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Reddit shares surged 12.6% in premarket trading after S&P Dow Jones Indices announced the social media company will join the S&P 500, replacing AvalonBay Communities. JPMorgan analysts estimate index funds may need to purchase about 16.7 million Reddit shares, nearly three times its average daily trading volume of around 5.98 million shares since its March 2024 debut. Applied Materials shares fell approximately 5% despite issuing an upbeat outlook, as investors remained concerned about its competitive position against rivals such as ASML and Lam Research. Summit Insights Group noted Applied Materials' topline performance has lagged peers, raising concerns after the stock had already more than doubled this year. Fox Corp Class A shares rose 4.1% after JPMorgan upgraded the stock to Overweight from Neutral.

Applied Materials shares fell 5.4% in pre-market trading despite reporting record fiscal third-quarter results that exceeded analyst expectations. The semiconductor equipment maker posted revenue of $9.12 billion, up 25% year-over-year, surpassing the $8.99 billion consensus estimate. Non-GAAP earnings per share reached a record $3.50, beating expectations of $3.40. Investors focused on China-related concerns, as revenue from the region declined to approximately 28% of total sales from 35% a year earlier. The drop highlights the impact of US export restrictions on sales of advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment. The stock's substantial year-to-date rally, including a 4% gain on Thursday alone, raised the bar for results. The subsequent decline reflected profit-taking as the stronger-than-expected figures failed to justify elevated valuations priced in ahead of the announcement.

Applied Materials posts record $9.12B quarter as AI chip demand surges. Applied Materials, the world's largest maker of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, closed its fiscal third quarter of 2026 with a record $9.12 billion in revenue, up 25 percent year over year, as chipmakers kept pouring money into AI production capacity. The Santa Clara-based company's results, released Thursday, beat Wall Street's roughly $9 billion consensus but fell just short of the more bullish $3.56-per-share whisper number some traders had been chasing. For gamers and PC builders, Applied Materials rarely makes headlines directly, but its tools build the fabrication lines that produce the GPUs, CPUs and memory chips inside every gaming rig and console. When the company that supplies Samsung, TSMC, Micron and SK hynix says AI demand is reshaping its order book, it's an early signal for graphics card and memory pricing further down the chain. Record $9.12 billion tops estimates, just misses the whisper number. Applied Materials reported record Q3 FY2026 revenue of $9.12 billion, up 25% year over year, with GAAP gross margin of 50.3%, operating income of $3.08 billion and GAAP EPS of $3.17, up 43%. Non-GAAP EPS reached a record $3.50, up 41%, with non-GAAP operating margin of 34.0%. Applied Materials' revenue hit record highs for a single quarter and beat expectations, and though its earnings-per-share beat Wall Street estimates, they couldn't quite overcome the whisper number expectation. For EPS, the number came out to $3.50 per share, enough to beat the Wall Street expectation of $3.38 per share, but not more than Earnings Whisper expected at $3.56 per share. Whisper numbers, unofficial crowd-sourced estimates that often run hotter than official analyst consensus, are closely watched by day traders but carry no bearing on the company's actual reported performance. CEO Gary Dickerson framed the quarter as a milestone for the company. "Applied Materials delivered another record-breaking quarter, including the highest sequential revenue growth in the company's history," said Gary Dickerson, President and CEO. "As the rapid global adoption of AI drives unprecedented demand for our materials engineering solutions, we are further raising our Semiconductor Systems revenue expectations for calendar 2026 and are confident we will grow faster than the market this year." Semiconductor Systems segment powers 37.7% operating margin. Semiconductor Systems revenue was $7.04 billion with a 37.7% operating margin, while Applied Global Services revenue was $1.78 billion with a 30.1% operating margin. That segment, which sells the deposition, etch and inspection tools used to build the transistors inside modern chips, is where Applied Materials is capturing the sharpest end of the AI capital-spending wave. The company's balance sheet reflected the strength of the quarter beyond the headline sales figure. Applied Materials generated record operating cash flow of $3.04 billion and non-GAAP free cash flow of $2.33 billion, up 14%, returning $860 million via buybacks and dividends. Independent wire coverage confirmed the scale of the beat, with third-quarter revenue increasing to a record of $9.12 billion from $7.3 billion in the prior-year quarter, exceeding Wall Street's estimates. Q4 FY2026 guidance points to $10.25 billion quarter. Q4 FY2026 guidance calls for revenue of $10.25 billion, plus or minus $0.5 billion, and non-GAAP diluted EPS of $4.02, plus or minus $0.20. That outlook comfortably clears prior Street expectations, with the company guiding for fourth-quarter revenue of $10.25 billion, plus or minus $500 million, versus estimates of $9.54 billion and adjusted earnings ahead of the roughly $3.69-per-share consensus analysts had modelled going into the print. Management is also looking well past the next quarter. Chief Executive Officer Gary Dickerson said the company is also expecting "another strong growth year" in 2027, citing increased demand visibility from customers. That forward commentary echoes a broader upgrade to the company's full-year outlook, with Applied Materials upgrading its semiconductor equipment growth outlook for 2026 to over 30%, a meaningful jump from earlier estimates that pegged growth around 20%. DRAM and HBM demand is the real story behind gaming memory prices. The quarter's real significance for PC gamers sits inside the DRAM and advanced-packaging numbers. High-bandwidth memory, the stacked DRAM used in AI accelerators, is soaking up fabrication capacity that would otherwise go toward the GDDR and standard DRAM chips used in graphics cards and gaming PCs, and Applied Materials' tools sit directly in that supply chain. That squeeze has already shown up on store shelves. As Shane the Gamer reported this month, memory and component cost pressure has been pushing add-in-board partner pricing on AMD's own graphics cards sharply higher even before a new console generation lands. Singapore campus and smart eyewear deal signal where growth is headed. Beyond the headline numbers, Applied Materials used the earnings release to flag its next expansion moves. Applied highlighted multiple new DRAM, 3D NAND, and advanced packaging systems, expanded EPIC Center partnerships, a new $500 million Singapore campus, and a joint development agreement for next-generation smart eyewear. The eyewear tie-up points to Applied Materials chasing manufacturing demand for AR optics well beyond its traditional chip-tool business, a hint that wearable and mixed-reality hardware could become a meaningful new customer category for its process equipment over the next few years. For now, the immediate market reaction was mixed despite the record top line, with shares slipping after hours as some investors weighed the EPS whisper miss and elevated valuation against the raised full-year outlook. Independent reporting on the print noted shares of Applied Materials retreated 2.9% to $519.00 in after-hours trading on Thursday, a reminder that even a record quarter can disappoint a stock that had already priced in aggressive AI growth. None of that changes the underlying signal for the hardware side of gaming: fab capacity is being reallocated toward AI memory and packaging at a pace that will keep pressure on GPU and DRAM pricing well into next year.