Unexpected Earnings Disclosure: OpenAI Roils the Chip Sector
Tonight's price action says it all. The sell-off stems from a rumor about OpenAI's performance — specifically, that the company missed its internal revenue target for the first quarter. That's awkward. Competitors Google and Anthropic are both seeing growth. Only OpenAI is stagnating. If Google and Anthropic fail to deliver results this year, the US market would be looking at a crash far worse than tonight's move. All things considered, tonight's drop isn't that severe.
This OpenAI revenue news is essentially a mini-earnings report. Barring surprises, we're likely to see this same dynamic repeat next quarter. On the flip side, we could also see a similar repeat of the Anthropic growth narrative.
The biggest issue from OpenAI's miss: the company pre-booked massive data center capacity. If revenue continues to slow, those capex commitments could become hollow. That's why the chip sector sold off hard.
$INTC$
Put flow points to two possible paths: a pullback to fill the gap at 70, or consolidation at the 80 level. Both are plausible. Given the extremely expensive options premiums right now, selling puts is a reasonable start.
Even though Intel is trading at highs, a $1 trillion market cap this year isn't out of the question. Being assigned here just means the entry isn't optimal — not disastrous.
$AMD$
Filling the gap. Trading above 300 into earnings. IV remains very high. Use the pullback to sell puts.
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Tonight feels like a classic case of high expectations meeting fragile sentiment.
In crowded sectors, rumours do not need to be true to move price in the short term. The real test is what happens after the panic: do fundamentals reassert themselves, or was the market too optimistic to begin with?
That is what I’d be watching in chips from here. 😳