TikTok Under Pressure as Rivals Circle

TikTok Under Pressure as Rivals Circle 

Meta [META] is offering to pay up to $5,000 to social media creators who join Facebook and Instagram. The offer does not explicitly cite TikTok, the BBC reported, but might seem to be an attempt to leverage the travails of the platform. Elsewhere, in recent days both Meta and X have announced video editing tools, while Meta has reformulated users’ profile grids on Instagram, seemingly to resemble TikTok’s. 

Nuclear Stocks Climb on Tender News

South Carolina power provider Santee Cooper is seeking buyers to reboot construction of two reactors at its V.C. Summer Nuclear Station. According to the Wall Street Journal, a spike in artificial intelligence-related (AI) energy demand might mean strong interest in the tender. Constellation Energy [CEG] and Vistra [VST] climbed 2.7% and 0.8%, respectively, following the announcement, Seeking Alpha detailed. 

SK Hynix vs. Samsung

South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix [HXSCL] on Thursday posted quarterly profit that for the first time exceeded its larger rival Samsung’s [SSNLF], the Financial Times reported. SK Hynix’s operating profit climbed more than 20 times year-on-year to ₩8.1trn in the final quarter of 2024, versus Samsung’s estimated ₩6.5trn, as sales jumped 75%. SK Hynix also predicted that demand for its high-bandwidth memory products would continue increasing off the back of AI server demand. 

Where Are the Opportunities in Biotech?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the next Secretary of Health and Human Services, revealed he has investments in various stocks, among them CRISPR Therapeutics [CRSP]; the disclosure prompted CRSP’s share price to spike by 10%. A number of biotech stocks are showing promise at the moment, as OPTO recently detailed on Foresight. 

Samsung vs. Apple

Samsung, meanwhile, has this week unveiled a new AI-powered smartphone in an attempt to steal US market share from its larger rival Apple, the Financial Times outlined. The S25 has a new AI operating system built on Alphabet’s [GOOGL] Google’s Gemini large language models and Qualcomm [QCOM] chips. Apple currently holds some 53% of the US smartphone market, compared to Samsung’s 23%. 

Medtech’s Fruitful Funding Round

Spotify [SPOT] Founder Daniel Ek’s Neko Health has raised $260m in a new funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. This gives the start-up a valuation of some $1.8bn, Bloomberg reported. The company has developed a full body scan that checks for risk factors for stroke and heart disease, skin cancer and other conditions; it has so far carried out 10,000 scans in Stockholm and London.

Seeking Alpha’s Top Tech ‘Buys’

Tech stocks had a blistering 2024, fueled by generative AI, but so far 2025 has been a bit of a damp squib. According to Seeking Alpha, technology was the worst performer of the S&P 500’s 11 sectors by the middle of the month. This is not to say there are no opportunities, however. Join OPTO as we examine three of Seeking Alpha’s top 10 tech ‘buys’ and unpack the investment case for each.