Mid-Morning Look: April 28, 2026

Mid-Morning Look

Tuesday, April 28, 2026

U.S. stocks opened at the lows after the S&P 500 (SPX) and Nasdaq both closed at record highs on Monday night but have already pared losses following comments from President Trump on Iran and OpenAI comments after a cautious article overnight. After leading markets higher this month, tech, semis and the Nasdaq declined overnight after the WSJ reported OpenAI recently missed own targets for new users, revenue, raising concerns over whether it can support massive spending on data centers. Missed goals included 1B weekly active users by end of 2025, revenue target miss as subscribers defected to other AI platforms (including Google’s Gemini eating into market share), and monthly revenue targets this year as Anthropic’s coding, enterprise offerings gained momentum. The report cast weakness on data center/AI infrastructure related plays like CRWV, ORCL, NBIS and many others ahead of big earnings results from hyperscalers tomorrow night (AMZN, META, GOOGL, MSFT). However, right at the open, Bloomberg reported OpenAI saying its business is ‘firing on all cylinders” which pared losses in the tech space. In the macro space, President Trump (also around the stock market open), posted on Truth Social media platform, “Iran has just informed US that they are in a “State of Collapse.” They want US to “Open the Hormuz Strait,” as soon as possible, as they try to Figure out their leadership situation (Which I believe they will be able to do!).” Those comments helped ease oil price slightly and help market sentiment. Strong start to earnings season as of the 150 S&P 500 companies to have reported so far this earnings season, 80% have beaten analysts’ forecasts, while 13% have missed. More earnings to come tonight and big ones tomorrow in tech/AI space. Also, the FOMC policy meeting is tomorrow along with several other central banks (BOJ kept rates unchanged overnight).

• February home prices in 20 metro areas -0.1% seasonally adj (consensus +0.2%) vs +0.2% in January (previous +0.2%) – S&P Cotality Case-Shiller reported. February 20-metro area home prices non-adjusted +0.4% vs -0.1% in January (previous -0.1%) and 20-metro area home prices +0.9% (consensus +1.1%) from year ago.

• In Chemicals: SHW Q1 EPS and sales came in above consensus while forecasts mid-single-digit sales growth for Q2, banking on price increases and contributions from recent acquisitions; TROX was downgraded to Sell at Truist while raise CC tgt to $30 from $27 following continued momentum for shares of TiO2 producers. Truist stills expect TROX earnings to improve sequentially  throughout 2026 but see potential for Q2 guidance to disappoint. As the US-Iran conflict continues to disrupt commodity pricing and regional Logistics, Truist continues to view CC’s geographic footprint within TiO2 as relatively advantaged vs Chinese and Western competitors.
• AI Data Center: shares of CRWV, ORCL, NBIS shares weaker after the WSJ reported that OpenAI falls short of revenue and user targets as it races toward IPO. CFO ​Sarah Friar has expressed concerns to other ⁠company leaders that the ChatGPT creator might not ​be able to pay for future Computing contracts ​if revenue doesn’t grow fast enough. OpenAI missed multiple monthly revenue targets earlier this year after ​losing ground to Anthropic in coding and enterprise ​markets, the report said. OpenAI later commented (per Bloomberg) saying its business is ‘firing on all cylinders” which pared losses in the tech space.

• BBBY +5%; shares surged after posted their 1st revenue growth in 19 quarters, rising 6.9% to $248M topping the $240M estimate; Q1 net loss narrowed to $16M from $40M a year ago, while average order value rose to $205 from $194; said seeing better engagement, stronger conversion and improvements in average order value.
• BP +1%; as Q1 profit more than doubled year-on-year to $3.2B, beating expectations by 20% as the spike in oil prices triggered by the war has helped reap billions of dollars; Q1 underlying replacement cost profit of $3.2B exceeded expectations of $2.67B and above the $1.38B figure y/y.
• DT +4%; shares edged higher after activist investor Starboard Value disclosed it has made a “substantial investment” in Dynatrace, as it sees the software monitoring firm as undervalued despite its strong competitive positioning and long-term growth prospects.
• KFRC +35%; surges after earnings results as Q1 EPS $0.46 vs. est. $0.39; Q1 revs $330.4M vs. consensus $329.38M; guides Q2 EPS $0.67-$0.75 above consensus $0.60 on better revs $344M-$352M vs. est. $335.67M
• KO +5%; reported Q1 PS $0.86 vs. est. $0.81 as revs rose 12.5% y/y to $12.5B vs. est. $12.4B as organic revs rose 10%, driven by an 8% increase in concentrate sales and 2% growth in price and mix; raises guidance as expects annual comparable EPS to grow 8% to 9%, compared with a prior view of 7% to 8% rise.
• SANM +12%; rises on results as Q2 revs $4.01B tops $3.28B estimate as beat was driven by significantly higher-than-expected revenue from its AI and data‑centre systems unit ZT Systems, while guides Q3 revs $3.2B-$3.5B above prior view $3.1B-$3.4B.
• SEI +9%; reported better-than-expected Q1 adjusted EBITDA (+13.4% versus its forecast), above-consensus Q2 guidance as raised EBITDA guidance by 10.0% at the midpoint to $83-93M from $76-84M and announced a 10-year contract for 600MW+ with a third large hyperscaler customer.

• CRWV -3%; along with weakness in ORCL, AMD, NBIS and other data plays after the Wall Street Journal reported OpenAI falls short of revenue and user targets; ChatGPT’s growth slowed toward 2025 end, with OpenAI falling short of internal target to reach 1 billion weekly active users for AI chatbot, report says.
• ERAS -46%; shares tumbled after saying one patient withdrew from the trial after a severe treatment-related adverse event and later died, according to a filing.
• GLW -5%; Q1 results mostly in line at $0.70/$4.35B vs. est. $0.69/$4.31B as posted higher profit and core results, lifted by surging demand for its optical fiber products used in artificial intelligence data centers; sees Q2 sales about $4.6B vs. est. $4.65B and EPS $0.73-$0.77 vs. est. $0.75.
• QGEN -10%; cuts FY26 EPS view to ‘at least’ $2.43 from ‘at least’ $2.50 and updates year sales growth of about 1-2% CER (previously at least 5% CER growth); cites headwinds from reduced QuantiFERON immigration testing demand, sustained caution among U.S. Life Sciences customers.
• RMBS -21%; Q1 results in-line to slight miss on EPS at $0.63 vs est $0.65 on revs $180.2Mm vs est $179.9Mm; guides Q2 product revs $95-101Mm, licensing billings $76-82Mm (note RMBS shares up ~90% since the beginning of the month and up 20% coming into the report so had high expectations).
• SPOT -14%; shares tumbled after Q1 monthly active users (MAU) forecast of 778M exceeded estimates of 773M, but its prediction for a 6M increase in premium subscribers to 299M was below estimates of 302M; guides Q2 operating income of 630M euros ($736.41M) for Q2, below average estimate of 684M euros.
• UPS -4%; posted adjusted Q1 EPS $1.07, better than the Street $1.02 and modest beat on revs with the consolidated operating margin of 6.2%; U.S. Domestic adjusted operating profit of $565M fell short of the Street by $68M; Volume in the company’s U.S. domestic segment declined; maintained its full year outlook.