soared

Among the leading megacap cryptocurrencies in the market, Chainlink (LINK 8.05%) has been one of the more volatile digital assets of late. The project’s native LINK token has surged 14.4% since 4 p.m. ET yesterday, as of 2:30 p.m. Monday. This move is notable in the crypto sector during this trading session, and indicates a significant amount of interest in Chainlink from investors of all types.

Let’s dive into the investment case around Chainlink, and specifically what’s driving today’s move in the top token.

Catalysts galore

Image source: Getty Images.

Chanlink is a crypto project I keep pretty close tabs on. But from time to time, it’s possible to overlook certain catalysts for a given project. And Chainlink has seen a flurry of updates and integrations the market has clearly caught on to faster than me.

One of the more notable catalysts comes from the institutional investing world, with Nasdaq-listed real estate company Caliber Corporation announcing this past week it was buying another $2 million worth of LINK tokens. This brings the company’s holdings to roughly $10 million, signaling that there are other tokens in the market companies are interested in buying outside of Bitcoin.

Also last week came a joint announcement from S&P Global Ratings and Chainlink around a partnership to allow financial institutions to have more visibility into the stability and holdings supporting various stablecoins. Chainlink’s core oracle capabilities, in allowing off-chain data to be ported onto the blockchain, has allowed for these sorts of partnerships. And right now, the market appears to be banking on additional partnerships coming down the line.

But perhaps the most notable recent news driving Chainlink higher today comes via so-called whales, or large crypto investors, who have continued to add to their holdings in LINK. In other words, it’s not just companies like Caliber Corporation stepping up to the plate. Big-time crypto investors are buying heavily, with recent reports indicating that $116 million of Chainlink’s native token has been purchased since its recent dip.

Bottom line

Overall, Chainlink’s status as a core oracle network sets it apart from the competition and provides a solid long-term investing thesis. However, these recent catalysts do suggest that the dips we’ve seen in Chainlink may continue to be bought.

Currently, Chainlink remains among the top tokens on my watch list, and I’d encourage investors to keep an eye on this token before its next catalyst materializes.

Satellite telephony company Viasat (VSAT -1.30%) had quite a memorable week as far as its stock went. Driven by broad investor optimism on space-related titles generally and recent positive company-specific news items, it booked a near-double-digit gain over the period. According to data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence, Viasat’s share price rose in excess of 9% across the week.

Viable Viasat

What also helped was a live demonstration of its capabilities. On Thursday in Mexico City, Viasat put its direct-to-device satellite service through its paces.

Image source: Getty Images.

During the demonstration, Viasat sent text messages between two Android smartphones, one of which was linked to its satellite network and one through a traditional cellular matrix. It also flexed its satellite-powered services through a different device, the HMD Offgrid.

In the press release detailing the demonstration, the company quoted its general manager of Viasat Mexico Hector Rivero as saying that “This technology has the ability to bridge the connectivity gap in areas where traditional services are unreliable or non-existent, opening up possibilities for millions of individuals and devices to connect through satellite.”

“We are confident that this will have significant advantages for consumers and various industries worldwide,” he added.

Major contract in force

Viasat’s services seem to be striking a chord with major institutional customers, at least. Earlier this month, the company announced, no doubt happily, that it had earned a prime contract award from the U.S. Space Force. This will see it contribute to a dedicated satellite network for that branch of the American military.

Shares of Standard Lithium (SLI 12.79%) jumped sharply today, surging 25% in early-morning trading and still holding up about 15% through 11:30 a.m. ET Thursday. And, it isn’t about tariffs or trade wars or even lithium prices today.

Standard Lithium is yet to start commercial production, but it has just hit a major milestone that moves it closer to the goal.

Image source: Getty Images.

Standard Lithium inches closer to first production

Standard Lithium is still in the pre-production stage. Its flagship projects are located in the lithium-brine-rich resource, the Smackover Formation, which extends from central Texas to the Florida panhandle. Standard Lithium is focused on projects in South-West Arkansas (SWA) and East Texas within the Smackover Formation.

While the company is still exploring East Texas and has only filed an initial resource estimate for the deposit, the SWA project is in the advanced stages now.

Standard Lithium is jointly developing SWA with Equinor (EQNR -0.61%), with Standard Lithium owning a 55% stake. On Oct. 14, it filed a definitive feasibility study (DFS) for the project, outlining an annual production capacity of 22,500 tonnes of battery-grade lithium carbonate over a 20-year lifespan.

A DFS is the cornerstone for a mine, as it confirms its commercial viability.

In other words, it is now proven that Standard Lithium can economically mine lithium from SWA and, therefore, move on to the nest stage of raising funds to start the production process. So it’s a major milestone for the company and explains why the lithium stock is flying higher.

Time to buy Standard Lithium stock hand over fist?

Though the DFS sets the stage for commercial extraction of lithium from SWA, it’s still a time-consuming process.

Standard Lithium is estimating a 34-month timeline, from construction to the start of commercial operations. So if construction begins in early 2026, the earliest expected date for first commercial production is around the end of 2028, provided Standard Lithium can secure capital, finalize the technical plans, and start and complete construction at the project on time.

Keep in mind that Standard Lithium stock has already doubled within just one month and has surged over 300% so far in 2025, as of this writing. However, that rally was largely fueled by speculation of a possible U.S. government stake.

Serve Robotics (SERV -0.55%) develops autonomous last-mile logistics solutions. It has a major deal with Uber Technologies (NYSE: UBER) that will see thousands of its latest robots deployed into the Uber Eats food delivery network. But this is more than just a commercial partnership, because Uber is also one of Serve’s largest shareholders.

Uber acquired a company called Postmates in 2020, and in 2021, it spun Postmates’ robotics division out into a new company that became Serve Robotics. Serve is still relatively small with a market capitalization of just $890 million, but at the time of this writing, its stock has soared by 67% over the past year alone.

Serve has identified an enormous addressable market for its delivery robots, so should investors join Uber and buy the stock?

Image source: Getty Images.

A potential $450 billion opportunity

Existing last-mile logistics networks are quite inefficient, because they rely on cars with human drivers to deliver relatively small commercial loads from restaurants and retail stores. Serve is betting those workloads will increasingly shift to autonomous robots and drones, creating a potential $450 billion opportunity by 2030.

Serve’s latest Gen 3 robots have achieved Level 4 autonomy, meaning they can safely operate on sidewalks in designated areas without any human intervention. This makes them ideal for transporting small food orders, which is why 2,500 restaurants in five U.S. cities have used them to make 100,000 deliveries since 2022.

The Gen 3 robots use Nvidia‘s Jetson Orin platform, which includes all of the computing hardware and artificial intelligence (AI) software they need to operate autonomously. Having such a powerful technology partner will help Serve scale as quickly as possible, which is key to bringing costs down to management’s target of just $1 per delivery. At that point, using robots will be substantially cheaper than using human drivers.

Serve has a contract with Uber Eats to deploy 2,000 robots across Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas, Atlanta, and Chicago before the end of 2025. The company rolled out its 1,000th robot on Oct. 6, meaning its capacity will double in just the next few months.

But it won’t stop there, because last week Serve announced a new multiyear deal with DoorDash, which operates the largest food delivery network in the U.S. The two companies are yet to provide firm numbers, so it’s unclear how many more robots Serve will have to deploy.

Scaling a robotics business is not cheap

Despite its status as a publicly traded company, Serve is still very much a start-up. Its revenue tends to be quite lumpy, which is typical when a product is in the early stages of commercialization. The company brought in just $642,000 in revenue during the second quarter of 2025 (ended June 30), which is a tiny amount relative to its $890 million market cap.

But Serve’s business could scale extremely quickly. Management thinks the company will generate up to $80 million in annual revenue once all 2,000 Gen 3 robots are up and running, which bodes well for 2026. Wall Street predicts Serve will generate $3.6 million in total revenue this year (according to Yahoo! Finance), so $80 million would be a monumental jump.

But so far, the road to commercialization has been paved with substantial losses. Serve lost $33.7 million on a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) basis during the first half of 2025, so it’s on track to exceed its 2024 loss of $39.2 million by a very wide margin. The company spent $16 million on research and development alone during the first half of this year, so based on its minuscule revenues, its losses are no surprise.

Serve had $183 million in cash on hand as of June 30, and it raised a further $100 million from investors in October, so it has enough cushion to sustain its losses for the next few years (assuming they don’t materially increase). However, if the company doesn’t chart a pathway to profitability by then, it might have to raise even more money, which will dilute existing shareholders.

As a result, there is a lot riding on the successful commercialization of Serve’s 2,000 Gen 3 robots.

Serve stock trades at a sky-high valuation, but is it a buy?

Serve stock is extremely expensive right now. Its price-to-sales (P/S) ratio is a mind-boggling 486, making it substantially more expensive than any other major AI stock. Palantir Technologies, which also trades at a sky-high valuation, looks cheap by comparison because its P/S ratio is 128. For some further perspective, Nvidia stock has a P/S ratio of just 27.

SERV PS Ratio data by YCharts

With that said, if we assume Serve will generate around $80 million in revenue next year, its forward P/S ratio is just 11. In other words, it almost looks like a bargain.

But investors can’t always rely on management’s guidance, especially in this case because it assumes a perfectly smooth transition to commercialization for the Gen 3 robot. As with any new product, there will probably be bumps in the road, and we simply don’t know if it will scale successfully.

As a result, investors might be better off waiting a few more quarters to see if the rollout of the robots actually translates into as much tangible revenue as management expects. If it doesn’t, Serve stock could suffer a sharp correction because of its current valuation.

According to data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence, EOS Energy (EOSE -5.60%) cruised to a nearly 10% gain this week. This was the second week in a row the stock managed an outsized gain for its shareholders, with much of the increase coming on the back of a new business partnership it signed.

United with Unico

That tie-up, announced Monday morning, gave EOS a nice lift across the subsequent trading days. EOS and high-performance power electronics manufacturer Unico divulged that they have formalized their collaboration by signing a multiyear partnership arrangement.

Image source: Getty Images.

EOS, which specializes in next-generation battery energy storage systems (BESS), will use Unico’s latest power conversion products in its systems.

In the press release touting the collaboration, EOS’s senior vice president of storage systems engineering Pranesh Rao was quoted as saying that Unico’s technology in EOS’s offerings would provide clients with “one of the safest, most scalable, efficient, and sustainable energy storage options available.”

Good timing

That news came amid generally positive sentiment for the energy storage systems segment. Especially with the precipitous rise of artificial intelligence (AI) functionalities, there is a sharply growing need for energy generation and storage improvements. It seems apparent that EOS, with this partnership, is actively seeking to bolster the technology it can offer in the effort.

Shares of Rigetti Computing (RGTI 18.29%) skyrocketed 83.6% in September, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. Quantum computing stocks generally surged last month, with gains ranging from Quantum Computing‘s 17% jump to D-Wave Quantum‘s 58% spurt, but they couldn’t keep up with Rigetti.

Image source: Getty Images.

Government contracts and quantum orders fueled Rigetti’s recent rise

The stocks mentioned above often move as a group. When one quantum computing expert announces a technology breakthrough, all of them bask in that glory for a while.

September saw some of that effect play out. For example, Rigetti’s stock jumped 14% on Sept. 11, driven by IonQ restructuring its business to meet higher demand from the federal sector.

But Rigetti cooked up most of its own market-moving fuel last month. The flashpoint for a 48% price surge in the third week of September was a three-year contract from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory.

Rigetti and Air Force researchers will explore superconducting quantum networking together. This technology seeks to transfer the quantum state of qubit computing units over long distances, resulting in faster and more accurate data transfer.

At the very end of September, Rigetti also posted two purchase orders for its top-of-the-line Novera systems, sparking a single-day stock jump of 16.5%. The upgradable systems should be delivered in the first half of 2026.

The customers in this two-part deal are not arms of the American government. One is an as-yet-unidentified technology manufacturer headquartered in Asia. The other is a California-based start-up in the field of artificial intelligence and applied physics. Both will focus their Rigetti systems on noncommercial tasks such as internal training and hands-on error correction research.

Is Rigetti’s quantum leap worth the risk?

Rigetti’s blossoming sales and contracts are exciting, and the quantum computing industry as a whole is making big strides toward long-term commercial success at the moment. However, the financially sustainable future of the technology is still many years away. And it’s a risky ride.

The two Novera orders boosted Rigetti’s market cap from $9.66 billion to $11.22 billion. That’s a $1.56 billion boost from two sales worth (checks notes) a total of $5.7 million. That’s a lot of investor optimism based on a pair of fairly small contracts.

And that’s not a rare example. Stocks like Rigetti (and IonQ, and D-Wave, and…) often make big moves on tiny bits of news. Investors are looking for the next big thing, hoping to capture huge long-term returns before everyone else gets in on the same secret.

But Rigetti isn’t a secret anymore, and the company still faces huge risks on the road to profitable quantum computing operations. I’m watching this space with trillion-dollar tech titans in my quantum portfolio — not risky early-stage challengers with small revenue streams and huge bottom-line losses.

Inclusion on a list of prestigious businesses was a key news item driving GoPro (GPRO 19.14%) stock’s price 19% higher on Monday. This double-digit rise easily topped the 0.4% increase of the benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC 0.44%) that trading session.

A high degree of trust

GoPro has been selected for inclusion on Newsweek‘s 1,000-strong annual list of World’s Most Trustworthy Companies for 2025. This compilation is broken down into 23 categories, and the action camera maker was No. 5 in its category: appliances and electronics. All told, 33 companies comprised that category.

Image source: Getty Images.

The company wasn’t shy in touting its inclusion. In its press release touting this, GoPro mentioned that it’s now been included on Newsweek‘s list for two years in a row.

The magazine says its rankings are based on “extensive independent surveys,” of 65,000 people in 20 countries. Collectively, these individuals submitted 200,000 company evaluations based on a trio of criteria (customer, investor, and employee trust).

In GoPro’s press release, the company quoted founder and CEO Nicholas Woodman as saying, “This recognition underscores our commitment to product quality, innovation, and super serving our customers.”

Let’s keep our eyes on the ball

These days, GoPro is among the current crop of meme stocks that can rise or slide precipitously on any kind of news item. Newsweek isn’t the must-read periodical it used to be in the pre-social media days, but still, the company’s win is certainly a notable, positive development. Yet, investors should be more concerned with GoPro’s fundamental performance than the victories it scores in the media world.

Shares of Webtoon Entertainment (WBTN 39.17%) skyrocketed on Tuesday, peaking with a 42.5% one-day gain just after noon ET. The company just expanded its partnership with Walt Disney (DIS -0.25%), significantly boosting the business value of the Webtoon digital comics platform.

Image source: Getty Images.

Disney is back with a bigger deal

About a month ago, on Aug. 12, Webtoon struck up an agreement with the House of Mouse. That deal involved about 100 hand-picked comics from the worlds of Star Wars, Spider-Man, Avengers, Alien, and the core Disney storytelling brand. Investors were quick to embrace that announcement, which is easy to find on Webtoon’s three-month stock chart.

Today’s Disney deal builds on the earlier contract. Now, the two companies are working up a much broader digital comics presentation with more than 35,000 titles from Disney’s comic-book worlds. Many of these stories have not been available in digital form before, and Disney will develop a few entirely original titles for this platform.

Webtoon’s content catalog just got a Hulk-sized adrenaline shot. At the same time, a ton of rarely seen Disney content should find new fans on this new platform. The Webtoon format is already familiar to millions of younger consumers.

What the stock surge means for investors

Together, the two Disney announcements have more than doubled Webtoon’s stock price in less than five weeks. The total gain adds up to 117% as of this writing.

Many small companies would react to this kind of surge by issuing new shares, essentially shoveling cash from new investors to the company’s coffers. But Webtoon is an independently managed, California-based subsidiary of South Korean internet services giant Naver. A large stock offering would undermine the parent company’s voting power. Therefore, the Naver backing should protect Webtoon shareholders against costly share dilution. It’s no guarantee, but I don’t expect Naver to lessen its power in the Webtoon boardroom.

As for the Disney/Webtoon pairing, it remains to be seen how quickly this business can get going. Webtoon is still developing the mobile app and back-end infrastructure to support this project, with no firm release date in the books yet. At the same time, launching should be easy with Naver’s massive data centers and Disney’s marketing muscle.

So it’s a speculative jump, but backed by a plethora of big-name assets. I’m keeping an eye on this 20-year-old digital media upstart, waiting for Disney’s fireworks to start before putting cash into this stock. There’s so much the two partners aren’t saying about financial agreements and expected profits.

Iren Limited (IREN 15.41%) stock has been quietly making shareholders richer this year. Today’s jump came after a big deal was announced in the artificial intelligence (AI) cloud infrastructure space.

Today, Iren shares spiked higher by 15.8% as of 3:08 p.m. ET. But Iren stock has been stealthily moving higher all year. Shares of the vertically integrated data center company have more than tripled year to date.

Image source: Getty Images.

The demand for AI infrastructure is soaring

The AI cloud infrastructure space is gaining headlines today after a huge deal between Microsoft and AI infrastructure company Nebius Group was announced. The deal could be worth up to $19.4 billion for Nebius, which had a market cap of just about $15 billion yesterday.

Previously known as a power provider for Bitcoin mining, Iren has shifted into AI cloud services at a time when demand is soaring. Iren has accumulated leading Nvidia chips to provide customers with AI cloud services.

In an August business update yesterday, Iren co-founder and co-CEO Daniel Roberts stated, “Demand for our AI Cloud is accelerating as we prepare for the delivery of approximately 9,000 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs [graphics processing units] over the coming months.”

Since the Nebius deal was announced, more investors are noticing Iren today. That’s after the stock more than tripled year to date, though.

Iren also announced the appointment of a new chief financial officer yesterday. Anthony Lewis seems like a logical pick, as he oversaw financing for Iren’s recently announced GPU chip purchases.

Iren’s market cap is around $8 billion after today’s jump. Its data center capacity is approaching 1 gigawatt. If it manages to secure a similar deal with a large tech company, investors are betting that its valuation can also grow quickly from here.

Shares of satellite communications company EchoStar (SATS 15.84%), owner of the Sling and Boost Mobile brands, soared by 18.2% through 10 a.m. ET Monday — for reasons that have nothing to do with either Sling or Boost Mobile.

On Monday morning, EchoStar announced it will sell its AWS-4 and H-block satellite spectrum licenses to SpaceX for the latter’s use with Starlink. The total sales price: $19 billion.

Image source: Getty Images.

EchoStar’s big spectrum sale

EchoStar is inking a cash and stock deal to sell off some of its spectrum, which the Federal Communications Commission has criticized the company for failing to make full use of. SpaceX will pay $8.5 billion cash, cover about $2 billion worth of interest payments on EchoStar’s debt to its lenders between now and November 2027, and give the company $8.5 billion worth of SpaceX stock.

Additionally, the companies have agreed that SpaceX will sell back to EchoStar access to the spectrum, for use by Boost Mobile subscribers desiring Starlink Direct to Cell service on their phones.

What this means for EchoStar

EchoStar says it expects that this spectrum sale, in conjunction with another one that it announced previously, “will resolve the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) inquiries,” and put its legal troubles to bed. That alone partly explains investors’ positive reaction to the news.

And then there’s the cash.

According to S&P Global Market Intelligence data, EchoStar — which only has a market cap of about $22 billion — is carrying more than $30 billion in debt, and paid out more than $480 million in interest last year. SpaceX’s cash payments and interest coverage will significantly bolster EchoStar’s balance sheet. Additionally, the stock portion of the sale gives EchoStar a chance to participate in the success of SpaceX. So this seems like a good deal for all involved.

Intel (INTC 5.64%) stock is leaping higher in Friday’s trading thanks to a pair of bullish catalysts. The semiconductor company’s share price gained 5.5% in a day of trading that saw the S&P 500 jump 1.5% and the Nasdaq Composite surge 1.8%.

Intel’s valuation climbed today thanks to a speech from Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell that increased hopes among investors for an interest rate cut at the central bank’s meeting next month. The stock also got a boost from a report suggesting that the Trump administration was on the verge of announcing that it was on track to acquire a 10% stake in the company.

Image source: Getty Images.

Interest rate news boosted Intel stock today

Powell gave a speech this morning that has restored market confidence in a September interest rate cut and the potential for another rate cut later in the year. The Fed has kept rates relatively high in order to combat inflation, but investors have been hoping that the central bank will deliver cuts and create a stronger environment for stocks and other assets.

While Powell said that inflation continued to present challenges, he indicated that weakness in the U.S. economy was looking like the bigger risk factor. His comments seemed to indicate that the Fed is leaning toward cutting rates next month, and they helped power gains for Intel and many other tech stocks today.

Intel also rose thanks to major U.S. investment news

Bloomberg published a report today stating that President Donald Trump was on track to announce that the U.S. government would be taking a nearly 10% equity position in Intel. The official announcement wound up arriving after the market closed today, but Trump did confirm that he had met with CEO Lip-bu Tan and that the U.S. will be taking a 10% stake in Intel.

The development will allow Intel to receive funding that had been apportioned to it through the CHIPS Act. It also opens the door for additional government support as artificial intelligence (AI) chip designs and chip fabrication technologies become increasingly important to the economy and national security.