Social Buzz: Wallstreetbets Stocks Mostly Higher Premarket Friday; Apple, Intel to Advance

Meta Platforms Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told employees the company sold more than 1 million Ray-Ban smart glasses last year, The Verge reported late Thursday, citing leaked remarks from a meeting.

Zuckerberg told the company he expects the sale of these smart glasses to surpass 1 million units in 2025, the news outlet reported. Meta is basically a pioneer in this product category and expects to introduce it to as many people as possible. There is little to no competition in this category, Verge reported.

Meta did not immediately reply to MT Newswires' request for comment.

(Market Chatter news is derived from conversations with market professionals globally. This information is believed to be from reliable sources but may include rumor and speculation. Accuracy is not guaranteed.)

By Adam Clark

Nvidia was falling again early on Friday. The chip maker is struggling to recover from the plunge caused by Chinese firm DeepSeek's introduction of low-cost AI models as politicians question its sales in China.

Nvidia shares were down 1.3% at $123.01 in premarket trading. The stock rose 0.8% on Thursday.

Nvidia stock is down 13% over the past five trading sessions, hit by worries about the ramifications of DeepSeek artificial-intelligence models. Prominent lawmakers from both the Republican and Democratic parties have said President Donald Trump's administration should consider putting export controls on Nvidia's H20 chip, which DeepSeek reportedly used extensively.

In the wake of the DeepSeek frenzy Microsoft and Meta Platforms delivered mixed messages about their future spending on AI infrastructure this week, reaffirming commitments worth hundreds of billions of dollars but also signaling they were looking to shift toward in-house chips.

Among other chip makers, Advanced Micro Devices was gaining 0.7% and Broadcom was rising 1.8% in premarket trading.

Nvidia investors could turn to ChatGPT-developer OpenAI for signs of optimism, though.

OpenAI is in early talks to raise up to $40 billion in a funding round that would value the ChatGPT maker as high as $300 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

OpenAI, alongside Oracle and Japan's SoftBank, is a participant in the Stargate Project, which aims to spend as much as $500 billion on AI infrastructure. Nvidia is a technology partner for the project.

Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

Apple shares rose early Friday as the technology giant recorded better-than-expected fiscal first-quarter results, with gains in Mac and iPad sales helping to counter a decline in iPhone revenue.

Per-share earnings came in at $2.40 for the three months through Dec. 28, up from $2.18 the year before, the company said late Thursday, beating the FactSet-polled consensus of $2.35. Sales inclined 4% year over year to $124.3 billion, ahead of the Street's view for $124.14 billion. The stock increased 3.3% in premarket activity.

"Our record revenue and strong operating margins drove EPS to a new all-time record with double-digit growth and allowed us to return over $30 billion to shareholders," Chief Financial Officer Kevan Parekh said in a statement. "We are also pleased that our installed base of active devices has reached a new all-time high across all products and geographic segments."

Sales for iPhone edged down to $69.14 billion from $69.7 billion in the prior-year quarter. The company saw revenue growth for the product in the majority of its markets and logged an "all-time record" for upgrades, Parekh said during a conference call, according to a FactSet transcript.

Mac revenue advanced to $8.99 billion from $7.78 billion while iPad sales climbed 15% to $8.09 billion, amid "significant excitement" and "strong interest" for the latest versions of the two products, Chief Executive Tim Cook said on the call. Wearables, home and accessories sales ticked down 2% to $11.75 billion.

Services revenue grew to $26.34 billion from $23.12 billion last year. "Both transacting and paid accounts reached new all-time highs, with paid accounts growing double-digits year-over-year," according to Parekh. "Paid subscriptions also grew double-digits."

Apple logged revenue growth in all of its geographic segments, including the Americas, Europe and Japan, except China, which fell to $18.51 billion from $20.82 billion in the 2023 quarter. During the earnings call, Cook attributed over half of the decline in China to a "change in channel inventory from the beginning to the end of the quarter." The company hasn't launched its Apple Intelligence features in the country yet, Cook said.

Looking ahead, the company anticipates overall revenue in the March quarter to increase by low- to mid-single digits on an annual basis, with foreign exchange to be a headwind of about 2.5 percentage points, Parekh told analysts. The Street is looking for sales of $95.12 billion for the ongoing quarter.

Services revenue is pegged to grow by low double digits year over year in the second quarter, while gross margin is forecast to be between 46.5% and 47.5%, Parekh said. Gross margin was 46.9% in the preceding quarter.