If you’re unemployed, job seekers in Arlington, Texas, might have an easier time finding work than job seekers in Arlington, Virginia. New data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics last week revealed that the Washington, DC-Arlington-Alexandria region lost the most jobs of any US metro area, while Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington gained the most jobs. See the full list of the cities that lost or gained the most jobs last year. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 both closed at record highs on Friday, while the Russell 2000 also rose, closing just shy of its record. 🧠 Trivia time… Take our Snacks Seven Quiz. Here’s the first question: |
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Intel’s blockbuster results charge chip trade |
- Intel soared 23.6% on Friday, making it the stock’s best day since October 29, 1987, and the company’s fifth-best day out of its 50-plus years in the stock market.
- Unlike that previous high-water mark, which was part of a broad-based recovery from a steep market crash, Intel’s outperformance Friday was all about the company’s own results…
- And its promise of future returns. The real driver of the ebullient reaction was its forecast for revenue of between $13.8 billion and $14.8 billion in Q2, leaps above the $13 billion average expected by analysts.
- The market has been waiting for a sign that CEO Lip-Bu Tan is reversing years of decline and successfully tapping into the massive demand created by the AI build-out. And on Thursday, he delivered.
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Not only did Intel’s report please an array of analysts, it also added fuel to the rally that semiconductor stocks saw last week, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, the basis for SOXX, continuing to build on an unprecedented tear and closing up for the 18th day in a row. |
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While Tan should rightfully take a moment to celebrate, the company is not out of the weeds yet. While the AI build-out is clearly consuming more CPUs — processors that act as the “brains” of servers, which sit inside the “head node” of server racks organizing activity done by other chips, like Nvidia’s GPUs — Intel isn’t the only company that makes them. And as we charted, Intel has posted for years, and is still posting, huge losses in the contract chip manufacturing business — known as a foundry — that it has tried to establish as a US-based competitor to industry leaders TSMC and Samsung Electronics. |
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Despite a challenging quarter, crypto markets showed signs of stabilization in March |
March was a month of stabilization for crypto as the total digital asset market cap closed the month at ~$2.35 trillion, up 2% from the end of February.1 Bitcoin returned 3.3%, Ethereum returned 8.9%,2 and US Spot Bitcoin ETFs saw ~$1.32 billion in net inflows in March1 — reversing a trend of outflows that ran from November 2025 through February. Meanwhile, the SEC approved Nasdaq's proposal to facilitate the tokenization of certain equities, and the US Department of Labor proposed expanding digital asset access in 401(k) plans. Dive deeper into crypto insights with the latest Monthly Digital Asset Market Update from Nasdaq. Read it here. |
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Stories we’re obsessed with |
- DeepSeek, no freak: DeepSeek dropped its new V4 series of open-source models, which have closed the gap with rival models from Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI in coding performance, though the Chinese AI lab admits it still trails state-of-the-art competitors in reasoning by three to six months. Unlike the startup’s first debut, which roiled the AI trade, markets seemed to give a Bart Simpson “meh” to the news.
- Up in smoke: Last week, it seemed like the US weed industry finally got what it wanted with the Department of Justice’s order to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug. So why did pot stocks plunge? The same thing happened in December following President Trump’s executive order expediting this reclassification, in fact. There are a few reasons, including the breadth of the actual change, banking and lending barriers, and a surprisingly tricky tax regime.
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Amazon wants to be your doctor and your pharmacy |
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- 🎵 Music: Justin Bieber has seen a surge of renewed interest since his performance at Coachella, which has sent his streams spiking. The numbers have surprised onlookers, with markets* pricing in a 15% chance he finishes the month of April as the top artist on Spotify — not bad for someone who entered the month with an incredibly remote shot of topping the charts.
- 🏛️ Fed: Following the news that Trump’s DOJ is dropping an investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, the chances that Kevin Warsh, his nominee to become the next chair, is confirmed before May 15 shot up Friday from a 31% chance to an 85% chance. Even some GOP allies in the Senate were seriously uncomfortable with the nature of that investigation, and had threatened to withhold support.
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*Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC. |
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- Monday: Premarket earnings: Verizon and Domino’s. Postmarket earnings: Cadence Design Systems
- Tuesday: Premarket earnings: Coca-Cola, General Motors, Corning, BitMine Immersion Technologies, UPS, Galaxy Digital, and JetBlue. Postmarket earnings: Robinhood**, Seagate Technology, Starbucks, Visa, Bloom Energy, Booking, T-Mobile, Mondelez, Enphase Energy, Edison International, Caesars Entertainment, Waste Management, Teradyne, and Fair Isaac
- Wednesday: Premarket earnings: Bloom Energy, AbbVie, Wingstop, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Yum! Brands, Biogen, Lemonade, Brinker, Etsy, SoFi, and Avis. Federal Reserve interest rate decision at 2 p.m. ET. Postmarket earnings: Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Ford, Chipotle, KLA Corp, Carvana, MGM, Qualcomm, and eBay
- Thursday: Premarket earnings: Wayfair, Crocs, Blue Owl, Merck, Eli Lilly, Royal Caribbean, Mastercard, Altria, Molson Coors, Caterpillar, Norwegian Cruise Lines, and Critical Metals. Advance reading of Q1 GDP, PCE inflation data for March due out at 8:30 a.m. ET. Postmarket earnings: Apple, Clorox, Rivian, Roblox, Reddit, Western Digital, First Solar, Riot Holdings, and Sandisk
- Friday: Premarket earnings: Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Moderna, and Cboe
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**Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company. |
Advertiser's disclosures:
1 Source: Nasdaq, Monthly Digital Asset Market Update: March 2026. 2 Based on the Nasdaq Bitcoin Settlement Price™ Index (NQBTCS™) and Nasdaq Ethereum Settlement Price™ Index (NQETHS™), returned 3.3% and 8.9%, respectively. Source: Nasdaq, Monthly Digital Asset Market Update: March 2026. |
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Sherwood Media, LLC produces fresh and unique perspectives on topical financial news and is a fully owned subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, Inc., and any views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any other Robinhood affiliate... See more |
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