- RENK Group (R3NK TH) +2.1%
- Rheinmetall (RHM TH) +1.8%
- BAE (BSP TH) +1.7%
- Leonardo (FMNB TH) +1.1%
- Rolls-Royce (RRU TH) +1.1%
- Siemens Energy (ENR TH) +0.8%
- Fresenius Medical Care (FME TH) -0.9%
- L’Oreal (LOR TH) -0.9%
- Vodafone (VODI TH) -1%
- Thyssenkrupp (TKA TH) -1.2%
- Prosus (1TY TH) -1.8%
DAX:
- Rheinmetall (RHM TH) +1.6%
- Siemens Energy (ENR TH) +1.1%
- Siemens Energy Rated New Outperform at CICC; PT 94 euros
MDAX:
- Hensoldt (HAG TH) +2.4%
- RENK Group (R3NK TH) +2.1%
- Evotec (EVT TH) +1.1%
- Thyssenkrupp (TKA TH) -1.6%
SDAX:
- Deutz (DEZ TH) +1.8%
- SUSS MicroTec (SMHN TH) +1.7%
- Stabilus (STM TH) +1.6%
- Ceconomy (CEC TH) +1.3%
- Thyssenkrupp Nucera AG & Co KGaa (NCH2 TH) +1%
- SMA Solar (S92 TH) -1.4%
After Hours Summary: BOX +9.5% higher on earnings; OKTA -11.7%, SMTC -2.4% lower on earnings; MTN +10.1% as Rob Katz returns as CEO
After Hours Gainers:
Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: BOX +9.5%
Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: BROG +84% (announces proposed sale of BPGIC FZE and BPGIC Phase III FZE), MTN +10.1% (CEO steps down; Rob Katz returns as CEO, also provides guidance), RKLB +3.6% (to acquire Geost for $275 mln), REZI +2.1% (Director bought 50000 shares), FTV +1.6% (increases share buyback auth), TEVA +1.5% (FDA grants Fast Track designation for investigational TEV-53408), LII +1.4% (joint venture with Ariston), GEVO +0.9% (names new CFO), NVAX +0.7% (terminates COO and eliminates position), GM +0.3% (to invest at least $800 mln for engine production at NY facility, according to Reuters), GIS +0.2% (approves global transformation initiative), SJM +0.1% (to close Indianapolis facility), TAC +0.1% (renews normal course issuer bid; co may repurchase up to 14 mln shares), QSR +0.1% (Firehouse Subs to open locations in Mexico)
After Hours Losers:
Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: OKTA -11.7%, SMTC -2.4%, HEI -0.1%
Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: CODI -7.7% (takes action to improve its financial position), EOLS -4.6% (CFO resigns), GDS -4.3% (files for 5.2 mln ADS offering; also $450 mln convertible notes offering), GLXY -3.9% (files for 29 mln share offering, comprised of 24.15 mln shares offered by the company and 4.85 mln shares by selling shareholders, including its founder), VIK -2% (30.5 mln share offering by selling shareholders), CNP -1.7% (commences $800 mln stock offering), GH -1.5% (introduces smart liquid biopsy applications for Guardant360 Liquid Test), ATOM -1% (files for $100 mln mixed securities shelf offering), ZS -0.9% (to acquire Red Canary), NVDA -0.1% (suppliers ramping up production of Blackwell AI server racks, according to FT)
Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ Riles Nuclear-Armed Foes
China, Russia and North Korea—harboring weapons that could reach U.S.—assail missile-shield plan as a blow to global stability
Key Points
- Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile-defense plan is opposed by China, Russia and North Korea, who call it a dangerous arms race.
- Golden Dome combines ground-based interceptors with satellites, guarding against hypersonic missiles and other high-tech threats.
- Experts warn Golden Dome could spur missile proliferation, as the US lags in hypersonic weapons; China and Russia develop counter-space capabilities.
President Trump’s “Golden Dome” plan has riled the three countries whose weapons technology poses the greatest threat to American territory, with China, Russia and North Korea claiming the missile-defense project is driving a dangerous new arms race.
Trump wants a Golden Dome shield in place by the end of his term, which would combine ground-based interceptors with satellites to guard U.S. territory against high-tech threats, including hypersonic missiles.
The Chinese, North Koreans and Russians are all developing such missiles, as well as new weapons intended to evade U.S. defenses and combat America in outer space. The three are also increasingly helping each other militarily.
North Korea slammed the Golden Dome on Tuesday as the “largest arms-buildup plan in history.” China and Russia in a joint statement earlier this month called the project “deeply destabilizing.” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, in a briefing to journalists Tuesday, said the plan “represented a direct disruption to the foundations of strategic stability.”
All three countries have also denounced Trump’s call for space-based interceptors, saying they risk turning space into a battlefield.
Experts say that a potential risk of the Golden Dome is that a comprehensive defensive system encourages a proliferation of missiles, including nuclear-capable weapons. It comes as the last major nuclear treaty between leading nuclear powers Russia and the U.S. is set to expire next year, potentially leading Moscow to accelerate the deployment of nuclear warheads.
“This missile-defense mirage gives you the illusion you can protect yourself but you’re driving all these countries to build all these hundreds and thousands of missiles so you end up in the worst of both worlds,” said Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research.
The U.S. says increasing threats make it necessary to build a more comprehensive missile-defense system and rejects criticism that the plan will militarize space.
“We have more recently observed China’s satellites engaging in what can only be described as dogfighting maneuvers in space,” said Brig. Gen. Anthony Mastalir, the U.S. Space Force commander in the Indo-Pacific, at a space conference in Australia on Tuesday. “These high-speed, combat-oriented operations on orbit serve as further evidence that Beijing is actively preparing to challenge the U.S. and our allies in space.”
The Golden Dome plan represents a dramatic transformation in how the U.S. aims to confront such threats.
The U.S. says its missile defenses are directed at so-called “rogue states,” primarily North Korea, which aren’t considered peer nuclear powers. Meanwhile, the U.S, Russia and China seek to prevent nuclear attack through deterrence.
Trump’s Golden Dome plan implicitly recognizes that the arms-control era has passed and mutually assured destruction is no longer a sufficient deterrent to nuclear war.
The threats
A major emerging concern for U.S. defense is hypersonic weapons, which can travel at least five times the speed of sound, fly low and maneuver before hitting a target, making them difficult to detect, let alone intercept.
In the hypersonic race, the U.S. is behind. China, the leader, tested such a missile in 2021, which flew at speeds of more than 15,000 miles an hour as it circled the globe before striking a target in China.
In a sign of the Pentagon’s progress, the U.S. military recently completed successful test flights of a reusable hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft.
When President Vladimir Putin first introduced Russia’s hypersonic weapons in 2018, an animated graphic showed a missile heading toward the West Coast of the U.S. “Missile-defense systems are useless against them, absolutely pointless,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin watched the launch of a hypersonic missile in 2018. Such weapons are difficult to detect and intercept.
Russian President Vladimir Putin watched the launch of a hypersonic missile in 2018. Such weapons are difficult to detect and intercept. Photo: Kremlin Pool/Zuma Press
Russia’s hypersonic weapons could potentially be stopped by a system such as the proposed Golden Dome because they travel at much slower speeds during initial launch and before hitting their target, leaving them susceptible to interceptors, said David Wright, a researcher at the Laboratory for Nuclear Security and Policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Intercepting Russia’s strategic intercontinental ballistic missiles could be much harder. At the first stage after launch, when a rocket pushes the missile up into—and out of—the atmosphere, an interceptor would have to be extremely close to respond to it in time.
That would mean covering the territory across all of Russia’s 11 time zones to intercept the missile in time, said Podvig.
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“You need to have a lot of them so that some of them are close enough to every launch point,” he said.
North Korea already has a missile with the range to potentially strike the U.S.—and leader Kim Jong Un wants more long-range weapons that can fly farther, carry bigger payloads and be deployed more quickly.
The country is pursuing hypersonic technology, underwater nuclear-armed drones and tactical weaponry, although military experts say they aren’t yet combat-ready.
The shield
The U.S. installed dozens of ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California beginning in the early 2000s, and has tested interceptors fired by the Aegis combat system to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles, a system that was used successfully by Navy destroyers against Iranian weapons targeting Israel last year. Land-based versions of the system have been installed in Romania and Poland.
The U.S. also fields Patriot missile systems for shorter-range threats and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or Thaad, which is used for smaller areas including in South Korea and Guam.
Trump’s goal of seeing his Golden Dome shield in place in little more than three years would be difficult to accomplish, according to military experts.
Any missile-defense shield would likely only offer protection from about 85% of incoming missiles, said Podvig. That could promote a false sense of security, while also spurring rivals to produce more weapons, he said.
Golden Dome plans for space-based interceptors have also raised concerns of a surge in space-based systems. A Congressional Budget Office assessment said that such a system for downing one or two missiles fired by a smaller adversary such as North Korea could require more than 1,000 interceptors.
To defend against Russia or China, with many more warheads, such a system would require potentially tens of thousands of satellites.
Russia and China view such space-based interceptors “as indistinguishable from offensive weapons, arguing that a better-protected United States might be emboldened to pursue more aggressive military actions,” said Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “This heightens the risk of Russia and China intensifying their development of anti-satellite and other counter-space capabilities.”
China has been rapidly building its own nuclear forces. It has added some 350 missile silos and several bases for road-mobile launchers in recent years, according to a report led by Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists.
Of China’s more than 700 launchers for land-based missiles that can carry nuclear warheads, 462 can be loaded with missiles capable of reaching the U.S., the report found.
China’s nuclear ballistic-missile submarines, the Type 094, are being equipped with a longer-range ballistic missile. A newer model, known as the Type 096, is now being developed to run more quietly than its predecessor. In 2019, China unveiled refit bombers with an air-launched ballistic missile that could potentially carry a nuclear warhead, the Pentagon said.
“It’s not driving up forces to the level that we saw in the early Cold War days—not yet,” said Kristensen. “But there’s no doubt that all of the factors that we can see at play, all the dynamics that are playing out in front of us, increasingly so, are the very ones that can create a nuclear arms race.”
Europe should abandon efforts to rival China’s battery industry, bosses say
Leaders of Eramet and Umicore call for region to seek co-operation with Asian groups
Europe has fallen too far behind in battery technology and should seek partnerships with Chinese groups instead of trying to set up a rival industry, bosses of two of the region’s major metals companies have said.
Their comments come as the continent is still reeling from the collapse this year of Northvolt, the Swedish start-up that was one of Europe’s best funded start-ups and a symbol of efforts to break reliance on China for batteries used in electric vehicles.
But the chair of French miner Eramet, which produces metals used in battery production, and the chief executive of Umicore, a specialist in the production and recycling of battery materials, told the Financial Times that a push to develop an entirely autonomous European industry would not work.
Instead of trying to catch up with Asian counterparts such as battery manufacturer CATL and carmaker BYD, European companies should rather seek partnerships with the Chinese groups to develop a supply chain on the continent, they said. The executives added that policymakers could help the process by requiring Asian companies to invest in local production.
Europe needed to be “realistic” because China had spent two decades perfecting its battery technology and was now a “huge” step ahead, said Christel Bories, who was Eramet’s chief executive until last week.
Christel Bories said China was a ‘huge’ step ahead in battery technology © Luis Robayo/AFP via Getty Images
“Trying to start from scratch without taking advantage of Chinese technology” would not work, she said.
Bart Sap, chief executive of the Belgian-French company Umicore, echoed that sentiment. “We have to embrace China to help produce with us in Europe. Otherwise we are risking mobility dependence,” he said.
The argument is in contrast with the approach of the Trump administration, which is racing to develop a US industry across the critical minerals sector in a bid to cut its dependency on China, including through the imposition of tariffs.
Sap argued for a more co-operative approach towards China. “Instead of tariffs, I’d incentivise that co-operation, those local content requirements. That’s the key for the future,” he said.
Rob Burrell, a battery supply chain researcher at market intelligence firm Project Blue, said decoupling from China was not a realistic option for the European battery industry.
Some Chinese groups are already investing in Europe and setting up partnerships with local companies.
Fiat and Peugeot owner Stellantis and CATL last year announced plans to invest up to €4bn in a battery factory in Spain. BYD is planning to start production at its first European plant, in Hungary, this year while CATL has battery factories in Hungary and Germany.
But campaigners have accused Chinese companies of not sharing their technological knowledge or employing local workers. Julia Poliscanova, from campaign group Transport & Environment, said Europe’s policymakers should improve regulation of such investments.
“They're not so keen to share the tech, they bring their own people [to work in] key positions in the company, and in a way [Europe is] becoming an assembly plant,” she said. Europe needed “a clear framework around joint ventures — skills and IP sharing provisions”, she said.
Umicore’s Sap said more needed to be done to promote domestic recycling of battery materials, as much of the region’s electric and metals waste was currently exported and processed elsewhere.
As Europe had a limited number of mines, “we need to bring those critical metals into Europe and keep them here”, he said.
Last year, Eramet said it would halt plans to develop a battery recycling plant in France because of the lack of battery factories and cathode production, a crucial step in the production of lithium-ion batteries, in the region.
Here are the nuclear fission startups backed by Big Tech
Artificial intelligence has sent demand for electricity skyrocketing in the U.S. after years of virtually zero growth. That has sent Big Tech companies scrambling to secure generating capacity for their data centers.
For many, that has meant turning to nuclear fission. The power source has been experiencing a resurgence in the last few years following decades of plant closures. (Fission, used in all current nuclear plants, is distinct from fusion, the still-experimental approach to getting power from atoms that, while attracting investors, has yet to produce more electricity than it consumes.)
For tech companies, part of the appeal of fission is a stable, predictable source of power that flows 24/7, giving their data centers the potential to run computing loads whenever they require it.
But another part of the appeal lies in new reactor designs that promise to overcome the shortcomings of existing nuclear power plants. Where old power plants were built around massive reactors that could generate over 1 gigawatt of electricity, new small modular reactor (SMR) designs see multiple modules deployed alongside each other to meet a range of needs.
SMRs rely on mass manufacturing to bring costs down, but to date, no one has built one in the U.S. Still, that hasn’t kept Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft away from the table. They’ve either signed agreements to buy power from nuclear startups or invested in them directly — or both.
Here are the nuclear fission startups backed by Big Tech.
Kairos Power
Kairos Power received a vote of confidence from Google when the search giant promised to buy around 500 megawatts of electricity by 2035, with the first reactor targeted to come online by 2030.
The company’s small modular reactors rely on molten fluoride salt for cooling and to transport heat to a steam turbine. The salt’s high boiling point means that the coolant doesn’t need to be kept at high pressure, which should improve operating safety. The reactors contain fuel pebbles coated in carbon and ceramic shells, which should be strong enough to withstand a meltdown.
The Alameda-based startup has received a $629 million award from the U.S. government, including $303 million from the Department of Energy. In November 2024, Kairos received approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to commence construction on two reactors in Tennessee. At 35 megawatts, the test units will be smaller than Kairos’ eventual commercial reactors, which are expected to generate 75 megawatts each.
Oklo
Oklo is another SMR company targeting the data center world — no surprise given that it was backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who also took the nuclear startup public via a reverse merger with his special purpose acquisition vehicle, AltC, in July 2023. Altman served as chairman of Oklo until April, when he stepped down as OpenAI began negotiating with Oklo for an energy supply agreement. DCVC, Draper Associates, and Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital Management are among the startup’s previous investors.
Cooled by liquid metal, Oklo’s reactor is based on an existing U.S. Department of Energy design that’s intended to reduce the amount of nuclear waste that results from regular operations. Still, Oklo’s path hasn’t been a smooth one. The company’s first license application was denied in January 2022. Oklo has said it will resubmit the application sometime in 2025. But that hasn’t stopped the company from landing a deal to supply data center operator Switch with 12 gigawatts by 2044.
Saltfoss
Like Kairos, Saltfoss, formerly known as Seaborg, also wants to build SMRs cooled by molten salt. But unlike Kairos and others, it envisions placing two to eight of them on a ship to create what it calls a Power Barge. The startup has raised nearly $60 million, including a $6 million seed round that included investments from Bill Gates, Peter Thiel, and Unity co-founder David Helgason, according to PitchBook. Satlfoss has an agreement with Samsung Heavy Industries to build the ships and the Satlfoss-designed reactors.
TerraPower
Founded by Bill Gates, TerraPower is building a larger reactor, called Natrium, which is cooled by liquid sodium and features molten salt energy storage.
The company broke ground on the first power plant in June 2024 in Wyoming. The Natrium design calls for the reactor to generate 345 megawatts of electricity. That’s smaller than other new nuclear plants today but larger than most SMR designs.
But Natrium has a trick up its sleeve with its molten salt heat storage system. Since nuclear reactors operate best at a steady state, the Natrium reactor can continue breaking atoms when demand is low, and the extra energy is stored as heat in a vat of molten salt, which can be drawn upon later to generate electricity.
Investors include Gates’ Cascade Investment fund, Khosla Ventures, CRV, and ArcelorMittal.
X-Energy
X-Energy landed a hefty $700 million Series C-1 last year led by Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund. At the same time, the SMR startup announced two development agreements that would see the deployment of 300 megawatts of new nuclear generating capacity in the Pacific Northwest and Virginia.
The company’s high-temperature, gas-cooled reactors buck recent trends in the U.S. and Europe, where the design has been shunned in favor of other approaches. The company’s Xe-100 reactor is expected to generate 80 megawatts of electricity. Helium gas flows through the reactor’s 200,000 billiard ball-sized fuel “pebbles,” absorbing heat to spin a steam turbine.
Research Calls I
-
Upgrades
- BellRing Brands (BRBR) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at DA Davidson, tgt $85
- Block (XYZ) upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at BNP Paribas Exane, tgt $72
- Commercial Metals (CMC) upgraded to Outperform from Peer Perform at Wolfe Research, tgt $50
- Cummins (CMI) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman, tgt $431
- Envista (NVST) upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Robert W. Baird, tgt $23
- Haleon (HLN) upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at BNP Paribas Exane, tgt $13.40
- Hormel Foods (HRL) upgraded to Neutral from Underperform at BNP Paribas Exane, tgt $30
- Kyverna Therapeutics (KYTX) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at H.C. Wainwright, tgt $5
- LifeStance (LFST) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS, tgt $8.50
- Southwest (LUV) upgraded to Hold from Underperform at Jefferies, tgt $33
- Terex (TEX) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman Sachs, tgt $60
- Wingstop (WING) upgraded to Buy from Hold at Truist, tgt $400
- BellRing Brands (BRBR) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at DA Davidson, tgt $85
-
Downgrades
- AES Corp. (AES) downgraded to Hold from Buy at Argus
- Atmus Filtration (ATMU) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman, tgt $39
- CoreWeave (CRWV) downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays, tgt $100
- Deckers Outdoor (DECK) downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at KGI Securities, tgt $110
- Globus Medical (GMED) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BTIG Research
- Jack in the Box (JACK) downgraded to Hold from Buy at Truist, tgt $22
- KBR (KBR) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman, tgt $55
- Leidos (LDOS) downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Robert W. Baird, tgt $163
- Miniso (MNSO) downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank, tgt $20
- National Storage (NSA) downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley, tgt $30
- Prime Medicine (PRME) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup, tgt $1.50
- Prothena (PRTA) downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies, tgt $6
- Prothena (PRTA) downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer
- Unity Biotechnology (UBX) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at H.C. Wainwright, tgt $2
- U.S. Steel (X) downgraded to Peer Perform from Outperform at Wolfe Research
- U.S. Steel (X) downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies, tgt $55
- AES Corp. (AES) downgraded to Hold from Buy at Argus
-
Others
- Camp4 Therapeutics (CAMP) initiated with an Outperform at Wedbush, tgt $8
- DLocal (DLO) initiated with a Buy at Citigroup, tgt $14.60
- Expro (XPRO) initiated with an Overweight at Wells Fargo, tgt $12
- Niagen Bioscience (NAGE) initiated with a Buy at Canaccord Genuity, tgt $13
- SanDisk (SNDK) initiated with a Buy at The Benchmark Company , tgt $58
- SoundHound (SOUN) initiated with an Overweight at Piper Sandler, tgt $12
- Tarsus Pharmaceuticals (TARS) assumed with a Buy at H.C. Wainwright, tgt $72
Gapping down
In reaction to earnings/guidance:
In reaction to earnings/guidance:
- PDD -17.1%, SKY -8.6%, BNS -1.1%
Other news:
- RCKT -62.8% (provides update on phase 2 clinical trial of RP-A501 for Danon Disease)
- PRTA -28.6% (Phase 3 AFFIRM-AL Clinical Trial for Birtamimab in Patients with AL Amyloidosis Did Not Meet Primary Endpoint)
- HMY -9.5% (MAC Limited enters binding scheme implementation deed with Harmony Gold Mining (HMY))
- YMAB -4.9% (Presents GD2-SADA PRIT Trial in Progress Poster at the Advances in Neuroblastoma Research Meeting)
- PBT -2.9% (files second amended petition against Blackbeard Operating)
- TMQ -2.4% (enters into at-the-market equity distribution agreement)
- EYPT -2.3% (completes enrollment in pivotal phase 3 LUGANO Trial of DURAVYU for treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration)
- FNV -2.2% (acquires royalty package on the Côté Gold Mine)
- CDE -1.7% (authorized a $75 million share repurchase program, effective through May 31, 2026)
- FSM -1.5% (drills 8.6 g/t gold over 13.6 meters at Southern Arc prospect)
- ONC -1.4% (announced that the CHMP of the EMA issued a positive opinion recommending approval of TEVIMBRA (tislelizumab), in combination with gemcitabine and cisplatin)
- TCOM -1% (repurchases right notification for 1.50% exchangeable senior notes due 2027)
- DASH -1% (announces proposed private offering of $2.0 billion of convertible senior notes)