Meta (META) shares moved up fractionally Wednesday after CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that Instagram has reached 3 billion monthly active users.

Meta’s stock is up roughly 28% in 2025, ahead of the 17% gain for the entire group of “Magnificent Seven” Big Tech stocks.

Meta has been rapidly expanding its AI investments, twice raising its capital expenditure forecasts for the 2025 fiscal year.

The Facebook and Instagram parent on Tuesday said the company upped its investments in an AI-enabled Alabama data center to $1.5 billion. And plans to power its massive Louisiana data center have been approved despite public concerns over higher energy bills and water shortages that could emerge from the project.

Fresh data from the Census Bureau Wednesday showed new home sales unexpectedly surged in August as mortgage rates began to ease, bringing homebuyers off the sidelines and releasing pent-up demand.

New home sales jumped over 20% to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 800,000 units in August — more than the 650,000 units expected by economists, Reuters reported.

Still, affordability concerns for homebuyers continue.

Homebuilders are often more willing to cut prices and offer incentives to lure buyers than sellers of older homes, so it remains to be see if recent rate relief is enough to bring the housing market out of its funk.

Intel (INTC) shares jumped nearly 5% on Wednesday, putting the stock on track to close at its highest in a year.

The move comes as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview on Fox’s “Mornings with Maria” that the US’s decision to take a stake in Intel was “validated” by Nvidia’s (NVDA) move to invest $5 billion in the struggling chipmaker last week.

To be sure, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told reporters in a press conference at the time of the announcement that the two companies had been discussing a collaboration for nearly one year and that the US government had no involvement in those discussions.

The US made an $8.9 billion investment in Intel in August, taking a roughly 10% stake in the company. Intel is the only large-scale, leading-edge US-based chip manufacturer, and the success of its manufacturing business is seen by many as significant to national security.

Tesla stock jumped more than 3% Wednesday, leading the “Magnificent Seven” Big Tech stocks as Mizuho Securities analyst Vijay Rakesh lifted his price outlook on shares to $450 from $375.

Rakesh said Tesla is expected to see a “minimal impact” from US tariffs. He said the proposed trillion-dollar pay package for Elon Musk and Musk’s $1 billion Tesla stock purchase could “could align mgmt [managementincentives to push toward our blue sky scenario of increasing humanoid robots/robotaxi adoption.”

Tesla’s gain put the stock on track to close at its highest level in 2025 after jumping to a year-to-date high earlier this week.

Shares in Marvell Technology (MRVL) rose over 3% after the US chipmaker said its board has authorized a new $5 billion stock buyback.

CEO Matt Murphy said the move “reflects our conviction in the business and the intrinsic value of our stock,” according to a company statement on Wednesday.

Marvell makes custom chips for companies including Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL), and Meta (META), per Bloomberg data. The company also struck a partnership with Nvidia (NVDA) this year to allow customers to integrate its chips into the tech giant’s AI systems.

“Our strong balance sheet provides us the flexibility to continue investing in long-term growth, particularly as we pursue the large and expanding opportunity in accelerated infrastructure for AI,” Murphy said.

The chipmaker’s earnings and revenue have surpassed Wall Street’s expectations in four of its past five quarterly reports.

Despite Wednesday’s gain, its shares are down roughly 30% in 2025 so far.

Micron (MU) stock fell over 2% early Wednesday despite its quarterly earnings results surpassing Wall Street’s expectations.

The memory chipmaker, which supplies its HBM (high bandwidth memory) chips to Nvidia (NVDA) for the tech giant’s AI systems, reported fourth quarter revenue and earnings and first quarter guidance above Wall Street analysts’ projections Tuesday after the bell.

The beat was seen as a positive signal for the AI trade as Micron’s CEO said he expects “trillions of dollars to be invested in AI” in the coming years. Analysts across Wall Street lifted their price targets on the stock following the results.

But Hedgeye Risk Management analysts, who hold a short position on Micron, noted that its HBM revenue for the quarter (the three months ending Aug. 28) was below expectations, coming in at “nearly $2 billion” versus the $2 billion projected.

Micron has risen to prominence as one of two suppliers of HBM to Nvidia’s AI systems amid a wave of investment in AI data centers, alongside Korea-based rival SK Hynix (000660.KS).

The world’s other major memory chipmaker, Samsung (005930.KS), has fallen behind, but the Korean tech giant recently qualified to supply its HBM3E memory chips to Nvidia, adding competition for Micron.

“Our Short thesis is predicated on MU losing material market share to Samsung next year on HBM,” Hedgeye Risk Management analysts wrote in a note on Wednesday.

US stocks rose at the open on Wednesday as Alibaba’s (BABA) plans to hike its artificial intelligence spending lifted hopes for a continuation of the AI-fueled tech rally.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) moved up nearly 0.3%, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) nudged around 0.2% higher.

Here’s a look at some of the top stocks trending in premarket trading:

Lithium Americas (LAC) stock soared 64% in premarket trading on Wednesday after the Trump administration said it is seeking an equity stake of as much as 10% in the company.

General Motors (GM) stock rose 3% before the bell on Wednesday after Citi increased its price target for the stock to $75 from $61.

Micron (MU) stock fell 1% in premarket trading on Wednesday following the release of its fourth quarter earnings report the day prior.

Micron Technology (MU) did its part this week to contribute to the AI bullishness.

Here’s what the memory chipmaker’s execs said on an earnings call last night, when asked about the demand outlook:

Couple this with the $100 billion Nvidia (NVDA) and OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) deal this week, and Alibaba (BABA) saying today it would spend more than $50 billion over three years on AI models, and it’s hard to play the bear hand on AI names right now.

It has been a hot minute since markets had to worry about a government shutdown.

We have been here before, and a shutdown is usually averted last minute. That’s why the market tends to take the ordeal in stride until it absolutely can’t.

Helpful context on the latest brewing debacle from Deutsche Bank strategist Jim Reid:

A lot has been thrown at the market so far in September — a month that seasonally isn’t often great from a historical perspective.

But here we are, getting bullish AI comments from Alibaba (BABA) and Nvidia (NVDA) this week, and a rate cut last week.

Good point this morning from the host of the Yahoo Finance Trader Talk podcast, Kenny Polcari:

Two bullish calls this week on General Motors (GM) is enough to get my attention!

UBS this morning upgraded GM to Buy, saying it sees a better-than-expected margin outlook. I heard the same thing from Citi’s Michael Ward in an upbeat note on Monday. Tariffs are still a risk to GM, but the automaker appears to have managed the situation well, from a margin standpoint.

Some of Ward’s thinking from his segment on Yahoo Finance on Monday is below. Keep an eye on Ford (F) here as well. I am headed to Detroit early next week for a CEO conference the company is holding, and could get commentary on near-term demand trends and the near-term margin outlook.