Top Stories This Morning: CoreWeave Rises 16%, Cognition AI Aims for a $40 Billion Valuation

CoreWeave’s stock rose nearly 16% in after-hours trading following a strong quarterly report. AI startup Cognition AI is in talks to raise more than $1 billion at a valuation of $40 billion. Read about these and other topics in our roundup of key events as of the morning of August 12.

Oil prices rose after Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, stated that the Strait of Hormuz would not be reopened until Tehran’s conditions were met, including the unfreezing of funds abroad, according to CNBC. WTI futures rose 1.3% to $83.2 per barrel, while the price of Brent climbed 1.36% to nearly $89. Since the start of the week, oil prices have gained more than 6% amid fading hopes for an agreement between the U.S. and Iran.

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains limited: on Monday, only eight ships passed through, compared to more than 130 before the conflict began. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright stated that oil exports through the strait averaged 9 million barrels per day over the past seven days, while the total flow from the Persian Gulf, including pipeline shipments, is about 15 million barrels per day.

CoreWeave shares rose nearly 16% in after-hours trading in New York after its quarterly results exceeded Wall Street expectations, according to CNBC. Revenue in the second quarter rose 112% to $2.58 billion. The adjusted loss was $1.03 per share, compared with an expected $1.20. The net loss increased from $290 million a year earlier to $626 million. The order backlog expanded to $104 billion, excluding more than $25 billion in new third-quarter commitments.

CoreWeave has raised its forecast for 2026: the company expects revenue of $12.4–13.2 billion and adjusted operating income of $960 million–$1.15 billion. The capital expenditure forecast has been raised from $31–35 billion to $35–39 billion amid active construction of data centers for AI.

Cognition AI is in preliminary talks with investors about a new funding round that could boost the valuation of the AI programming tools developer by more than 50%—from at least $26 billion to $40 billion, Bloomberg has learned. The company could raise more than $1 billion less than three months after its previous $1 billion round. Cognition’s annual revenue has approached $1 billion, roughly doubling since the last round.

Cognition, founded in 2023, developed the AI agent Devin to automate engineering tasks. With a valuation of $40 billion, the startup will surpass Cursor’s pre-deal valuation with SpaceX, which stood at $29.3 billion. The sector of AI programming tools has become one of the fastest-growing areas, where products from Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX are also being actively developed, the agency notes.

Shares of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix rose more than 8% on Wednesday, while the Kospi index rose as much as 5.1% following reports that Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek is considering direct investments in the two South Korean chipmakers, according to Bloomberg. By mid-session, foreign investors had bought more than 2 trillion won ($1.4 billion) worth of Kospi stocks.

Shares of Samsung and SK Hynix are rebounding after a sharp drop in July amid concerns about the pace of AI infrastructure development. The rally is also being supported by expectations of higher buybacks and dividends: following the sell-off, Samsung and SK Hynix are trading at price-to-forward-earnings ratios of 4.2 and 3.6, respectively, compared with more than 21 for the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, the agency notes.

— Japan's broad-based Topix index rose 0.7%, while the Nikkei 225 rose 0.8%.

— Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 1.2%, while mainland China's CSI 300 rose 0.5%.

— In South Korea, the KOSPI jumped 3.9%, while the KOSDAQ remained virtually unchanged.

— Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.5%.

— S&P 500 futures rose 0.1%, Nasdaq Composite futures gained 0.3%, and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were virtually unchanged.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor