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Motley Fool Money: 3 Stocks We Love in 2026
5:45 pm
Are you looking for investment opportunities in 2026? So are we -- and today's Motley Fool Money covers three stocks we love going into the year. Travis Hoium, Lou Whiteman, and Rachel Warren discuss:
- Why space is worth watching in 2026
- Opportunities in healthcare
- How Hims & Hers is disrupting the healthcare industry
Listen to the podcast below:
Today's Evening News
5:50 pm
After years of rising prices and bidding wars, the U.S. housing market is posting its first annual price decline since 2012. The 0.2% year-over-year dip in February signals that a flat market may be the new reality, with the narrative potentially shifting from an affordability crisis to a "buyer-friendly spring."
- Broad contraction: Nearly 80% of major metro markets tracked are now in negative territory, with West Coast hubs and Florida seeing the sharpest reversals as demand pulls back.
- Stagnation becomes the standard: Annual price appreciation has remained below 1% for seven consecutive months, suggesting that instead of a quick correction, the housing market may be entering a prolonged period of sluggishness and diminished returns for sellers.
Micron's Q3 Revenue Blows Past Estimates
4:15 pm -- MU +4.3% after hours
Micron Technology (MU 0.61%) shares surged after-hours Wednesday as fiscal second-quarter revenue nearly tripled to $23.86 billion, crushing the $20.07 billion consensus. The memory giant is riding a historic "supercycle" fueled by Nvidia (NVDA +1.68%) and its insatiable need for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) to power AI data centers. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra highlighted that Micron's entire 2026 HBM capacity is already sold out, leading the board to approve a 30% dividend hike. With a record-breaking Q3 guidance of $33.5 billion in sales — well above the $22.5 billion expected — Micron remains the lone bright spot among mega-cap tech stocks this year.
- Pricing Power Unleashed: Drastic industry-wide supply constraints for DRAM and NAND have allowed Micron to dictate terms to hyperscalers, pushing non-GAAP gross margins to a staggering 74.9%.
- The HBM4 Road Map: Management confirmed that development for next-gen HBM4 is already fully contracted through 2026, creating a multi-year revenue moat that competitors like Samsung are struggling to bridge.
Closing Bell
4:20 pm
The Dow plummeted 768 points Wednesday, marking a fresh 2026 low and breaking below its critical 200-day moving average. The sell-off intensified after the Producer Price Index jumped 0.7%, more than doubling expectations and signaling "structural" inflation. While the Federal Reserve held rates at 3.5%–3.75%, Chair Jerome Powell admitted progress on cooling prices has stalled. Middle East instability added fuel to the fire as Brent crude settled near $107 per barrel following strikes on Iranian gas facilities, heightening fears of a prolonged stagflationary shock.
Amazon's Breakup With USPS
3:26 pm -- AMZN down 2.47%
Amazon.com (AMZN +0.34%) says the U.S. Postal Service "walked away at the eleventh hour" in December during contract renewal negotiations, pushing the two toward a potential split. Amazon — long USPS's largest customer, using the service 1.7 billion times a year — had aimed to grow volumes, not cut them. It has since submitted a bid under USPS's new auction process, but warns "that window is rapidly closing."
- Not a crisis yet: Amazon has spent the past decade building its own delivery network and expanding rural coverage — reducing its USPS dependence was already underway long before talks broke down.
- USPS under pressure: The Postmaster General warned Congress this week that USPS could run out of cash in under 12 months without legislative help, making Amazon's volumes a lifeline it can't easily afford to lose.
Fed Holds Rates Steady, Says Cuts Coming Later
2:14 pm
The Federal Reserve voted 11-1 to leave its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 3.5%–3.75%. Governor Stephen Miran was the lone dissenter, advocating for a quarter-point cut.
The Fed's updated dot plot still projects one rate cut in 2026 and another in 2027 — unchanged from December. Officials raised their core inflation forecast to 2.7% by end of 2026 (up from 2.5%) and nudged GDP growth projections slightly higher to 2.4%. The Fed flagged the Middle East conflict as a new source of uncertainty, noting its implications for the U.S. economy remain unclear.
- Labor market language shifts: The statement dropped a previous reference to the unemployment rate having "shown some signs of stabilization," replacing it with a more neutral observation that the jobless rate "has been little changed in recent months."
- Market reaction: Stocks remained in the red following the announcement, with the S&P 500 down 0.5%, yields slightly higher, and Bitcoin falling 3%.
Netflix Turns Megahit Into World Tour
3:05 pm -- NFLX up 0.82%
Netflix (NFLX 9.72%) is negotiating a global concert tour for KPop Demon Hunters — its most-watched movie ever — with arena shows planned across dozens of cities in 2027. The move signals Netflix's ambition to monetize its IP well beyond streaming: the film is already spawning a theatrical run, toy partnerships, and now live events. Promoters have reportedly offered Netflix tens of millions in upfront guarantees, suggesting the market sees serious commercial potential. With the soundtrack the third-best-selling album globally last year and its lead single winning both a Grammy and an Oscar, this is shaping up as a meaningful new revenue stream for the streaming giant ahead of a planned sequel.
Google Signs 20-Year Power Deal for Michigan Data Center
2:50 pm -- GOOG up 0.68%
Alphabet (GOOG +1.99%) is moving ahead with a massive data center in Michigan, signing an unusual 20-year electricity contract with DTE Energy (DTE +0.01%) for up to one gigawatt of power. What makes the deal notable: Google is agreeing to fully cover the cost of 1,600 megawatts of new solar and 480 megawatts of battery storage — a structure that could become a template for other AI-hungry tech giants.
Service is expected to start in December 2027, reaching full load in late 2028. The deal still needs approval from Michigan's utility regulator. Alphabet has committed up to $185 billion in capex this year as it races to build out AI infrastructure to compete with Microsoft (MSFT +0.60%) and OpenAI.
- Novel structure: A 20-year, one-gigawatt contract is far longer and larger than typical utility agreements — DTE itself flagged this in its regulatory filing.
- Community scrutiny: The proposed site near Detroit previously drew local opposition, and Michigan's attorney general recently sought reconsideration of a similar power deal for an Oracle-OpenAI data center.
BMW Unveils Its Tesla Fighter
1:15 pm -- ETC:BMW -0.6%, TSLA -0.7%
BMW (BMW +3.98%) officially took the gloves off Wednesday, unveiling the i3 sedan to directly challenge the Tesla (TSLA +3.01%) Model 3. Built on the next-gen Neue Klasse platform, the i3 boasts a 440-mile range — nearly 100 miles more than its rival’s premium variant. With an 800-volt architecture capable of adding 250 miles in 10 minutes, the i3 marks the largest financial investment in BMW's history. While U.S. deliveries aren't expected until 2027, the 469-horsepower xDrive variant positions BMW to reclaim the "ultimate driving machine" title in the electric era.
- Computing Power Overhaul: The "Heart of Joy" platform runs ten times faster than previous systems, centralizing driving dynamics and infotainment into a single, high-speed neural center.
- The Premium Price Gap: At an estimated $55,000, BMW is betting that superior range and a 40-inch panoramic display will justify a $7,500 premium over Tesla’s comparable all-wheel-drive models.
ETR: BMW
Key Data Points
Will Cash Lead Creators to Facebook?
1:20 pm -- META -0.9%
Meta Platforms (META +1.73%) is launching "Creator Fast Track," a predatory hiring spree offering guaranteed monthly stipends of up to $3,000 to poach talent from TikTok and Alphabet (GOOG +1.99%) owned YouTube. The initiative follows a massive $3 billion creator payout in 2025, a 35% year-over-year increase aimed at revitalizing engagement on the flagship Facebook app. By offering "perpetual" reach boosts and upfront cash, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is attempting an arbitrage play to capture original content for Reels, which currently drives 60% of Meta's creator disbursements.
- Lowering the Barrier: To qualify for the cash, influencers must post just 15 Reels a month, making it a low-effort "side hustle" for stars already dominant on rival platforms.
- Algorithmic Incentives: Beyond the three-month cash guarantee, Meta is overhauling its monetization metrics to provide transparency on engagement-based earnings, directly challenging the opaque revenue-share models of its competitors.
Meta's Horizon Worlds Goes Mobile-Only
11:30 am -- META -0.1%
Meta Platforms (META +1.73%) is officially pulling the plug on Horizon Worlds for Quest VR headsets on June 15, marking a definitive retreat from its 2021 metaverse rebrand. The platform—which never exceeded a few hundred thousand monthly users—will transition to a mobile-only app as the company reallocates resources toward generative AI. This restructuring follows a staggering $6.02 billion operating loss at Reality Labs last quarter and over 1,000 recent layoffs within the division. While the "next frontier" has proved a costly detour, Wall Street is applauding the shift; shares remained resilient as the company prunes its most capital-intensive moonshots.
- Sunk Cost Realities: After billions in quarterly losses, Meta is effectively demoting its flagship VR social network to a 2D mobile experience similar to Roblox (RBLX 0.10%) to salvage its creator ecosystem.
- The AI Overhaul: The move signals that Quest hardware will shift from a social "metaverse" vessel to a specialized AI and gaming tool, aiming to reduce the massive "Cost of Goods Sold" currently dragging down Reality Labs.
Top of the Morning
10:25 am -- LULU +3.3%
By Morning Show host Sanmeet Deo
Team Rule Breakers
Lululemon Athletica (LULU +2.68%) put up a better-than-expected fourth quarter, but the headline beat masked a deeply uncertain 2026 outlook. Revenue grew just 1% from a year ago to $3.64 billion, while earnings per share fell 18.4% year-over-year to $5.01. The EPS decline tells the real story: Heavy discounting and swollen inventory throughout 2025 ate into margins, and the company is now working to pull back from that promotional approach to restore its premium pricing image.
Josh D'Amaro Takes the Helm at Disney
10:15 am -- DIS +0.1%
The Walt Disney Company (DIS +2.30%) officially begins the Josh D’Amaro era today as he succeeds Bob Iger at the annual shareholder meeting. D’Amaro, formerly head of Disney Experiences, inherits a conglomerate whose stock has shed 10% this year despite recent box office hits and streaming profitability. His mandate centers on a massive multi-year investment in theme parks and cruises—the company’s most reliable earnings engine. Iger remains as a senior advisor through 2026, providing a buffer as D’Amaro attempts to stabilize Wall Street's reception of the storied brand.
- Global Footprint Expansion: D'Amaro is already spearheading a major resort push in Abu Dhabi, signaling a shift toward international high-margin markets to diversify beyond domestic park saturation.
- The Post-Iger Shadow: This second attempt at succession follows the turbulent Bob Chapek era, putting immense pressure on D'Amaro to maintain the creative-commercial balance that defined Iger’s twenty-year tenure.
NYSE: DIS
Key Data Points
Opening Bell
9:35 am
The Dow fell 235 points Wednesday after the Producer Price Index surged 0.7%, more than doubling estimates. This "hot" reading, primarily driven by industrial tariffs and manufacturing costs, signals structural inflation that could anchor interest rates at current levels through the third quarter. While the Federal Reserve is expected to hold rates steady today, the 4% spike in Brent crude to $107 — following Iranian attacks on UAE infrastructure — is fueling fresh stagflation anxieties across the Nasdaq.
Wholesale Prices Surge as Inflation Reheats
9:15 am
The Producer Price Index (PPI) surged 0.7% in February, pushing annual wholesale inflation to a one-year high of 3.4%. This broad-based jump overshot the 0.3% consensus, driven by a 48.9% spike in vegetable prices and rising energy costs. Core inflation also heated up, with the "super-core" measure marking its tenth straight monthly gain. As the Federal Reserve meets today, this "sticky" data — combined with oil nearing $100 — likely solidifies a "higher for longer" interest rate stance, potentially pressuring margins for the S&P 500 and rate-sensitive tech heavyweights.
Discoveries From the Databases: A Lesson in ROUNTA
8:00 am
By Josh Simka
Sometimes the most revealing metric isn't revenue growth, margin expansion, or even return on equity. Sometimes it's whether management can consistently turn real assets into real money.
Imagine two neighborhood pizzerias. Ottavio's has a large dining room, expensive ovens, and the storefront has undergone near-constant remodeling. They bring in $100,000 a year in revenue. Nemorino's, just a few blocks over, operates mostly takeout, has a tiny kitchen, and makes the same $100,000 with far less staff and equipment. Both earn the same profit, but one needs far fewer real-world assets to get there. Nemorino's is converting real stuff like ovens, space, and equipment into earnings far more efficiently. And importantly, we're not giving either pizzeria credit for how they financed those ovens -- cash or debt. We're just asking: How productive are the assets themselves?
Enter a metric called ROUNTA (return on unlevered net tangible assets).
This Morning's Breakfast News
7:30 am -- RKLB -3.18% in pre-market trading
Rocket Lab (RKLB +2.24%) closed 10% up yesterday, with investors optimistic ahead of new launches. Dubbed "Eight Days A Week" and "Daughter of the Stars", the company's next two Electron missions are planned for the coming week.
- "Hungry Hippo" ready to go: The curiously named fairing assembly for Rocket Lab's Neutron rocket is now qualified for integration, the company announced, along with news of a new $816 million defense contract with the U.S. Space Development Agency.
- Down around 3% in pre-market trading: The stock lost some ground this morning on the back of a new equity offering announced late yesterday, valued at up to $1 billion. Rocket Lab is 55% ahead of the S&P 500 since its August 2025 SA rec.
What to Watch in Williams-Sonoma Q4's Report
7:00 am -- WSM -1.18% in pre-market trading
Williams-Sonoma (WSM +4.19%), a leading U.S. retailer of home furnishings and kitchenware, is expected to report earnings for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025 before the market opens. Here's what to watch:
- Tariff impact on margins: Management has flagged that tariffs will have a larger effect on operating margin in Q4. Investors should watch for how much of this impact is offset by the company's mitigation strategies.
- Promotional activity and full-price selling: The company aims to reduce promotions and maintain strong full-price sales. Any deviation could affect both revenue and margin outcomes.
- Holiday-season performance and inventory levels: Q4 includes the key holiday period. Watch for commentary on sell-through rates, inventory composition, and how well the company managed seasonal demand.
- Status of new initiatives and acquisitions: Look for updates on the Dormify intellectual property acquisition (announced; relaunch planned for 2026), the expanded Affirm (AFRM +7.00%) payment partnership in Canada (completed), and the OpenAI Ad Pilot Program participation (ongoing).
- AI-driven operational efficiencies: The company has highlighted early benefits from AI in customer service and supply chain. Investors should look for further evidence of cost savings and productivity gains in the Q4 results.
NYSE: WSM
Key Data Points
ICYMI: Tuesday's Scoreboard
6:15 am -- ONTO +2.76% in pre-market trading
Onto Innovation (ONTO +8.84%) was the subject of the latest Scoreboard video.
Meta Bets on Manus to Capture Enterprise AI
6:00 am -- META +0.45% in pre-market trading
Meta Platforms (META +1.73%) is moving its AI ambitions from the cloud to your hard drive with the launch of the Manus Desktop application. Featuring a new "My Computer" tool, the agent can now natively read, edit, and organize local files--a direct response to the viral success of the open-source rival OpenClaw. While Nvidia (NVDA +1.68%) CEO Jensen Huang recently dubbed OpenClaw "the next ChatGPT," Meta is banking on Manus's polished, subscription-based model to capture the enterprise market. However, the $2 billion acquisition remains under a cloud of geopolitical tension; Chinese regulators are currently investigating the deal for potential technology export violations, even as Meta integrates the Singapore-based team into its core "Superintelligence" lab.
- The Local Advantage: By operating directly on the user's terminal, Manus can build apps and manage complex local workflows without the latency or data-transfer costs of cloud-only models like those from Alphabet (GOOG +1.99%).
- Security Guardrails: To combat privacy fears, Meta has implemented an "explicit approval" system, requiring users to greenlight every system-level action the agent takes on their machine.
Nvidia Gets U.S. and China Nod for H200 Sales
5:30 am -- NVDA +0.92% in pre-market trading
Nvidia (NVDA +1.68%) has been approved to ship its H200 processors to customers in China, CEO Jensen Huang said at the company's GTC conference yesterday, adding the export deal has clearance from U.S. authorities and from Beijing. Chinese AI stocks got a boost after Huang described OpenClaw AI as "definitely the next ChatGPT."
Before the Opening Bell
5:15 am
Stock futures are climbing Wednesday morning as a relief rally in technology and a cooling in energy prices provide a tailwind ahead of the Federal Reserve's policy announcement. S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures rose roughly 0.5% following bullish AI commentary from Nvidia (NVDA +1.68%) CEO Jensen Huang and a $20 billion buyback announcement from Qualcomm (QCOM +1.23%). Brent crude retreated to $102 per barrel after Iraq signaled a deal to resume oil exports via Turkey, easing some "war premium" fears. While the Fed is 99% certain to keep rates in the 3.5% to 3.75% range, investors are laser-focused on Chair Jerome Powell's 2:30 PM ET press conference for clues on whether the Middle East conflict has permanently delayed 2026 rate cuts.
- The Boeing Headwind: Boeing (BA +1.95%) is bucking the morning rally, with shares under pressure after the company warned that 737 MAX wiring defects and supplier turnaround costs will significantly weigh on first-quarter deliveries.
- AI Resilience: Risk appetite is being anchored by the semiconductor sector; Samsung Electronics surged 7% overnight, signaling that the global AI infrastructure build-out remains decoupled from geopolitical volatility.
