Stocks kicked off the week with gains, though some key players faced declines. Nvidia dropped after CEO Jensen Huang acknowledged a relationship with an alleged Chinese spy, while other semiconductor stocks held steady. First Solar slid more than 5% following a price target cut from Piper Sandler, which lowered its target to $222 from $251. Despite the cut, Piper Sandler maintained an overweight rating, noting First Solar's unique position as the only scaled, domestic supplier in a market constrained by the Foreign Entity of Concern framework.
PDD Holdings also fell, with shares down 3.3% after Morgan Stanley downgraded the Chinese e-commerce company to equal weight from overweight. Analyst Eddy Wang cited slowing gross merchandise value growth and merchant profitability pressures as key concerns. Meanwhile, AST SpaceMobile surged 14% after announcing a joint venture with Rakuten to build a communications network using low Earth orbit satellites in Japan.
Artificial intelligence infrastructure stocks rebounded, with Coherent rising 18% after last week's sell-off. Monday.com, however, dropped 5% on weaker-than-expected revenue guidance for the fourth quarter and full year. The company expects Q4 revenue between $380 million and $382 million, below analysts' expectations of $385.7 million.
Energy stocks fell as oil prices retreated from recent highs, with U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures dropping 3% to around $87 per barrel. Cruise liners and airline stocks gained as oil prices declined, with Carnival up 4% and American Airlines rising more than 6%. Molson Coors slipped 1% after JPMorgan downgraded the stock to underweight from neutral, citing challenging fundamentals in the beer category.