What Happened?
A number of stocks jumped in the afternoon session after the major indices rebounded from a week of heavy selling.
This rally was fueled by a recovery in technology stocks and a significant bounce in Bitcoin, which stabilized after losing over half its value from its October peak. Investor sentiment was also lifted by a surprising improvement in U.S. consumer sentiment and the realization that massive AI-related capital expenditure, such as Amazon's planned $200 billion, directly benefits chipmakers like Nvidia and Broadcom. These "pick-and-shovel" winners jumped as much as 7%, helping the S&P 500 edge back into positive territory for 2026. The highlight of the day was the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which surged and crossed the historic 50,000 threshold for the first time.
The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks.
Among others, the following stocks were impacted:
- Data & Business Process Services company Planet Labs (NYSE: PL) jumped 8.6%. Is now the time to buy Planet Labs? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
- Hardware & Infrastructure company IonQ (NYSE: IONQ) jumped 18.1%. Is now the time to buy IonQ? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
- Enterprise Networking company Applied Digital (NASDAQ: APLD) jumped 24%. Is now the time to buy Applied Digital? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
- Advertising & Marketing Services company QuinStreet (NASDAQ: QNST) jumped 10.4%. Is now the time to buy QuinStreet? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
- Electronic Components & Manufacturing company Coherent (NYSE: COHR) jumped 9.7%. Is now the time to buy Coherent? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
Zooming In On Applied Digital (APLD)
Applied Digital’s shares are extremely volatile and have had 95 moves greater than 5% over the last year. But moves this big are rare even for Applied Digital and indicate this news significantly impacted the market’s perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 11 days ago when the stock gained 2.8% on the news that the company announced it had broken ground on a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center campus.
This move came after the firm revealed plans for Delta Forge 1, a new 430MW AI factory campus in a southern U.S. state. The facility was scheduled to start operations in mid-2027. The development appeared to reflect strong demand for the company's purpose-built AI infrastructure. The expansion built on Applied Digital's history of securing long-term business, with previous lease agreements for other data centers projected to generate significant revenue over many years. In response to the news, some capital market firms reiterated their positive ratings on the stock.
Applied Digital is up 24.3% since the beginning of the year, but at $34.93 per share, it is still trading 15.5% below its 52-week high of $41.35 from January 2026. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Applied Digital’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $72,771.
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