Tech Action Stocks
Meta Platforms and Constellation Energy see gains following contract as AI demand remains white hot
Meta Platforms jumped 3.6% today on news of new AI-driven ad‐creation tools and a 20-year, 1.1-GW nuclear power purchase agreement with Constellation Energy (CEG), pushing Meta to fresh highs. CEG shares climbed 7% after the deal was announced, as investors also bid up other nuclear names amid concerns over energy security and rising demand for clean baseload power.
Key highlights:
- Meta Platforms (META):
- Stock gain: +3.6% on June 3, 2025, to roughly $670.90.
- Catalyst 1: Announced automating ad creation via AI, boosting advertiser efficiency.
- Catalyst 2: Signed a 20-year nuclear offtake deal with CEG’s Clinton Clean Energy Center, effective 2027.
- Constellation Energy (CEG):
- Stock gain: +7% on June 3, 2025, after sealing the long-term contract with Meta.
- Deal details: Meta will purchase 1.1 GW of nuclear power from the Clinton plant, keeping it open and underlining baseload stability.
- Peer lift: CEG’s move also lifted fellow nuclear/utility names like Vistra Energy, Talen Energy, Oklo, and Cameco.
Nuclear stocks – still the place to be?
Yes. Today’s rally in CEG and related names reflects growing investor appetite for low-carbon, reliable power amid geopolitical tensions and clean-energy targets. The Meta-CEG deal underscores that blue-chip corporate buyers are locking in long-dated nuclear contracts, keeping nuclear equities firmly in favor.
Applied Digital turns to AI infrastructure; shares pop
Applied Digital (APLD) exploded higher today after unveiling two ~15-year leases with Nvidia-backed cloud up-start CoreWeave that could generate about $7 billion of revenue. The stock opened +17 % on the Reuters flash but ballooned as much as +45 % on record volume once investors digested the size, duration and AI credentials of the deal.
- Deal specifics: CoreWeave is taking 250 MW of new high-performance-compute capacity in North Dakota, paying fixed rates that average out to roughly $185 million a year over the term.
- Balance-sheet impact: Contracted cash flows underpin Applied Digital’s pivot from volatile crypto-miner hosting to a steadier “AI data-center landlord” model, de-risking its $1 bn build-out plan and supporting the recent $375 mn SMBC project loan.
- Multiple expansion story: At Monday’s intraday high of $10.95 the shares traded near 9× fiscal-2026 EBITDA (vs. ~5× pre-deal), reflecting a re-rating toward REIT-like HPC peers.
- Sentiment fuel: Short interest was ~24 % of float last week; today’s vertical move triggered a mechanical squeeze that added to upside momentum.
- Next catalysts: Management hosts an investor call at 11 a.m. ET; details on margin profile and cap-ex phasing could decide whether the stock holds its gains into month-end.
Bottom line: the CoreWeave pact validates Applied Digital’s AI pivot, transforms its revenue backlog, and—at least for today—turned a lightly followed crypto host into one of Wall Street’s hottest AI infrastructure names.
Marvell is not looking to marvelous following modest Q1 beat
Marvell designs and sells semiconductor solutions—particularly custom ASICs and SoCs—for data centers, enterprise and carrier networking, storage, AI inference/acceleration, automotive, industrial and consumer markets.
In the quarter ended May 3, 2025, Marvell reported:
- Revenue: $1.90 billion, up 63 % year-over-year and ahead of the $1.88 billion consensus
- Non-GAAP EPS: $0.62 (vs. $0.61 expected)
- Guidance: $2.00 billion for the current quarter, roughly in line with estimates
Despite beating on both top and bottom lines, MRVL shares fell ~2.3 % in after-hours trading on the earnings report.
Why MRVL’s stock is under pressure
- Heavy data-center concentration
- Data-center sales now make up ~72 % of Marvell’s revenue, up from 41 % in 2023. This exposes the stock to any pullback or insourcing trend among hyperscalers like AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, which are increasingly developing their own custom chips Barron's.
- Postponed investor day & tightened guidance
- Marvell delayed its planned June 10 investor day to 2026, citing the “dynamic macroeconomic environment,” and narrowed its fiscal Q1 2026 revenue range to $1.875 billion ± 2 % (down from ± 5 %). The lack of near-term visibility spooked investors and drove an ~11 % one-day drop when announced Investopedia.
- Broader semiconductor sector headwinds
- The PHLX Semiconductor Index is down ~5.3 % year-to-date amid inventory corrections, tariff worries and economic uncertainty—pressuring even companies that beat estimates .
- Elevated valuation & profit-taking
- After strong gains in 2024, Marvell’s forward P/E has compressed from ~41.5× to ~21.0×. That correction, combined with a 42 % drop in the stock so far this year, suggests profit-taking and rotation into other parts of tech Barron's.
- Investor skepticism on growth runway
- While custom AI silicon is a long-term opportunity, investors worry about margin pressure on lower-margin bespoke chips and competition from in-house designs at major cloud providers—and recent short interest has ticked higher amid this uncertainty MarketWatch.