Benzinga·2025-10-31 11:22Core Insights - Retail investors showed significant interest in five stocks this week, driven by earnings reports, retail hype, shutdown concerns, and AI developments [1] Group 1: Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) - Amazon announced substantial corporate layoffs on October 27, followed by impressive third-quarter earnings on October 30, reporting $180.2 billion in revenue, exceeding estimates, and achieving a 38% profit growth [7] - AWS experienced its fastest growth in years, leading to a raised capital expenditure forecast of $125 billion for AI infrastructure, resulting in a 14% after-hours share price increase [7] - The stock traded around $251 to $252 per share, with a 52-week range of $161.43 to $242.52, showing a year-to-date increase of 1.20% and a 19.56% rise over the year [8] Group 2: Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) - Nvidia gained attention at its inaugural GTC Washington, D.C. conference, where CEO Jensen Huang announced a U.S. AI infrastructure blueprint, including partnerships for seven new supercomputers with the Department of Energy and a $1 billion investment in Nokia [8] - The stock surged on October 29, achieving a historic $5 trillion market cap, the first company to reach this milestone, amid growing AI enthusiasm [8] - The stock traded around $203 to $207 per share, with a 52-week range of $86.63 to $212.19, reflecting a year-to-date increase of 46.63% and a 52.76% rise over the year [9] Group 3: Reddit Inc. (RDDT) - Reddit reported third-quarter earnings on October 30, with revenue of $585 million and EPS of $0.80, alongside a 19% increase in daily active users to 116 million, driven by ad growth and data-licensing deals with AI firms [14] - CEO Steve Huffman noted the potential for partnerships in AI despite minimal traffic from AI chat apps, while a brief outage affected users on October 31 [14] - The stock traded around $216 to $218 per share, with a 52-week range of $79.75 to $282.95, showing a year-to-date increase of 17.18% and a 62.97% rise over the year [15] Group 4: Beyond Meat Inc. (BYND) - Beyond Meat experienced a surge in retail interest, driven by short-squeeze speculation and a viral story of a South Korean investor betting his life savings on the stock, leading to the ForTheKoreanGuy campaign [15] - The company announced nearly 97% of its convertible notes were tendered for new 2030 notes, extending debt maturities and easing covenants amid ongoing restructuring [15] - The stock traded around $1 to $2 per share, with a 52-week range of $0.50 to $7.69, reflecting a year-to-date decline of 57.14% and a 72.91% drop over the year [16] Group 5: Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) - Alphabet reported record third-quarter earnings on October 29, with revenue of $102.4 billion, driven by double-digit growth across Search, YouTube, and Google Cloud, and an adjusted EPS of $2.87 [16] - CEO Sundar Pichai emphasized AI's role in cloud acceleration, including a significant deal with Anthropic for up to 1 million TPUs, with over 70% of cloud customers adopting Google AI products [16] - The stock traded around $285 to $286 per share, with a 52-week range of $142.66 to $291.93, showing a year-to-date increase of 47.88% and a 63.24% rise over the year [17]