Super Micro slides 7% after stock is dropped from Nasdaq 100
Super Micro Computer CEO Charles Liang appears the Computex conference in Taipei, Taiwan, on June 5, 2024.
Annabelle Chih | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Super Micro Computer joined the Nasdaq 100 in July. Five months later, it’s out, and the stock is down 7% on the news.
Nasdaq said late Friday that Super Micro is being removed from the index, which is made up of the top 100 non-financial stocks on the Nasdaq and is the basis for the Invesco QQQ Trust exchange-traded fund, one of the most actively traded ETFs.
The announcement is the latest in a roller coaster of a year for Super Micro, which rocketed to a record high of $118.81 in March, as demand soared for the company’s servers packed with artificial intelligence processors. The company’s market cap reached over $70 billion, high enough to merit inclusion in the S&P 500.
Super Micro is now worth about $20 billion, about a quarter the size of the median market cap of companies in the Nasdaq 100. Nasdaq will also remove Illumina and Moderna from the group, effective Dec. 23.
The revision will make room for the additions of Axon Enterprise and Palantir Technologies, as well as MicroStrategy, a company whose value is tied to its billions of dollars worth of bitcoin purchases. MicroStrategy shares have gained almost 600% so far this year and were up 4% on Monday.
For Super Micro, the story started to turn in August, when the company said it wouldn’t file its annual report with the SEC on time. Noted short seller Hindenburg Research then disclosed a short position in the company, and said in a report that it identified “fresh evidence of accounting manipulation.”
In October, Ernst & Young resigned as Super Micro’s auditor, resulting in a 33% stock plunge. An independent special board committee evaluated concerns from Ernst & Young and found no misconduct following a three-month investigation. The report recommended the company replace its CFO. The company said in November that BDO was its new auditor.
Super Micro was at risk of being delisted from Nasdaq altogether for a second time because of its delayed financial reports, but two weeks ago it received an extension until February 2025.
In a preliminary earnings report, the company said revenue for the third quarter was up 181% year over year, below consensus.
“Competition is strong, but I believe we are in good position,” CEO Charlies Liang said during a November conference call with analysts. Rivals include Dell and HPE.
Technology
Quantum stocks Rigetti Computing and D-Wave surged double-digits this week. Here’s what’s driving the big move
Inside Google’s quantum computing lab in Santa Barbara, California.
CNBC
Quantum computing stocks are wrapping up a big week of double-digit gains.
Shares of Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum and Quantum Computing have surged more than 20%. Rigetti and D-Wave Quantum have more than doubled and tripled, respectively, since the start of the year. Arqit Quantum skyrocketed more than 32% this week.
The jump in shares followed a wave of positive news in the quantum space.
Rigetti said it had purchase orders totalling $5.7 million for two of its 9-qubit Novera quantum computing systems. The owner of drugmaker Novo Nordisk and the Danish government also invested 300 million euros in a quantum venture fund.
In a blog post earlier this week, Nvidia also highlighted accelerated computing, which it argues can make “quantum computing breakthroughs of today and tomorrow possible.”
Investors have piled into quantum computing technology this year, as tech giants Microsoft, Nvidia and Amazon have embraced the technology with a wave of new chip announcements, multi-million dollar investments and research plans.
Cfoto | Future Publishing | Getty Images
OpenAI’s new artificial intelligence video app Sora has already grabbed the top spot in Apple‘s App Store as its number one free app, despite being invite-only.
Sora, which was launched on Tuesday, allows users to create short-form AI videos and share them in a feed. The app is available to iPhone users but requires an invite code to access.
Here’s how to snag a Sora app invite code:
- First, download the app from the iOS App Store. Note that Sora requires iOS 18.0 or later to be downloaded.
- Login using your OpenAI account.
- Click “Notify me when access opens.”
A screen will then appear asking for an access code.
Currently, OpenAI has said that it is prioritizing paying ChatGPT Pro users for Sora access. The app is only available in the U.S. and Canada, but is expected to roll out to additional countries soon, the company said.
If you do not know someone who can provide an access code, several people are sharing invite codes on the official OpenAI Discord server, as well as on X and Reddit threads.
Once you input your access, you will be able to start generating AI videos using text or images. Users are also able to cameo as characters in their videos as well as “remix” other posts.
The app is powered by the new Sora 2.0 model, an updated version of the original Sora model from last year. The video generation model is “physically accurate, realistic, and more controllable” than prior systems, the company said in a blog post.
Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
OpenAI now has two of the top three free apps in Apple’s App Store, and its new video generation app Sora has snagged the coveted No. 1 spot.
The artificial intelligence startup launched Sora on Tuesday, and it allows users to generate short-form AI videos, remix videos created by other users and post them to a shared feed. Sora is only available on iOS devices and is invite-based, which means users need a code to access it.
Despite these restrictions, Sora has secured the top spot in the App Store, ahead of Google‘s Gemini and OpenAI’s generative chatbot ChatGPT.
“It’s been epic to see what the collective creativity of humanity is capable of so far,” Bill Peebles, head of Sora at OpenAI, wrote in a post on X on Friday. “Team is iterating fast and listening to feedback.”
Sora is powered by OpenAI’s latest video and audio generation model called Sora 2. OpenAI said the model is capable of creating scenes and sounds with “a high degree of realism,” according to a blog post. The startup’s first video and audio generation model, Sora, was announced in February 2024.
OpenAI said it has taken steps to address potential safety concerns around the Sora app, including giving users explicit control over how their likeness is used on the platform. But some of the initial videos posted to the app, including one that depicts OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shoplifting, have sparked debates about its utility, potential for harm and legality.
“It is easy to imagine the degenerate case of AI video generation that ends up with us all being sucked into an RL-optimized slop feed,” Altman wrote in a post on X on Tuesday. “The team has put great care and thought into trying to figure out how to make a delightful product that doesn’t fall into that trap, and has come up with a number of promising ideas.”
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