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Palo Alto Networks Fair Value Estimate Raised 17% to US$395.38
The fair value estimate for Palo Alto Networks has been raised from US$336.70 to US$395.38, a roughly 17% increase in the underlying model, after a wave of analyst price target hikes. RBC Capital, Wells Fargo, BofA, Morgan Stanley and Truist lifted their targets into the low to mid US$400s, citing stronger cybersecurity demand as AI usage expands and customers consolidate spending with larger platforms. Goldman Sachs, Oppenheimer, BTIG and Susquehanna pointed to solid Q4 results and guidance, with broad based strength across firewalls, SASE, observability, identity and AI security modules. On the bearish side, Bernstein and Phillip Securities moved to more neutral stances while still raising targets, and Stephens and UBS described the risk or reward as more balanced with shares near peak valuation levels. The updated model trims the revenue growth assumption to about 17.31% from about 19.09% and the net profit margin outlook to about 13.84% from about 14.51%, while the future P/E rises to about 197.87x from about 164.67x and the discount rate adjusts to about 8.60% from 8.40%.
Oracle Shares Fall 3.4% After Report of Internal AI Struggles
Oracle shares fell 3.4% in the afternoon session after Business Insider reported that co-CEO Clay Magouyrk told an internal town hall the company had struggled to make generative artificial intelligence useful for its own staff despite spending billions building AI infrastructure for others. According to the report, Chief Information Officer Jae Evans said the company faced sticker shock from the high costs of OpenAI models such as GPT-6 Astra, while Oracle also hit software development bottlenecks and high false-positive rates from Anthropic's Mythos tool. The shares later recovered some ground to $145.59, down 3.3% from the previous close. Oracle is down 25.6% since the start of the year and trades 55.6% below its 52-week high of $328.15 from September 2025.
Oracle Falls 3.4% as Ellison Cancels 50-Million-Share Trading Plan
Oracle shares dropped approximately 3.4% to $145.45 on Friday even as Barron's argued the database and AI-cloud heavyweight's accelerating operating momentum could translate into stronger cash generation for shareholders. Executive Chairman Larry Ellison canceled a trading plan that could have allowed him to sell as many as 50 million Oracle shares, and the company said he had sold none of the stock covered by the arrangement before terminating it, offering no explanation. At $145.45 per share, the maximum authorization would have represented roughly $7.27 billion of Oracle stock, though any proceeds would have gone to Ellison personally rather than to corporate fundraising, leaving the company's balance sheet, AI infrastructure spending and debt load untouched. The cancellation removes one possible overhang, while GuruFocus places Oracle's GF Value at $191.47 versus the $145.45 market price, leaving the stock 24.04% below that benchmark. Closing that gap will depend on Oracle turning its AI-cloud ambitions into durable revenue growth and cash flow.
Palantir Commercial Revenue Jumps 110% to $945 Million in Q2 2026
Palantir Technologies' commercial revenue surged 110% to $945 million in the second quarter of 2026, more than doubling the $451 million recorded a year earlier. The commercial segment added $494 million year over year, expanding by more than its entire year-earlier base, while government revenue rose 79% to $990 million from $553 million. Combined, the two businesses generated $1.94 billion in second-quarter 2026 revenue, up from roughly $1 billion a year earlier, with commercial operations contributing more than half of the combined year-over-year increase and narrowing the gap with government revenue to just $45 million. Among peers, C3.ai reported fiscal fourth-quarter 2026 revenue of $51.6 million, down substantially year over year, and forecast fiscal 2027 revenue of $210-$240 million, while Datadog's second-quarter 2026 revenue rose 36% to $1.12 billion, with customers contributing at least $100,000 in ARR up 23% to roughly 4,720 and free cash flow of $279 million. Palantir shares have gained 37% over the past three months against 19% industry growth, and the stock trades at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 39.96X versus an industry average of 4.2X, carrying a Value Score of F and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
Nebius Reportedly Raises GPU Prices, Lifting AI Cloud Peers
Nebius Group shares jumped nearly 9% in Thursday premarket trading after the AI cloud provider reportedly raised prices across several compute services, a signal that demand for scarce GPU capacity remains strong. According to a customer communication circulated online, Nebius plans to increase prices for several on-demand GPU offerings beginning October 1, covering Nvidia's H100, H200, B200 and B300 accelerators. The reported increases extend beyond GPUs: prices for AMD EPYC Genoa CPU compute are expected to rise 25% to $0.015 per vCPU-hour from $0.012, while memory pricing tied to Genoa systems is reportedly increasing about 41% to $0.0045 per GiB-hour from $0.0032. Nebius has not publicly confirmed the pricing changes and did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The market reaction spread beyond Nebius, with IREN shares rising about 5.1% in premarket trading and CoreWeave gaining roughly 6.1%, suggesting investors read the reported increases as a positive signal for the wider neocloud industry.
BILL Holdings Beats Q4 Estimates, Guides Fiscal 2027 Revenue to $1.81-$1.86 Billion
BILL Holdings reported fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 non-GAAP net income of 84 cents per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 69 cents and rising 58.5% from a year ago, on revenues of $436.2 million that grew 13.8% year over year and topped estimates by 1.5%. Total payment volume reached $98 billion, up 14% year over year, while core revenues, comprising subscription and transaction fees, rose 16% to $400.5 million. Non-GAAP operating income increased to $101.6 million from $56.4 million, lifting the non-GAAP operating margin to 23%, up 860 basis points year over year. The company repurchased approximately 8.4 million shares during the quarter for about $300 million, leaving $400 million under its $1 billion share repurchase authorization. For fiscal 2027, management forecasts total revenues of $1.81-$1.86 billion, core revenues of $1.67-$1.72 billion and non-GAAP net income per share of $3.56-$3.79.
UiPath Earns Zacks Rank #2 as Earnings Estimates Rise
UiPath has been rated Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), with the consensus estimate for the current quarter rising 15.2% over the last 30 days to $0.18 per share, a year-over-year change of +12.5%. For the current fiscal year, the consensus earnings estimate of $0.79 points to a change of +9.7% from the prior year and has moved +19.1% over the past 30 days, while the next fiscal year's estimate of $0.91 indicates a change of +14.1% and has changed +0.4% over the past month. The consensus sales estimate of $442.63 million for the current quarter points to a year-over-year change of +7.7%, with the $1.79 billion and $1.94 billion estimates for the current and next fiscal years indicating changes of +11.1% and +8.1%, respectively. In the last reported quarter, UiPath reported revenues of $410.26 million, a year-over-year change of +13.4%, and EPS of $0.15, matching the year-ago figure, with a revenue surprise of +3.19% against the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $397.59 million and an EPS surprise of 0%. The stock has returned -13.6% over the past month versus the Zacks S&P 500 composite's -1.3% change, while the Zacks Internet - Software industry has gained 7.8% over this period, and UiPath carries a Zacks Value Style Score of C.
Palantir CEO Karp Says AI Labs May Need Nationalizing to Escape Lawsuits
Palantir Technologies CEO Alex Karp told CNBC that leading AI labs may need to be nationalized, because without it his clients would sue them over the technology's unlimited risks. On regulation, Karp said, "You have to find a way to set reasonable guidelines that are enforced, but you can't do it." He said the first line of defense is that builders are liable for their own actions, and made the case for both civil and criminal penalties for developers who are not being responsible, adding of the latest models, "We need to get serious." The industry is split on the issue: Anthropic's Dario Amodei called for a slowdown last weekend, joined by Sam Altman and Elon Musk, while Trump has called AI risks a hoax, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg on that side. OpenAI disclosed six new cases of unexpected or concerning model behavior on Wednesday, on top of the Hugging Face breach.
Oracle CFO Hilary Maxson Tells Staff 'Doing More With Less' Isn't the Goal After New Layoffs
Oracle's newly appointed CFO, Hilary Maxson, told employees in her first company-wide meeting that the company's focus is not on "doing more with less" following recent layoffs, Business Insider reported Tuesday. Maxson emphasized being thoughtful about where the company spends its time and money and simplifying processes that do not benefit customers, while neither she nor other executives directly addressed the layoffs during the meeting. Co-CEO Mike Sicilia urged employees to ask how their work helps deliver a better outcome for a customer as Oracle begins its second quarter. In June, Oracle disclosed it cut 21,000 jobs, nearly 13% of its workforce, over the past year, citing the adoption and deployment of AI across its operations, and reported $28.5 billion in first-quarter capital expenditures, up from $8.5 billion a year earlier. Business Insider reported Monday that Oracle has begun another round of layoffs, with severance of four weeks' base pay plus one additional week for each year of service, and planned cuts that could reach double-digit percentages in some teams. The layoffs have also drawn comment from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who warned that AI could eliminate millions of jobs and urged policymakers to act before workers lose income and employer-sponsored health coverage.
Palantir Appoints Ex-Labour Deputy Tom Watson as UK Senior Vice President
Palantir Technologies has appointed former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson to a senior executive role in the UK as the company faces mounting criticism that could jeopardize a major contract. The veteran politician, who left the House of Commons in 2019, will serve as Palantir's UK senior vice president, the software developer and major military vendor said on Friday. In that role, Palantir said he will lead efforts to make sure public contracts support British jobs across the entire country, a key priority of Prime Minister Andy Burnham. Watson has been an adviser to Palantir since 2024.
Nebius Group Raises Nvidia GPU and AMD CPU Cloud Prices on Strong AI Demand
Nebius Group has raised prices for its Nvidia GPU and AMD CPU cloud services, citing surging enterprise interest in large-scale AI training and inference workloads. The higher rates apply to both Nvidia GPU instances and AMD CPU based compute bundles across the company's AI focused cloud offerings, with the price change taking effect on October 1. The company said the move reflects strong AI workloads filling its infrastructure and tight supply of high end chips such as Nvidia H100 and B300, and that steeper rates on GPUs and AMD EPYC Genoa CPUs help align customer bills with the cost of scarce compute capacity and large data center buildouts. Nebius Group builds full stack infrastructure for AI developers and enterprises across the US, the UK, and other markets, so the pricing directly shapes what customers pay to train and run models at scale. Investors will watch upcoming quarterly updates for the AI cloud revenue mix and Palantir related usage, since stable or growing GPU utilization at the new rates would show the higher pricing is being absorbed rather than pushing workloads to rival providers.
Commvault Enables FedRAMP High Cloud for Federal Agencies
Commvault Systems has enabled its managed service provider partners to deliver FedRAMP High Authorized Commvault Cloud for Government services to U.S. federal agencies and defense contractors, broadening the company's public sector reach. The move lands on a stock with a 7 day share price return of 10.29% and a 90 day share price gain of 11.67%, though its 1 year total shareholder return is down 23.35% while the 3 year total shareholder return is up 111.68%. The most followed valuation narrative puts fair value at $161.15 against a last close of $145.21, implying roughly 10% upside, and rests on analyst expectations of about 10.6% annual revenue growth, profit margins rising toward 9.8%, and an 8.85% discount rate. That story leans on recurring SaaS economics, including 63% SaaS ARR growth, a 45% increase in multi-product customers, and 125% SaaS net dollar retention. A contrasting read notes the stock trades at a P/E of 88.1x versus 30.5x for the wider US Software group and a fair ratio of 38.7x, signaling valuation risk if sentiment cools.
Oracle Expands Restructuring to $2.8 Billion as AI Backlog Hits $664 Billion
Oracle expanded its fiscal-2026 restructuring plan to roughly $2.8 billion as the company pours more capital into AI infrastructure, Reuters reported. The shares rallied about 5.4% to $150.90 Thursday morning, based on the latest market snapshot, versus the earlier $148.83 quote. That $2.8 billion restructuring bill works out to roughly 14.5% of Oracle's latest $19.35 billion in quarterly revenue and covers severance, contract exits and other restructuring costs, while free cash flow is running at approximately negative $5.4 billion. Remaining performance obligations have climbed to $664 billion after Oracle signed more than $30 billion of additional AI-cloud contracts, with roughly half of that backlog expected to turn into revenue within 36 months. Management says customer prepayments and customer-supplied chips can soften the capital burden, but the real test is execution.
Microsoft Launches Azure Payment HSM v2 for Banks as Shares Rise 1.6%
Microsoft pushed another high-security financial workload deeper into Azure Thursday with a managed payment-security service built for banks and payment processors, sending the shares up approximately 1.6% to $498.17. The offering, Azure Payment HSM v2, combines Marvell's LiquidSecurity hardware with Utimaco's Atalla payment module, giving financial institutions a cloud-based way to protect payment keys, encryption and transaction security without giving up the controls demanded by regulated environments. The public preview is available in West US and Western Europe, and Microsoft did not disclose pricing, customer contracts or expected revenue, so the near-term financial impact remains difficult to quantify. The bigger story is where Microsoft keeps pushing Azure: Microsoft Cloud generated $59.3 billion, or roughly 65.9% of the company's latest quarterly revenue, and payment security opens another sticky workload where compliance requirements can make switching painful. The preview alone will not move Microsoft's financial needle, but successful production adoption could deepen Azure's grip on highly regulated customers and create another layer of recurring cloud spending.
Oracle Trades at $147 Despite $664 Billion AI Backlog, 24/7 Wall St. Sees 50% Upside
Oracle shares trade at $147.17 even after a fiscal Q1 2027 earnings report that saw revenue hit $19.345 billion, up 29.6% year over year, non-GAAP EPS of $1.92 against a $1.74 estimate, and cloud infrastructure growth of 121%. Remaining performance obligations swelled to $664 billion, with more than $30 billion in new AI contracts booked in the quarter alone, yet the stock has fallen 8.95% over the past week as the market focuses on negative $5.396 billion quarterly free cash flow and a $28.499 billion capex bill. 24/7 Wall St. maintains a buy rating and a $214.69 price target, implying roughly 50% upside, with 90% confidence, citing a forward P/E of 17 that is cheaper than Microsoft at 26 and Alphabet at 22. The bear case centers on FY26 free cash flow of negative $23.686 billion, interest expense up 55% to $1.4 billion, and full-year FY27 capex guidance of $90 to $95 billion, which could force another equity raise beyond the completed $20 billion ATM program. Half of the $664 billion RPO is expected to convert to revenue over the next 36 months, and management guided full fiscal 2027 revenue to at least $90 billion with non-GAAP EPS of $8.10.
Oracle Stock Jumps 6% on Report of $1.2 Trillion OpenAI Funding Talks
Oracle stock rose 6% at midday as reports emerged that OpenAI has recently been in talks to raise capital at a $1.2 trillion valuation. The move underscores how closely Oracle's fortunes are tied to OpenAI, its key AI partner. Last September, Oracle signed a $300 billion deal to provide computing power for OpenAI, a transformative agreement that elevated Oracle to a leading hyperscaler but also raised concerns that it had overstretched itself building expensive AI infrastructure for a customer many believed could face funding difficulties. Those fears had weighed on Oracle's debt, pushing credit default swap spreads higher, and the market was left unimpressed by recent news that OpenAI would push back its initial public offering from 2026 to at least 2027. If the funding speculation proves credible, it would be excellent news for Oracle and help de-risk its AI infrastructure build-out plans.
Palantir Q2 Revenue Jumps 93% as 24/7 Wall St. Sets $178.45 Target
Palantir posted 92.83% year-over-year revenue growth in Q2 2026, with revenue of $1.94 billion and EPS of $0.41 beating estimates by 46.43%, prompting management to raise FY2026 revenue guidance to $8.150 to $8.158 billion. The company's Rule of 40 score reached 155%, U.S. commercial revenue grew 149%, net dollar retention hit 157%, and total remaining deal value reached $13.1 billion, while CEO Alex Karp said he is driving the business to grow at a rate equal to or above U.S. commercial for the next 18 months. 24/7 Wall St. set a 12-month price target of $178.45 on the shares, which closed at $172.56, implying 3.41% upside and a hold recommendation with 90% confidence. The stock has been nearly flat over the past 12 months, up 0.79%, and down 2.92% year to date despite a 52-week high of $207.52, while the five-year return stands at 502.72%. Palantir trades at a trailing P/E of 244x and price-to-book of 53.7x, with stock-based compensation of $265 million in Q2 alone and net insider selling across 48 recent transactions, against GAAP net income of $1.06 billion and a 47% GAAP operating margin. Among peers, Snowflake grew product revenue 37% with net revenue retention of 126% and a GAAP net loss of $191.7 million, Salesforce trades at a P/E of 28x with a 17.96% net margin on 10.83% revenue growth, and ServiceNow grew revenue 24.01% with cRPO of $13.20 billion.
Palo Alto Networks SASE Bookings Jump 40% as Displacements Hit $400 Million
Palo Alto Networks said its SASE bookings grew 40% in fiscal 2026, with the company displacing legacy vendors in nearly 100 customer accounts representing more than $400 million in total contract value, roughly double the prior year's displacement volume. Management said PANW is currently the No. 2 player in SASE and aims to become the market leader over the next five to seven years, helped by integrating SASE with its firewall and SD-WAN products so existing customers can standardize on one vendor. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, a global telecom leader signed a $126 million agreement to expand its next-generation firewall footprint while replacing legacy proxy providers with Prisma Access for SASE, and agentic traffic on the company's SASE platform has increased 9x over the past nine months. Rival Fortinet said its SASE Firewall business grew 34% in the second quarter of 2026 to more than $2 billion, while Unified SASE billings rose 35%, and Zscaler reported ARR up 25% year over year in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026. Palo Alto Networks shares have jumped 104.1% year to date versus a 92.6% gain for the Zacks Security industry, and the stock trades at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 21.31X against an industry average of 19.13X.
Nebius Shares Jump 9% on Reported October 1 Compute Price Hikes
Nebius Group N.V. shares rose almost 9% in premarket trade Thursday after rumors that the AI infrastructure company plans to raise rates for many on-demand computing services starting Oct. 1. The reported changes would affect systems using Nvidia's H100, H200, B200 and B300 GPUs, while AMD EPYC Genoa CPU pricing is said to rise 25% to $0.015 per vCPU-hour and memory pricing about 41%. Nebius did not confirm the purported changes when asked for comment. The reported hikes lifted AI cloud peers, with IREN up about 5% before the market opened and CoreWeave up more than 6%, as investors read rising prices as a sign of scarcity in the market for AI processing power. If customers accept the increases without demand falling, Nebius could gain more room to improve the economics of its costly infrastructure build-out, with Oct. 1 the next test of whether buyers keep purchasing at the higher rates.
Oracle Cuts 21,000 Jobs as $30 Billion AI Deals Drive Growth
Oracle has trimmed its workforce by about 21,000 employees, or 13%, during the fiscal year ended May 31, even as it racks up more than $30 billion in new AI-cloud commitments. The company's restructuring bill has grown by $700 million to roughly $2.8 billion, covering expenses such as severance and contract exits, while heavy investment in AI infrastructure contributed to free cash flow of about negative $5 billion. The new AI-cloud commitments have pushed Oracle's remaining performance obligations to $664 billion, and some customers could provide advance payments or chips to support infrastructure development. Finance chief Hilary Maxson addressed employees this week as the cuts continued, saying the company remains focused on protecting its financial performance while expanding its business. Oracle shares climbed more than 2% on early Thursday after gaining a similar amount a day earlier, as investors weighed the continued workforce reductions against the company's expanding artificial intelligence infrastructure spending.
Oracle shares rise as AI cloud backlog hits $664 billion despite 21,000 layoffs
Oracle Corp. shares rose more than 2% in Thursday premarket trade as investors looked past a fresh round of layoffs to the company's booming AI cloud business. The software and cloud computing giant cut more than 21,000 staff, or 13% of its workforce, during the fiscal year that ended May 31, with another round of layoffs this week, and raised its planned restructuring expenditures by $700 million to around $2.8 billion. At the same time, Oracle signed more than $30 billion in new AI cloud contracts recently, lifting the remainder of its performance obligations to $664 billion. Meeting those contracts requires heavy infrastructure buildout, pushing data-center spending higher and leaving free cash flow at about minus $5 billion. Oracle said certain customers might help by paying up ahead or by providing chips, and the next test is turning that huge backlog into cash.
Nebius Raises GPU Rental Rates, Lifting NBIS 10% and IREN 6% as CoreWeave Slips
Nebius Group notified customers of higher on-demand rental rates for a range of AI GPU capacity effective October 1, a rare same-week read-through on pricing power in AI compute that split the neocloud trade three ways. Nebius stock climbed 10% to $229.67 as the party setting the new price card, while IREN Limited rose 6% to $45.20 on the read-through that scarce GPU capacity can be re-rented at higher hourly rates. CoreWeave slipped 2% to $82.10, with the divergence attributed to concerns over how much of its capacity is already committed at older rates, how much debt sits against that capacity, and how fast free cash flow will turn. The Invesco QQQ Trust was up 1.62% to $716.12, while the Global X Data Center & Digital Infrastructure ETF trailed at up 1% to $27.60, a lag suggesting the diversified digital infrastructure basket is not capturing the neocloud repricing on its own. JPMorgan double-upgraded IREN to Overweight from Underweight on September 14, a call that predates this move by three sessions and serves as context rather than catalyst.
Nebius Shares Jump 6% After AI Compute Price Revisions
Nebius Group shares jumped over 6% in extended trading on September 16 after the company revised pricing strategies across its on-demand AI compute resources. The move comes even as the stock remains down roughly 22% over the trailing month amid balance sheet stress, equity dilution fears, and sector rotation. Operational results show significant traction, with quarterly revenue surging 454% year-over-year to $582.3 million in the latest Q2 2026 figures and trailing twelve-month revenue reaching $1.36 billion. Powering that expansion is a contracted backlog approaching $40 billion, anchored by a $27 billion five-year deal with Meta Platforms and a $17.4 billion contract with Microsoft, alongside a $2 billion equity investment from Nvidia. Management also raised year-end 2026 contracted power capacity guidance from over 4 GW to over 5 GW, though short interest sits at 17% of the public float as investors weigh execution risk on an aggressive $20 billion to $25 billion CapEx plan for 2026.
Nebius Group N.V. rose 9.15% premarket after the company raised prices on its on-demand compute effective October 1, according to a customer communication reshared on Reddit and X. Under the new rates, H100 hourly pricing goes to $4.50 from $3.85, an increase near 17%, while H200 rises 20% to $5.40, B200 almost 19% to $8.50, and Nvidia's B300 about 21% to $9.50 from $7.85. For CPU, AMD EPYC Genoa will increase 25% to $0.015 per vCPU-hour and Genoa memory up roughly 41% to $0.0045 per GiB-hour, with the impact on any given customer's bill depending on their configuration and usage. The move lifted peers, with IREN Ltd. up 5.16% and CoreWeave Inc. up 5.69%. Nebius secured about $775 million in debt financing in July backed by deployed GPU infrastructure and contracted customer cash flows, and reported second-quarter revenue rose 454% to $582.3 million, with AI Cloud revenue up 514% to $574.9 million and adjusted EBITDA swinging to a $236.2 million profit from a $21 million loss. The company reaffirmed 2026 revenue guidance of $3 billion to $3.4 billion and expects ARR of $7 billion to $9 billion by year end.
Generac surges on $8 billion Amazon data center generator deal
Generac Holdings surged 33.7% in premarket trading after announcing a long-term agreement with Amazon to supply industrial backup generators for the technology giant's global data centers. The agreement calls for initial deliveries worth about $2.4 billion across 2027 and 2028, while the total value of the arrangement could reach as much as $8 billion. Amazon will also receive a warrant to purchase about 1.69 million Generac shares at an exercise price of approximately $200.93 per share, representing nearly 3% of the company's shares outstanding. Nebius Group NV rose 11.1% in pre-open trading after notifying customers of broad-based price increases across its on-demand GPU cloud services effective Oct. 1, with prices rising approximately 17% for H100 instances, roughly 21% for the latest Nvidia B300 GPU, and 25% for AMD EPYC Genoa CPU rates. BCB Bancorp fell 4.9% in premarket trading after pricing an underwritten public offering of 11 million common shares for gross proceeds of $85.25 million and disclosing it is marketing approximately $210 million of problem loans, while expecting a net loss of between $126.2 million and $136.1 million for the third quarter of 2026.
Boost Run Wins Preliminary Inclusion in Russell 2000 and Russell 3000 Indexes
Boost Run, Inc. announced its preliminary inclusion in the Russell 2000 and Russell 3000 Indexes as part of FTSE Russell's quarterly IPO additions. The Nasdaq-listed company, an NVIDIA Preferred Cloud Partner, said the inclusion is expected to become effective after market close on Friday, September 18, 2026, subject to FTSE Russell's final review and reconstitution, with the reconstituted indexes expected to begin trading at market open on Monday, September 21, 2026. Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Andrew Karos called the inclusion an important milestone for Boost Run and said the company remains focused on executing its long-term growth strategy and creating value for shareholders. The Russell U.S. Indexes are widely used by investment managers and institutional investors for index funds and as a benchmark for active strategies, with approximately $12 trillion in assets benchmarked to them.
Nebius shares jump on reported October GPU price hikes
Nebius Group shares rose nearly 9% premarket Thursday after the AI cloud provider reportedly raised prices for several of its computing services, according to a customer communication circulated online. The company is said to increase prices for several on-demand GPU resources from Oct. 1, with the changes affecting Nvidia's H100, H200, B200, and B300 chips. The pricing update was shared by users on Reddit and X and later reported by Stocktwits. The changes also extend to CPU-only compute, with AMD EPYC Genoa CPU rates rising 25% to $0.015 per vCPU-hour from $0.012, while Genoa memory pricing will increase about 41% to $0.0045 per GiB-hour from $0.0032. The development also lifted shares of neocloud peers IREN by 5.1% premarket and CoreWeave by 6.1%.
Varonis Systems Launches Data Lifecycle Management Capability
Varonis Systems, Inc. launched Varonis Data Lifecycle Management, a new capability that automatically identifies and remediates redundant, obsolete, and trivial data across enterprise environments using its existing Data Security Platform. The launch ties data cleanup directly to sensitivity, access, and activity context, aiming to reduce storage waste, improve AI output quality, and help organizations address compliance exposures from scattered sensitive information. The DLM tool stacks on top of Varonis Atlas, the AI security platform that went generally available in March 2026, which targets discovery, posture management, and runtime protection for AI workloads. Together, Atlas and DLM broaden Varonis' role from guarding unstructured data to governing how that data is stored, used, cleaned up, and exposed across Snowflake, Claude, Cursor, and other cloud and AI partnerships. Varonis Systems' narrative projects $1.1 billion revenue and $120.7 million earnings by 2029, yielding a $50.68 fair value, an 8% upside to its current price, while the most pessimistic analysts were already modeling about US$1.0 billion of 2029 revenue.
Microsoft and Blykalla Partner to Apply AI to Nuclear Reactor Licensing
Microsoft and Swedish nuclear company Blykalla announced a partnership to apply AI to nuclear reactor licensing processes. The collaboration will deploy Microsoft's GenAI for Energy Permitting Solution Accelerator within Blykalla's regulatory workflows in Sweden and the U.S., targeting faster permitting and licensing for advanced nuclear reactors, a frequent bottleneck for clean energy deployment timelines. Microsoft is a US based technology giant with a US$3.7 trillion market cap whose software and cloud tools are used by governments, utilities, and enterprises. The deal also connects to Microsoft's push to secure reliable power for its own data centers, since reactors like SEALER are described as potential co located sources of energy for AI facilities. The early test will be whether regulators and utilities adopt Microsoft's GenAI for Energy Permitting tools into their own workflows in Sweden and the U.S.
Nebius Raises GPU Rental Prices for Second Time, Lifting NBIS Shares 6%
Shares of Nebius Group N.V., or NBIS, rose 6.58% in overnight trading to $223.14 after reports that Nebius plans to raise its on-demand GPU rental rates effective October 1, 2026, the second price increase this year. Under the new rates, the H100 GPU goes from $3.85 to $4.50 per GPU-hour, a rise of about 17%. The H200 goes from $4.50 to $5.40, up 20%. The B200 goes from $7.15 to $8.50, up about 19%. And the B300 goes from $7.85 to $9.50, up roughly 21%. Yuanta Securities Thailand said the simultaneous increases across both older GPUs and newer Blackwell-family chips reflect that demand for artificial intelligence computing power remains high and that Nebius is gaining more pricing power. The company also sees forward demand extending beyond 24 months, with some customers already booking capacity through 2028. If system utilization stays high, an average price increase of about 20% would significantly boost revenue per GPU and raise returns on data center investment. Among depositary receipts tied to NBIS on the Thai market, NBIS01 was unchanged at 4.12 baht with 2.91 million baht in trading value. NBIS03 rose 0.05 baht, or 0.71%, to 7.05 baht with 4.03 million baht in trading value. NBIS23 was unchanged at 7.05 baht with 797,000 baht in trading value. And NBIS80 was unchanged at 7.00 baht with 8.22 million baht in trading value.
Palantir Names Nebius Preferred Sovereign AI Cloud Partner
Palantir Technologies and Nebius Group announced a partnership on 8 September 2026 making Nebius Palantir's preferred sovereign AI infrastructure provider, integrating Nebius' AI-native cloud and inference endpoints into Palantir's commercial perimeter to give eligible customers more control over compute, data, and models. The alliance positions Nebius as an AI-first cloud platform built for demanding AI workloads and could broaden its reach through Palantir's enterprise distribution and modular data-center deployments. The news comes alongside Nebius' first senior secured debt facility of about US$775.0 million, backed by GPU assets and contracted cash flows, underscoring how the company is funding and filling significant new capacity. Nebius Group's narrative projects $30.3 billion revenue and $2.4 billion earnings by 2029, with a $312.67 fair value implying 49% upside to its current price, while some of the lowest ranked analysts had assumed heavy spending would keep Nebius unprofitable even with revenue reaching about US$19.1 billion by 2029. The Palantir deal strengthens Nebius' case as a sovereign AI provider and could reinforce near-term demand visibility, but it does not remove the key near-term risk around heavy capital spending and the company's ability to translate rapid revenue growth into sustainable margins.
Palantir Tightens Rules on OpenAI and Anthropic Models Over Data Security
Palantir Technologies has tightened its rules on advanced generative AI, curbing the use of OpenAI and Anthropic models across its platforms. The company, alongside Nvidia and Booz Allen, introduced stricter controls on external AI tools to address data security and safety concerns. Palantir now requires zero data retention guarantees before Anthropic's models can be integrated into its enterprise and government solutions. The company runs data platforms for intelligence agencies and other government clients that handle sensitive security information, so strict control over how external AI models treat that information aligns closely with its core role as a contractor in high-stakes environments. Palantir plans to showcase its joint NVIDIA supply chain stack at AIPCon 11 in 2026, and investors can watch how explicitly the company quantifies customer uptake of these zero retention style deployments.
Palantir Rises 1.03% as Market Slips, Earnings Preview in Focus
Palantir Technologies Inc. closed at $174.34, up 1.03% on a day when the S&P 500 fell 0.45%, the Dow dropped 1.21% and the Nasdaq slipped 0.01%. The company is projected to report earnings of $0.41 per share in its forthcoming report, representing year-over-year growth of 95.24%, on revenue of $2.17 billion, an 83.95% increase from the same quarter last year. For the full fiscal year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates project earnings of $1.6 per share and revenue of $8.19 billion, changes of +113.33% and +82.96% respectively from the prior year. Palantir holds a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy), with the consensus EPS estimate unchanged over the last 30 days, and trades at a Forward P/E of 107.95 versus an industry average of 20.36. The Internet - Software industry, part of the Computer and Technology sector, currently holds a Zacks Industry Rank of 90, placing it in the top 37% of all 250+ industries.
Longtime technology analyst Daniel Ives doubled down on his call that Palantir Technologies could eventually become a $1 trillion company, a valuation that would require roughly 141% upside from the AI software company's current $414.7 billion market value. Ives reiterated the view at the Future Proof Conference in Huntington Beach, California, having previously argued in April that Palantir could reach a $1 trillion valuation within two to three years. The thesis rests on Palantir sustaining extraordinary commercial growth, and recent results support the optimism: second-quarter revenue surged 93% year over year to $1.94 billion, U.S. commercial revenue jumped 149% to $764 million, and overall commercial revenue increased 110%. Management raised its 2026 revenue outlook to between $8.15 billion and $8.158 billion, implying roughly 82% growth at the midpoint, with U.S. commercial revenue expected to increase at least 134%. UBS analyst Karl Keirstead recently lifted his price target to $250 from $220 while maintaining a Buy rating, though the stock trades at roughly 78 times forward earnings and more than 72 times trailing sales, leaving little room for execution mistakes.
Microsoft Raises Quarterly Dividend 8% to $0.98 per Share
Microsoft raised its quarterly dividend by seven cents to $0.98 per share, an 8% increase that lifts the annual payout to $3.92 per share from $3.64 previously. The dividend will be paid December 10 to shareholders of record on November 19, and the company set its annual shareholder meeting for December 8. The stock slipped to $492.76 Wednesday morning as investors focused more on the growth outlook than the modest increase in cash returned per share. Microsoft returned $10.2 billion through dividends and share repurchases last quarter, equivalent to roughly 11.3% of its $90 billion in quarterly revenue, while Microsoft Cloud generated $59.3 billion and Azure revenue climbed 43%. At $492.76, the shares sit 15.77% below the $585.03 GF Value estimate.
Microsoft Raises Quarterly Dividend 8% to $0.98 per Share
Microsoft raised its quarterly dividend to $0.98 per share from $0.91, an 8% increase, with the new payout scheduled for Dec. 10 to investors on the Nov. 19 record date. The higher distribution lifts Microsoft's annualized dividend to $3.92 per share, which based on the company's Tuesday closing price of $497.12 represents a forward yield of about 0.79%. The increase comes as Microsoft continues to invest heavily in cloud computing and artificial intelligence, with its latest fiscal-year results showing ongoing expansion in those areas while the company keeps returning capital to shareholders. Microsoft also set its 2026 annual shareholders meeting for Dec. 8, a virtual meeting open to shareholders of record as of Sept. 30 and hosted by Chief Executive Satya Nadella and other senior executives.
Palantir $1 trillion valuation case revived as Q2 revenue jumps 93%
Former Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives has renewed his call that Palantir Technologies could one day reach a $1 trillion market capitalization, roughly 141% above its current value of over $415 billion. Ives pointed to Palantir's recent results, with second-quarter revenue surging 93 percent to $1.94 billion from a year ago and U.S. commercial sales jumping 149% to $764 million. Management now forecasts revenue of around $8.15 billion in 2026, nearly an 82% increase at the midpoint. UBS raised its price estimate to $250 from $220 after engaging with customers and management. Palantir trades at more than 70 times trailing revenue, leaving little room for disappointment as it must keep expanding fast enough to justify the premium.
Palantir Presses Anthropic for Zero-Data-Retention Guarantee as AI Data Control Fight Escalates
Palantir has pressed Anthropic for an irrevocable zero-data-retention guarantee before allowing Anthropic models to be made accessible through Palantir's software, according to Reuters, citing The Information. The demand is aimed at contractual certainty that sensitive prompts, usage data and outputs cannot later be retained, repurposed or exposed through policy changes. The dispute intensified after Anthropic changed the policy for its Fable model in June, allowing companies to retain usage logs for 30 days to defend against attacks, a move that drew customer pushback. Nvidia has reportedly limited Anthropic models to less-sensitive tasks while using its own Nemotron models for internal work, and Booz Allen has barred Anthropic's commercial model from specific proprietary cybersecurity activities. The development strengthens part of Palantir's growth thesis, which centers on becoming the layer that determines how models interact with sensitive corporate data, though the stock trades at a market cap of nearly $400 billion and around 143-times trailing earnings after surging over 50% in August. Palantir's Q2 sales surged 93% to $1.94 billion, U.S. commercial revenues were up 149%, and adjusted operating margins reached 62%, with management expecting nearly $8.15 billion in 2026 sales.
Oracle Restructuring Bill Climbs to $2.8 Billion as AI Cloud Backlog Hits $664 Billion
Oracle's restructuring program has grown by another $700 million to roughly $2.8 billion, covering severance, contract exits and other costs tied to reshaping the business, as the company races to turn enormous AI demand into cash flow. Shares gained approximately 2.1% to $143.33 Wednesday. The added expense is meaningful against quarterly revenue of $19.35 billion, while Oracle added about 850 megawatts of data-center capacity during the latest quarter and free cash flow remained around negative $5 billion as infrastructure spending ran hard. The bull case rests on more than $30 billion of additional AI-cloud contracts signed in the period, which pushed remaining performance obligations to $664 billion; management argues those commitments can be supported within its existing capital plan because some customers can prepay or contribute chips. The restructuring is more than simple cost cutting, since it can help Oracle absorb the near-term cash burden, but the real test is converting that gigantic backlog into profitable cloud revenue fast enough to justify the infrastructure bill.
Microsoft Opens Government AI Suite October 1 With Features Still Pending Accreditation
Microsoft has told federal buyers that a new top government tier of its productivity suite, plus a companion agent-management product, will be available for Government Community Cloud customers to purchase on October 1, with individual capabilities lighting up in phases as each workload clears its required government security accreditation. The new suite layers Copilot, identity and security tooling, and agent-governance controls on top of the prior government tier, with the headline addition being Agent 365, which Microsoft has framed on the commercial side as providing security operations, financial operations, and observability and manageability of token spending across business processes. Microsoft has not disclosed per-seat pricing for the new tier or paid conversion rates from earlier no-cost federal Copilot deployments, leaving any government revenue forecast impossible, and the stock closed at $497.12, down 2.74% over the past year. On the commercial side, net paid seats more than doubled sequentially to over 30 million Copilot seats, while full-year capital expenditures hit $115.95 billion and free cash flow fell 23.19% in the quarter. Analysts carry an average price target of $572.92 with 38 Buy and 14 Strong Buy ratings, and the variable that decides the bull and bear cases is what Microsoft discloses in coming quarters about paid government seat counts and workload authorization progress rather than the October launch itself.