Stocks making the biggest moves midday: Rigetti Computing, Deere, Bloom Energy, Spotify & more

Midday trading was driven by a mix of earnings, guidance, and company-specific catalysts, with quantum computing names surging 13% to 30% after reports of a potential $2 billion government grant package. Standouts included Bloom Energy up more than 12% on an AI-infrastructure partnership, Spotify up 14% on a strong growth outlook, and Birkenstock up more than 17% after accelerating buybacks, while Deere fell nearly 8%, Walmart dropped nearly 7%, and Intuit sank nearly 20% on layoffs and a revenue miss.

Analysis

The biggest second-order read-through is that policy is now acting like venture capital for strategic sectors: quantum, rare earths, power, and hyperscale compute are being linked into one industrial policy trade. That tends to compress dispersion within the “national champion” basket in the short run, but over months it should widen the gap between companies with real manufacturing capacity, DOE/defense adjacency, and balance-sheet staying power versus pure narrative names. In particular, the quantum group is likely to trade as a high-beta policy proxy until the market tests whether grant funding comes with dilution, milestones, or control provisions that cap upside.

The power and infrastructure winners are more durable than the headline movers. AI compute demand is becoming constrained by electricity and site availability, so names that can monetize the bottleneck—rather than the model layer—have cleaner earnings visibility over 12-24 months. That makes BE/APLD/NBIS more interesting than the pure chip beneficiaries, because their upside depends on capacity scarcity, not just another quarter of strong AI capex.

On the loser side, the market is punishing any company that gives the slightest hint of margin discipline breaking under demand or competition pressure. WMT’s reaction suggests investors are less interested in revenue beats than in whether management is signaling a price war; if it turns into a broader retail deflation cycle, KR is the next marginal victim and branded staples will lose pricing power. INTU’s drawdown is more concerning than the other misses because the workforce cut implies management is trying to defend profitability into a softer demand backdrop, which often precedes multiple compression for 2-3 quarters.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Buy BE on pullbacks over the next 1-2 weeks; the best setup is a medium-duration long tied to AI power scarcity, with upside that can persist for 6-12 months if hyperscaler capex keeps outrunning grid additions.
• Initiate a basket long RGTIW/QBTS/QUBT, but size it as a catalyst trade only for 2-6 weeks; consider financing it with a short in lower-quality software names because the government-support narrative could stay hot while the category still faces dilution risk.
• Long APLD vs short a broad semiconductor ETF for 1-3 months: APLD’s lease announcement is monetizing the bottleneck directly, while semis have already priced in a lot of AI demand; risk is a sharp reversal if the hyperscaler spend cycle pauses.
• Short INTU into any dead-cat bounce over the next several sessions; the combination of revenue miss and headcount reduction raises the odds of multiple compression over the next quarter, with downside extending if SMB demand softens further.
• Fade WMT on strength via put spreads for the next earnings window; if the price-reset strategy spreads, it can become an industry-wide margin headwind, but the trade should be tightly timed because WMT can force competitors into weaker pricing discipline.