Intel just ripped +11.2% on Monday. Top stock in the entire S&P 500. YTD +150%. Twelve months? +450%. The company that "missed mobile" and "missed AI" just became the hottest name in the chip game overnight.

Here's the catalyst that flipped the script: Google and Nvidia are reportedly tapping Intel Foundry for AI chip manufacturing. Intel's 18A process — the one Wall Street wrote off two years ago — is suddenly the belle of the ball. The CEO dropped a line that's going to echo for weeks: "CPUs are now the backbone of AI." Inference workloads. Agentic AI. The thesis is that at scale, CPUs actually run these better than GPUs. And Intel is the only game in town that can make them at volume.

Citi and Evercore both hiked price targets. Shorts got absolutely obliterated — this was a squeeze of biblical proportions. When a stock with Intel's float moves 11% in a single session, that's not retail. That's institutions panic-covering after years of betting against a dinosaur that suddenly learned to run.

The narrative just rotated 180 degrees. Two weeks ago Intel was a relic. Now the headline is "CPU Shortage Is So Bad, Even Intel's Scrap Is Turning Into Gold." The market is fickle like that. Intel closed at $110.27 — the C-suite is probably still popping bottles.

Friday's bloodbath? Already forgotten.

The AI chip complex bounced hard Monday. Broadcom clawed back +2.8%. Micron ripped +9.9% — nearly erasing its Friday nightmare in a single session. AMD added +5.1%. After last week's $1.3 trillion semiconductor wipeout, bargain hunters showed up in force and declared the selloff overdone.

Goldman's Mueller-Glissman called it "a healthy sign" and said it's "probably not a bad idea to see a bit of consolidation." And here's the stat that should keep bulls sleeping easy: after 15 prior 4%+ Nasdaq drops since 2010, the market was higher a month later in 12 out of 15 cases. Average bounce: +6.2%. Friday wasn't a top. It was a tantrum. Monday proved the buyers were just waiting for the dust to settle.

The Meme Corner Is Still Completely Unhinged

Solidion (STI). A tiny battery company nobody had heard of two weeks ago went from $4.97 to $35.72 in four sessions. That's a 619% moonshot. Volume exploded from 18,800 shares to 105 million. The catalyst? A "Space Battery Breakthrough" — the claim is their tech can power AI data centers in orbit. It's the perfect hype cocktail: space economy meets AI infrastructure, shaken with Reddit rockets and WSB diamond hands.

Monday? -19% to $28.95. The first wave of profit-takers is heading for the exits and nobody knows whether this is the next quantum-computing meme or a round-trip to zero. At $29, you're either buying the dip of the century or catching a falling knife in a pitch-black room. No in-between.

And Ryan Cohen is trying to eat eBay.

The GameStop CEO launched a $56 billion hostile bid for eBay on Monday. The eBay board already rejected it as "neither credible nor attractive." Cohen doesn't care — he's increased his stake and is signaling he'll go fully hostile. GME just reported record profit, armed itself with a $2 billion buyback, and is now throwing its weight around like an activist fund with a personal grudge.

Michael Burry reportedly said the bid "just went hostile" after Cohen claimed eBay banned him from the platform. EBAY sits at $108 — a ~$94 billion market cap — meaning Cohen's $56 billion offer is so far below market the Street isn't even pricing in a deal. A meme stock CEO trying to hostile-takeover a dot-com giant. 2026 is absolutely unhinged.

When Intel is the hottest chip stock on the board and a video game retailer is trying to swallow eBay whole, you're not in a normal market. You're in the greatest show on Earth.

What to watch tomorrow: Can Intel hold $110? The shorts aren't done — they just got steamrolled and they'll try to reload at these levels. If INTC holds, the CPU renaissance thesis gets real legs and the whole semiconductor complex catches a fresh rotation bid. Also watch whether STI bounces or bleeds out — it's the canary for speculative appetite right now. And keep one eye on EBAY. If Cohen files a formal tender offer, this goes from meme theater to hostile takeover war overnight. The volume on that would be legendary.

Monday just proved that animal spirits don't die. They just find new toys. And right now, the toy aisle is fully stocked.

— The Signal