology,” Li said. She added that the company would field one model carrying the technology next year to prove it.

What BYD actually promised on solid-state batteries

Read the promise closely and it shrinks. Li gave no production date, no vehicle name, no battery specifications and no performance figures, which leaves the announcement at the technology-demonstration stage, reported CarNewsChina.

When I lined that wording up against BYD’s own engineering roadmap, the gap was the story. FinDreams, BYD’s battery arm, has reported 20 amp-hour and 60 amp-hour solid-state prototype cells approaching 400 watt-hours per kilogram, though cell numbers do not translate into pack numbers.

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The chemistry is sulfide-based, and sulfides are difficult neighbors. They conduct ions beautifully and react badly to moisture, generating hydrogen sulfide gas, which forces sealed manufacturing environments and dry electrode processing all the way through the line.

There is a mechanical problem too. Solid-to-solid interfaces can lose contact as electrodes swell and shrink through a charge cycle, so some designs need sustained pressure clamped across the stack, and a car adds vibration, heat swings and potholes to that requirement.

BYD will have a vehicle running its solid-state technology next year, an executive said.VCG / Getty Images

Why the solid-state timeline still favors nobody

Here is the part that should reassure Detroit and Nagoya more than the headline suggests. A demonstration vehicle tests integration, not economics, and the specialized sulfide precursors involved currently cost dozens of times more than conventional liquid-electrolyte materials, reported CarNewsChina.

Toyota is not standing still either. Its partner Idemitsu Kosan has begun construction on a large-scale pilot plant for solid electrolytes that is expected to be finished by the end of 2027, reported Electrek.

The industry’s real scoreboard is a set of dates, and they cluster tighter than the rhetoric implies.

BYD will have one model using solid-state technology next year, according to Li’s remarks reported by CarNewsChina.

Small-batch trials of roughly 1,000 vehicles arrive around 2027, with large-scale commercial production near 2030, according to FinDreams Chief Technology Officer Sun Huajun, Electrek reported. 

Toyota will “ensure market launch of BEVs with all-solid-state batteries in 2027-28,” the automaker said in a statement.

Samsung SDI is targeting all-solid-state mass production in 2027, reported CarNewsChina.

Liquid lithium-ion and all-solid-state systems could coexist for 15 to 20 years, said BYD Chief Scientist Lian Yubo, highlighted in CnEVPost’s report. 

That last line is the one nobody puts in a keynote. BYD’s own chief scientist is telling you the battery in the car you buy in 2028 will almost certainly still be liquid.

What Detroit is doing about battery supply

General Motors (GM) spent last week talking about a different problem entirely. The company is early in developing next-generation cells meant to cut American dependence on Chinese materials, and expects commercial production of sodium-ion cells around 2029.

GM is building the chain so that “when we get into market, we’ve got a domestic source for that,” battery and sustainability vice president Kurt Kelty told CNBC.

Ford (F) has taken the same unglamorous path, moving its Marshall, Michigan plant into production-intent lithium iron phosphate cells for a midsize electric pickup due in 2027, reported GM Authority, citing the Detroit News.

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Neither is a solid-state answer. Both are a cost answer, and cost is what has actually been killing American electric vehicle demand.

That is the quiet trade Detroit has made. It ceded the headline technology and went after the sticker price, which is defensible strategy right up to the moment a rival proves the headline technology works.

What the solid-state race means for your next car

My analysis of BYD’s sales math suggests the company can afford a science project in a way its rivals cannot. BYD sold 2,227,722 new energy vehicles from January through July, down 10.54% year over year, while overseas sales reached 969,208 units, or 43.5% of the total, reported CnEVPost.

Cumulative new energy vehicle sales have now passed 17.3 million units, the company said.

That is the uncomfortable part for Toyota and Detroit. Solid-state cells will debut on expensive halo cars, likely BYD’s Yangwang and flagship Denza models, where the cost is easiest to bury, according to CarNewsChina.

Halo cars are how a company buys engineering data at retail prices. BYD has enough volume elsewhere to fund the lesson, and Chinese state support helps, because the company develops this technology inside a government-backed platform tied to an estimated $830 million research program.

For anyone shopping, the practical takeaway runs against the marketing. Waiting for solid-state before buying an electric vehicle means waiting past 2030 for anything you can actually afford.

Resale anxiety deserves the same treatment. If liquid and solid cells genuinely share the road for 15 to 20 years, a 2027 model will not be stranded by a 2029 press conference.

The thing worth watching instead is charging speed on the cars already for sale, since second-generation lithium iron phosphate packs are closing much of the gap that solid-state was supposed to fix, and they are shipping now.

For portfolios, the near-term money still sits with the companies scaling cheap liquid-electrolyte cells rather than the ones promising to replace them.

Next year’s vehicle is a test bench with license plates. Watch what BYD refuses to say about it, because the specification sheet, or its absence, will tell you whether 2030 is a target or a hope.

Related: BYD sends blunt message to Tesla with 35.4% of exports

Wineries have struggled financially since the Covid-19 pandemic that has led several wineries to close facilities and, in some cases, file for bankruptcy protection.

A major economic issue the wine sector faced was a 21% decline in industry revenue from 2020 through 2025, according to Silicon Valley Bank’s State of the U.S. Wine Industry Report.

In a recent case, Napa Valley winery Signorello Estate LP, facing financial distress, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Aug. 27 to halt a foreclosure sale and prepare the debtor for a going-concern sale to stalking-horse investors, according to court documents.

A bankruptcy filing imposes an automatic stay against legal actions against a debtor, but in certain cases a bankruptcy can be filed long after a business has already closed.

Moon Dancer Winery closed its facilities after losing a lawsuit judgment.Yulia Shaihudinova / Getty Images

Moon Dancer Winery forced to close

And now, Pennsylvania winery owner Moon Dancer Vineyards & Winery Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sept. 11, 2026, to reorganize its business and restructure its debts about 10 months after being forced to close its facilities.

The debtor owns Moon Dancer Winery, which permanently closed its winery and tasting room on Nov. 19, 2025, after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied the owner’s final appeal to continue operating its business, according to a statement the winery posted on Instagram.

The Wrightsville, Pa., winery and vineyard filed its petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, listing $100,000 to $500,000 in assets and $1 million to $10 million in debts.

Moon Dancer Winery’s largest unsecured creditors include M&T Bank, owed over $757,000; U.S. Small Business Administration, owed over $500,000; McNeese Wallace & Nurick LLC, owed $450,000; and First Data – Clover Capital, owed $30,000.

The winery opened in 2003 and operated for 13 years before Matthew S. Balsavage and Amenda Perko purchased an adjacent residential property in 2016, according to court papers. The winery has 10 acres of vineyards and replanted 2,400 vines in spring 2025, with Cabernet Franc and Chardonnay as two of its primary grapes.

Neighbors file lawsuit against winery

Balsavage and Perko filed a lawsuit in the Court of Common Pleas of York County in Pennsylvania against the winery on Oct. 22, 2018, alleging that the winery’s operations, including a tasting room, a pizzeria restaurant, wedding venue, and music festival site, were prohibited by language in the property’s deeds.

Moon Dancer Winery claimed in court papers that it was an allowed agricultural operation, while the plaintiffs asserted that it was a prohibited commercial operation.

Supreme Court rules against Moon Dancer

The winery continued operating while it appealed its case to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, but permanently closed the winery the day after the court denied the appeal on Nov. 18, 2025.

“While we are saddened by the state Supreme Court’s decision today, we remain forever grateful for the thousands of friends and loyal customers who have continued to stand by us in this fight, and the countless wonderful memories we have made over these last 22 years,” Moon Dancer Winery’s owner Jim Miller said in a statement.

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