Midday Movers: IonQ Sinks on a $2 Billion Raise, CoreWeave Bonds Slide, BofA Drops 7% and Bending Spoons Soars 40%

U.S. stocks faced selling pressure at midday Wednesday as rising AI financing costs, earnings disappointments and analyst downgrades weighed on several major companies. Bending Spoons jumped about 40% after Berkshire Hathaway added to its stake, while CoreWeave, IonQ and Bank of America were among the biggest decliners. The moves came as a hotter-than-expected inflation report pushed Treasury yields higher.

Gainers

Berkshire's new $330 million investment is the bigger story behind Bending Spoons, which we covered in our earlier report. GameStop's CEO Ryan Cohen bought 844,130 shares at roughly $26.75 to $27, about $22.8 million, his second purchase this month, according to a filing reported by GuruFocus, taking his stake to about 9.1%. Mizuho's upgrade of Albemarle to Outperform, with a $130 price target, rests on battery-storage demand tightening the lithium market. BlackRock beat on adjusted earnings of $15.93 a share against an estimate of about $14, with assets under management at a record $15.49 trillion.

Decliners

Percentages are approximate midday moves. Dell was down about 8% earlier in the session and 10.46% at $512.61 in later midday quotes.

AI financing worries

CoreWeave fell about 15% as its 2032 unsecured bonds traded below 80 cents on the dollar, according to the information we received, which we could not independently confirm. The company priced $1.25 billion of 9.625% senior notes due 2032 in June. The drop follows the bond selloff we detailed in our CoreWeave recap, and Nebius slid about 9% on the same funding fears. Lumentum fell about 7% in the broader AI infrastructure selloff, while Dell and HPE dropped after Barclays cut both to Equal Weight, warning that their 2026 rallies reflect rising memory-driven prices rather than meaningful AI revenue. The wider move in semiconductors is in our chip-selloff recap.

Earnings and deals

IonQ. The quantum computing company is raising about $2 billion, according to a prospectus supplement dated October 14. It is selling 20.5 million shares and 29.5 million pre-funded warrants, each paired with two Series C warrants, for a combined $40.00, and the warrants are exercisable at $69.46. J.P. Morgan is the sole underwriter, with settlement expected around October 16. On Monday, IonQ also agreed to buy cybersecurity firm Elisity in an all-stock deal valued at up to $1.3 billion, which 24/7 Wall St. said was the main driver of that day's selloff because it dilutes existing shareholders.

Bank of America. Net income was $6.93 billion, or $0.91 a share, against about $1.10 expected. Excluding the $1.2 billion regulatory penalty over money-laundering safeguards, earnings were $1.08 a share, which still missed. Revenue rose 3% to $30 billion against about $30.6 billion expected.

Morgan Stanley. Earnings of $3.03 a share and revenue of $20.34 billion both beat estimates, helped by a 41% jump in equities trading revenue. Investors looked at investment banking, where revenue rose about 2% to $2.2 billion and equity underwriting fell from a year earlier. We did not find a consensus figure for that line, and no source gave a definitive reason for the roughly 3% drop.

ASML. Third-quarter sales of €11.66 billion were a hair short of consensus, according to Stocks Today, while net profit of €4.96 billion topped expectations, and the company raised its 2026 sales outlook (our ASML recap). Analyst estimates for sales vary by source.