“Chips with Benefits,” Verizon’s 5G Flop Gets a Fintech Fix, +1,000%. History Made.

“Shutdown” might be the word echoing through D.C. (and every government employee’s Facebook account), but on Wall Street, it’s just another day of throwing money at anything that could spell “AI” if you tilt your head and squint. While Congress argues over who gets the cot and who gets the couch, the Nasdaq climbed 0.7%, the S&P 500 tacked on 0.4%, and the Dow did what the Dow does best… zilch, nada, nothing (-0.2%).

AMD’s full-blown situationship with OpenAI… call it Chips with Benefits. Lisa Su finally got her rose, and Sam Altman just found himself a new chip mama. The two inked a multiyear deal that could bring in tens of billions in revenue and even give OpenAI the option to buy up to 10% of AMD. So now, in addition to selling GPUs, AMD’s selling a piece of itself for a YUGE wheelbarrow full of cash.

The stock exploded more than 35% (at one point) as investors all realized there’s room for another GPU supplier. Nvidia, meanwhile, slipped 1% as traders suddenly realized Altman won’t be spending every weekend at Jensen Huang’s house anymore. Of course, if it even smelled like a semiconductor, it caught a bid. Applied Materials, Micron, and TSMC all went along for the joyride. AI fever doesn’t discriminate… it just buys everything that hums at high voltage.

While stonk traders were busy anointing a new chip messiah, the banking sector decided to make a comeback album. Fifth Third Bancorp agreed to buy Comerica for $10.9 billion in stock, instantly creating the ninth-largest U.S. bank and a whole new headache for regulators. Comerica soared 10%, the regional bank ETF jumped, and a bunch of finance bros in Cincinnati broke out the Cuban cigars for being slightly less irrelevant than they were yesterday. M&A season is officially back… because when you can’t grow, you merge and call it “synergy.”

Meanwhile, in the nation’s capital, the government shutdown trudged into week two. Economic data? Delayed. Jobs report? Missing in action. Fed policy? Still “data-dependent,” which is hilarious considering there’s literally no data. Trump-backed Fed governor Stephen Miran is set to speak Wednesday, followed by Jerome Powell on Thursday, both of whom will probably squint at blank charts and pretend to see “stability.” One strategist called the moment “Investor Prime Day”... AKA: “buy the dip, don’t ask questions.”

And because the world loves a subplot, Bitcoin broke a new record above $126,000. The government’s closed, and people are sprinting to digital coins for safety. The irony could power a Tesla factory.

Over in the land of lost 5G hopes and dreams… Verizon retreated 4% after firing Hans Vestberg and hiring PayPal’s Dan Schulman… because when your wireless plan isn’t working, the obvious fix is a fintech guy.

As for Brian Niccol and his monster pay package… he’s doing fine. Starbucks, on the other hand, fell 4% after announcing more store closures under its “Project Bloom” turnaround plan, putting shares down 14% over the past year. Live look at investors still waiting for Brian’s “Back to Starbucks” plan to actually pay off:

And Critical Metals (a tiny rare-earth miner in Greenland) surged 90% after reports the Trump administration might give it the Intel treatment.

As for our Stock Prophet Watchlist… after a week slower than a DMV line on lunch break, we finally struck gold. We alerted SPRB at 8:05 a.m. EST… and by the afternoon, it had gone full rocket mode: +1,000% LONG. Yeah, you read that right. One. Thousand. Percent. Today.

If you caught that trade, you’re officially the office legend (even if you work from home). If you didn’t… well, go ahead and kick yourself (gently). Because the bigger story here is what it means: price action is waking up again. And when one ticker goes nuclear like that, history says there’s usually another one lining up for launch.

So keep your eyes glued to the Stocks.News app tomorrow morning. If today’s “someone check my screen because this can’t be real” 1,000% move is any indication, this week’s about to get wild.

If you read all of this, congrats for having a 10 second attention span (better than me). As always, here’s our heatmap for today.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Meta, Tesla, Verizon, and Starbucks as mentioned in the article.