An apparent takeover attempt being concocted by a peer was the main factor behind Warner Bros Discovery (WBD 28.91%) stock’s precipitous rise on Thursday. On a media report that the storied entertainment company is in play, investors piled into the stock in anticipation of a generous buyout offer. Warner soared almost 29% higher in price that trading session.

Hollywood megadeal in the works?

That afternoon, The Wall Street Journal published a story stating that Paramount Skydance is making preparations to submit a majority cash bid for Warner. This effort is apparently backed by the family of Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, which includes Oracle co-founder and executive chairman Larry Ellison and film producer Megan Ellison. It wasn’t immediately clear which family members might be involved in the bid.

The Journal, citing unnamed “people familiar with the situation,” wrote that Paramount Skydance’s play will be for the entirety of the sprawling Warner.

The business newspaper added that in preparing a bid, Paramount Skydance hopes to get the jump on big tech and entertainment conglomerates that might want to lay their hands on Warner assets.

If successful, a combination of Paramount Skydance and Warner would be earth-shaking for the entertainment industry. Combined, the two own a dizzying number of familiar entertainment properties, including cable/streaming channel HBO, superhero franchise base DC Studios, and Nickelodeon Movies.

The Journal did not speculate as to how much Paramount Skydance plans to offer for Warner; however, the amount must be substantial. The latter company’s market cap stood at over $40 billion after the run-up in the stock following the article’s publication.

Neither Paramount Skydance nor Warner has yet officially commented on the report.

Stay tuned for more!

Given David Ellison’s successful entry into Paramount Skydance last month, plus the considerable financial firepower he and his team can marshal, I’d say the Journal‘s report has a lot of credibility. I’d be cautious in approaching Warner’s stock now, however, as we have no indication of what the price tag might be.

Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Oracle and Warner Bros. Discovery. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Shares of Bloom Energy (BE 13.14%) rocketed 18.5% higher on Wednesday as of 12:35 p.m. ET.

There wasn’t any news specifically from Bloom today; however, last night’s bombshell guidance from Oracle (ORCL 35.14%) is likely boosting Bloom by association, given that Bloom inked an important data center partnership with Oracle in July.

Oracle announces AI hypergrowth, and it will need lots of energy

Bloom surged in July after it announced a landmark deal with Oracle on July 24. For reference, Bloom’s energy servers can transform natural gas or hydrogen into electricity without combustion, producing electricity from an abundant source like natural gas in a cleaner way to meet escalating electricity demand.

Bloom had served utilities and other power users in the past, but the July deal with Oracle was the first direct agreement with a cloud hyperscaler.

Therefore, when Oracle provided astonishing backlog growth in its cloud infrastructure (IaaS) business last night, that also improved the outlook for Bloom, which will likely play a role in providing electricity to those data centers. Oracle reported $455 billion in remaining performance obligation in its cloud IaaS business, up an astounding 359%. On the conference call with analysts, CEO Safra Catz noted she expects cloud infrastructure revenue to grow from $18 billion this year to a stunning $144 billion in fiscal 2030 — over just a matter of four years.

Needless to say, that much growth will require Oracle to build a lot more data centers, which will likely be served in part by Bloom’s energy servers.

Bloom looks expensive, but AI growth is off the charts

After today’s rally, Bloom trades at 76.5 times next year’s earnings estimates. That’s very expensive for a low-margin hardware business, but Oracle’s multiyear guide appears to have lifted the prospects for Bloom’s growth over the 2027-2030 time frame.

So while Bloom’s valuation makes it risky at these levels, its artificial intelligence (AI)-related growth story keeps getting better.

Billy Duberstein and/or his clients have no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Oracle. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

For stock investors, one way to prosperity on Monday was by having a position in medical tech company Waystar (WAY 9.63%). After all, it was an outlier in the best way possible, since it shares zoomed almost 10% skyward on news that it’ll be a component in a popular stock index.

That gain was particularly impressive, as the benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC 0.21%) bumped only 0.2% higher.

That’s one way to gain more prominence

That index is the S&P SmallCap 600, and Waystar will become one of the 600 selected for inclusion when a series of changes takes effect prior to market open on Monday, Sept. 22.

In a series of adjustments to several of its indexes announced following market close on Friday, S&P Global‘s S&P Dow Jones Indices tapped Waystar as one of 10 titles “graduating” to the small-cap lineup. The move is part of the index company’s quarterly realignment, in which at least a few of its many indexes are realigned.

With the ascension of the 10 stocks including Waystar, a corresponding number of companies were deleted from the S&P SmallCap 600. Several will be familiar to investors, including fast food restaurant operator Jack in the Box and storied tech company Xerox Holdings.

Index funds are always on the hunt

It’s important to stress that inclusion on an index, no matter how prominent, does not affect the underlying fundamental performance of an affected company. However, as index funds continue to be hotly popular, the increased demand should at least support their stock price.

Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends S&P Global. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Edge semiconductor designer Ambarella (AMBA 16.75%) barreled into the weekend on a high note, following its release of a fresh set of quarterly results. On a convincing double beat, the company’s stock was justifiably popular, with investors sending its price just about 17% higher in Friday’s trading session.

A vast improvement on the top line

For the second quarter of its fiscal 2026, Ambarella collected $95.5 million in revenue, improving that line item by almost 50% year over year. The company’s non-GAAP (adjusted) net income didn’t rise that dramatically, but it did see a robust increase of 16% to $6.4 million, shaking out to $0.15 per share.

Analysts had significantly underestimated this growth potential. On average as a group, they were forecasting $90 million for revenue, and an adjusted, bottom-line profit of $0.05 per share.

Ambarella’s niche is the edge segment of the market, in which data and software are moved closer to the user’s base in order to speed up processing times. It has developed artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for edge computing, and given the current, near-insatiable demand for AI functionalities, that’s a fine business to be involved in just now.

In the company’s earnings release, it pointed out that it has so far shipped over 36 million edge AI processors.

Double-digit optimism

It was a beat-and-raise quarter for Ambarella, as the company lifted its guidance for full-year revenue. For the entirety of fiscal 2026 it’s now expecting its revenue to increase by 31% to 35% over the 2025 result; the midpoint of this range in dollar terms is around $379 million.

Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Beaten-down telecom stock Lumen Technologies (LUMN 12.37%) wasn’t looking so battered on Wednesday. In fact, the shares jumped more than 12% higher in price on news that a sports media company would be harnessing its technology to broadcast live games. Lumen’s leap was far more pronounced than the S&P 500 index’s 0.2% increase on that Hump Day trading session.

Scoring a touchdown with a college sports broadcaster

Wednesday morning, Lumen announced that it and Pac-12 Enterprises, the broadcasting unit of the Pac-12 college football conference, are teaming up this season. The broadcaster will use Lumen’s network-as-a-service (NaaS) technology to deliver the conference’s games to viewers of the highly competitive league.

Lumen said this is to begin as soon as this Saturday, with the Washington State versus Idaho contest.

The company did not supply any financial particulars of its new arrangement with Pac-12 Enterprises, nor did it speculate how it might affect fundamentals like revenue. Regardless, Lumen’s success in roping in a high-profile corporate customer with demanding connectivity needs is a clear win for the company and quite the encouraging morale booster.

Assuming the tie-up is mutually beneficial, we can expect it to generate new business for Lumen for clients with similar data transmission requirements.

Lumen goes live

At the very least, we can expect media companiess that broadcast content like live athletics to consider partnering with Lumen.

In the press release touting the Pac-12 Enterprises deal, Lumen quoted its CTO Dave Ward as saying that its client “can instantly dial up bandwidth — delivering the speed, reliability, and control that modern productions demand.“

Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Marijuana stock Curaleaf (CURLF 9.58%) got quite a buzz Thursday from news about one of the substances for which it’s best known. Interestingly enough, this was not the THC that gets people high from consuming marijuana, but cannabidiol (CBD), the nonpsychoactive compound that’s also packed into the plant.

On reports of a previously undetected potential health benefit of CBD, investors piled into Curaleaf stock and pushed its value nearly 10% higher on the day.

What the drunk rodents were telling us

Industry newsletter reported that the results of a clinical study indicate that CBD appeared to improve withdrawal and relapse conditions in those suffering from alcohol use disorder (more commonly known simply as alcoholism).

Citing a report on the study published in the scientific journal Nature, Marijuana Moment said that researchers at the University of California, San Diego conducted the clinical trial on rodents.

Two cohorts among 166 of the animals were given shots of synthetic CBD, and another was used as a control group. The rodents that ingested the CBD demonstrated milder alcohol withdrawal symptoms and had a lower risk of relapse.

Seeing a way back to CBD?

That news is encouraging, not only because of the potential new use for CBD to help treat a stubborn condition. The study was partially funded by the federal government’s National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, which might at least slightly tilt officialdom’s sentiment on marijuana-derived substances.

CBD is by no means a major part of Curaleaf’s business. The compound had its moment of popularity some years ago, but has since devolved into basically a low-profile niche product. Other successful studies like this, however, could lead to something of a revival.

Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Around 40,000 Bitcoin options contracts will expire on Friday, August 15, and they have a notional value of roughly $4.8 billion.

This expiry event is slightly larger than last week’s, but it is still unlikely to be enough to influence spot markets, which have notched all-time highs in terms of market capitalization this week.

Bitcoin Options Expiry

This week’s tranche of Bitcoin options contracts has a put/call ratio of 0.90, meaning that there are almost as many long contracts expiring as shorts, and the bulls and bears are evenly matched.

Open interest (OI), or the value or number of BTC options contracts yet to expire, is highest at $140,000, which has surged to almost $3.2 billion at this strike price on Deribit. There is also around $2.4 billion OI at $120,000 strike price as the bull speculators load up on contracts and dwindling OI for lower strike prices.

Additionally, total Bitcoin futures OI currently stands at $83.3 billion, which is near record highs, according to CoinGlass.

Greeks Live, a crypto derivatives provider, said this week that the group was predominantly bullish, “with strong momentum in both BTC and ETH, with traders actively selling puts and holding long positions that are deeply in profit.”

“Key sentiment revolves around continued put selling strategies and excitement about ETH’s exceptional performance, though some concern exists about high volatility levels.”

Greeks added that trading volume shows the market’s enthusiasm for trading as Deribit traded $10.9 billion in options on Thursday, breaking the $10 billion mark for the first time in a single day.

As BTC hit a new all-time high and ETH neared its all-time high, the market experienced an unexpected correction, primarily triggered by an unexpectedly strong PPI reading.
There were no major changes in the options market, with no significant changes in the main term IV and… pic.twitter.com/sWWOp3KVXE

— Greeks.live (@GreeksLive) August 14, 2025

In addition to today’s batch of Bitcoin options, there are around 287,000 Ethereum contracts that are also expiring, with a notional value of $1.3 billion, and a put/call ratio of 1.0. This brings Friday’s combined crypto options expiry notional value to around $6.1 billion.

Crypto Market Outlook

Total market capitalization hit an all-time high of $4.25 trillion this week, but it is still smaller than America’s largest corporation, Nvidia, and just 18% of gold’s total market cap of nearly $23 trillion.

However, markets had started to cool off by Friday, with total cap dropping 4% to $4.1 trillion at the time of writing.

Bitcoin led the losses, falling 3.8% to below $118,000, but managed to regain a little composure during the Friday morning Asian session as it nudged back toward $119,000.

Ethereum also cooled from recent four-year highs, sliding below $4,500 on Thursday before recovering to trade at $4,630 on Friday morning. Altcoins were also dumping hard despite increased calls for altseason … it’s not here yet!

A recognized pattern of Asia buying and the United States selling has started to form this week.

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions (KTOS 0.54%) investors might be tempted to celebrate the coming weekend early, following an analyst’s recommendation upgrade for their stock. That sentiment-boosting event occurred Thursday before market open, and helped the company’s shares trade in positive territory.

They closed that session 0.5% higher, slightly exceeding the rise of the S&P 500 index.

BTIG is now big on the company

The person upping his recommendation on Kratos was BTIG’s Andre Madrid, who has set a price target of $80 per share for the defense stock.

According to reports, Madrid feels that several developments have swung in the defense company’s favor recently. A major one he cited is the Marine Corps’s MUX TACAIR unmanned aerial systems (UAS) program, for which the company was downselected. This portends quite well for Kratos’s general UAS business.

The analyst also waxed bullish about the company’s potential in other product segments, singling out categories such as hypersonics and microwave technologies.

Join the club

Madrid’s upgrade is part of a trend among analysts, more than a few of whom have become more positive about Kratos’s future lately. Earlier this week, a clutch of them raised their price targets on the shares, while one (Cannacord Genuity’s Austin Moeller) initiated coverage with a buy rating.

This was to be expected, to a degree, as the company scored a double beat on its second-quarter earnings, which it reported last week. It particularly impressed the market with a 17% year-over-year increase in sales, not to mention topping the average analyst revenue estimate with full-year guidance of $1.3 billion.

Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.