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👉 Week in Review — Too Long; Didn’t Read:
Key Earnings Announcements:
AST SpaceMobile’s 60 partnerships now cover 3 billion subscribers.
CoreWeave’s revenue doubled to $2.6B on a $104B backlog.
Cerebras Systems secured 600 megawatts of data-center capacity to support their $25B backlog.
Investor Events / Global Affairs:
S&P 500 notched its 27th record close of 2026.
Jane Street lost $15B in July — its worst month ever.
Nvidia disclosed a $21B SpaceX stake, now its #2 position.
Economic Updates:
July CPI cooled to 3.4% headline, 2.5% core — a 4-year low.
July retail sales fell -0.6% — the first drop in 9 months.
Let’s dive right in!
👉 Best and Worst ETF Performers of the Week
How Jennifer Aniston’s LolaVie brand grew sales 40% with CTV ads
For its first CTV campaign, Jennifer Aniston’s DTC haircare brand LolaVie had a few non-negotiables. The campaign had to be simple. It had to demonstrate measurable impact. And it had to be full-funnel.
LolaVie used Roku Ads Manager to test and optimize creatives — reaching millions of potential customers at all stages of their purchase journeys. Roku Ads Manager helped the brand convey LolaVie’s playful voice while helping drive omnichannel sales across both ecommerce and retail touchpoints.
The campaign included an Action Ad overlay that let viewers shop directly from their TVs by clicking OK on their Roku remote. This guided them to the website to buy LolaVie products.
Discover how Roku Ads Manager helped LolaVie drive big sales and customer growth with self-serve TV ads.
The DTC beauty category is crowded. To break through, Jennifer Aniston’s brand LolaVie, worked with Roku Ads Manager to easily set up, test, and optimize CTV ad creatives. The campaign helped drive a big lift in sales and customer growth, helping LolaVie break through in the crowded beauty category.
👉 Key Earnings Announcements:
AST SpaceMobile’s 60 partnerships now cover 3 billion subscribers, CoreWeave’s revenue doubled to $2.6B on a $104B backlog, Cerebras Systems secured 600 megawatts of data-center capacity to support their $25B backlog.
AST SpaceMobile (ASTS)
Key Metrics
Revenue: $31.5 million, an increase of +2,617% YoY
Operating Loss: -$297.6 million, compared to -$72.8 million last year
Net Loss: -$230.9 million, compared to -$99.4 million last year
Earnings Release Callout
"Following the recent orbital launch of BlueBirds 11, 12 and 13, our space-based cellular broadband network has now grown to 13 spacecraft in orbit… as we get ready to ship BlueBirds 14, 15 and 16. We remain focused on ramping production, expanding vertical integration, and building out nearly 50 global gateways to scale network infrastructure for upcoming beta services."
My Takeaway
AST SpaceMobile posted a steep quarterly loss as the company aggressively scaled its space-based cellular broadband network. Revenue jumped to $31.5 million, up from just $1.7 million a year earlier, driven by gateway deliveries and U.S. government milestones.
The top-line ramp was overshadowed by massive capital requirements. Total operating expenses spiked to $329.1 million, exacerbated by a $125.9 million loss on involuntary conversion, driving a net loss of $230.9 million.
The company ended the quarter with $2.7 billion in cash and subsequently raised another $1.2 billion via convertible senior notes in July, pushing pro forma liquidity above $3.7 billion to ensure an uninterrupted manufacturing runway.
CEO Abel Avellan highlighted the structural transition from development to deployment, noting the constellation has grown to 13 spacecraft following the recent orbital launch of BlueBirds 11, 12, and 13. The executive team emphasized that their partnerships with over 60 mobile network operators now cover a potential base of 3.0 billion subscribers. With over $125.0 million in recent U.S. government awards bridging the immediate revenue gap, management is actively positioning the expanded fleet and growing global gateway network to support upcoming commercial beta services.
Looking ahead, management expects to accelerate milestone deliveries, reaffirming full-year 2026 revenue guidance of $150.0 million to $200.0 million.
Long ASTS.
CoreWeave (CRWV)
Key Metrics
Revenue: $2.6 billion, an increase of +112% YoY
Operating Loss: -$285.0 million, compared to -$145.0 million last year
Net Loss: -$626.0 million, compared to -$210.0 million last year
Earnings Release Callout
“CoreWeave reached an important inflection point this quarter as our scale began to translate into expanding operating leverage. Customer demand is accelerating, as enterprise adoption broadens and we continue to deepen our technology platform. CoreWeave is built on the conviction that AI is foundational to every industry and that realizing its full potential requires a purpose-built platform. This quarter reinforced that conviction."
My Takeaway
CoreWeave reported record top-line revenue and a massive sequential improvement in operating leverage. This growth was fueled by unrelenting demand for AI compute, which pushed the company's formal backlog to $104.2 billion, supplemented by over $25.0 billion in early-Q3 commitments.
CoreWeave highlighted an aggressive ongoing infrastructure buildout, increasing active power by nearly 500 megawatts to 1.5 gigawatts during the quarter. To support the deployment of contracted capacity, management raised full-year 2026 capital expenditure guidance by $4.0 billion to a staggering $35.0 billion to $39.0 billion. This highly capital-intensive strategy pushed balance-sheet debt to $35.1 billion, with depreciation, amortization, and interest expenses consuming 79% of quarterly revenue.
CEO Michael Intrator noted the quarter marked an inflection point as scale translates into operating leverage, with rising enterprise adoption proving the foundational need for purpose-built AI platforms. The executive team emphasized that the sixfold sequential increase in adjusted operating income proves their fixed-cost-heavy infrastructure is finally gaining operating leverage. Management highlighted that recent contracts carry better contribution margins, setting the stage for improved future economics as contracted power scales toward 4.2 gigawatts.
Looking ahead, management expects Q3 revenue between $3.45 billion and $3.60 billion and raised full-year 2026 revenue guidance to a range of $12.4 billion to $13.2 billion.
Long CRWV.
Cerebras Systems (CBRS)
Key Metrics
Revenue: $180.1 million, an increase of +74% YoY
Operating Loss: -$477.2 million, compared to -$145.2 million
Net Loss: -$450.5 million, compared to $309.5 million last year
Earnings Release Callout
"Looking ahead, we see boundless demand for fast inference. The market is realizing that speed is not just a benchmark metric. Speed transforms user engagement, agent performance, and AI productivity... As previously shared, 2026 is a foundational year for Cerebras. In the seven weeks since our last earnings call, we have made exceptional progress on multiple fronts, positioning us for scaled growth in 2027, 2028, and 2029, during which we will deliver on the current $25 billion in remaining performance obligations."
My Takeaway
Cerebras Systems reported a massive jump in cloud revenue and a record $25.4 billion backlog during its first post-IPO earnings release.
This growth was fueled by a 287% explosion in core cloud and services revenue to $127.7 million as enterprise customers rapidly adopted Cerebras' fast inference offerings. Core hardware revenue also performed well, rising 17% to $82.1 million.
To satisfy surging demand before its own data center facilities are fully activated, Cerebras resorted to renting systems back from existing cloud customers. This temporary capacity constraint dragged sequential core gross margins down to 40.6%, spooking investors despite the top-line outperformance. Management utilized the quarter to deepen strategic infrastructure partnerships, pairing its systems with AMD GPUs for a new disaggregated inference architecture and securing over 600 megawatts of data-center capacity to support future deployments.
Chief Financial Officer Bob Komin acknowledged the margin pressure will persist through the third quarter but emphasized it represents the trough before owned systems replace higher-cost rented capacity late in the year. The executive team highlighted that the $25.4 billion in remaining performance obligations validates their aggressive infrastructure scaling, noting rapid adoption from AI-native companies and large enterprise players.
Looking ahead, management expects Q3 core revenue of $215.0 million, and raised its full-year 2026 core revenue guidance to $885.0 million.
Long CBRS.
👉 Investor Events / Global Affairs:
S&P 500 notched its 27th record close of 2026, Jane Street lost $15B in July — its worst month ever, and Nvidia disclosed a $21B SpaceX stake, now its #2 position.
S&P 500 Notched Its 27th Record Close
The market strung together another leg higher this week before finally cooling on Friday. The S&P 500 climbed to 7,798.99 on Thursday for its 27th record close of the year — driven by cooler-than-expected July PPI on Wednesday and a benign July CPI print on Tuesday — before dipping -0.17% Friday to 7,785.76 after retail sales missed hard. The Nasdaq Composite made its own new record intraday at 26,803 on Thursday, and the week finished with the S&P up +0.4% for its third straight weekly advance. Small caps had the best week of any index, with the Russell 2000 up +1.9% as rate-cut probabilities rose.
Below the surface, the tone shifted mid-week. Cisco’s -8.4% post-earnings drop on Wednesday and Applied Materials’ -5.1% slide on Friday hinted at a market that’s starting to interrogate AI margins even as the top line grows. Small caps and cyclicals outperformed on Wednesday and Thursday as the softer inflation data pulled forward September rate-cut odds — CME FedWatch now shows a 62% probability of a 25bp cut at the September meeting, up from 47% a week ago. But Friday’s retail sales -0.6% miss and Fed hawkish commentary from three regional presidents pushed those odds back down to 55% by the close. The setup into Jackson Hole (Thu–Sat next week) is that both bulls and bears now have real evidence to point to.
“The market is still climbing a wall of every-quarter-they-move-the-goalposts inflation data, but the earnings picture underneath is starting to fracture. Cisco and AMAT this week both had print-to-close moves of -5% to -8% on strong results. That’s not what you see near the top; that’s what you see when quality names start showing capex-heavy revenue growth without operating leverage.”
Jane Street’s $15 Billion July
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