Marvell, Santa Clara, 2011. King of Hearts / Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.

Marvell went into Tuesday’s investor day expecting about $18 billion of revenue in fiscal 2028. It came out expecting $20 billion. Shares finished 5.81% higher at $287.01, but were giving back about 1.57% at 8:12 a.m. ET in Yahoo Finance’s premarket feed.

That is an extra $2 billion of expected annual sales, or roughly an 11% increase in the forecast. Analysts had been looking for about $18.2 billion, according to LSEG figures in Yahoo Finance’s report. The company also raised its fiscal 2029 custom-chip revenue target to more than $12 billion, from more than $10 billion.

The biggest number came further out: management sees $70 billion–$90 billion of annual revenue in fiscal 2031. At the midpoint, that would be nearly ten times fiscal 2026’s $8.2 billion. It is an ambitious management target, with several years of customer spending and product launches still ahead.

Marvell has two ways into that spending. It helps customers develop their own processors, and it sells technology that moves data between chips and across data centers. A cloud company designing an alternative to Nvidia can still need Marvell’s help. A customer buying more Nvidia systems can also need faster connections around them.

Connectivity drove the latest increase to the nearer-term forecast. That makes this more interesting than a distant promise about custom chips. Marvell is pointing to demand across the machinery that keeps those chips busy.

Its latest reported quarter gives us a starting point: $2.74 billion of revenue and $460 million of operating income in fiscal Q2, according to its quarterly filing. Getting to the new annual targets requires that business to become substantially larger.

The immediate change is the higher fiscal 2028 forecast. The fiscal 2031 numbers explain management’s ambition, but shouldn’t do all the work in anyone’s valuation. The investor-day discussion is useful because it separates the connectivity, custom-chip and supplier-capacity assumptions behind the plan.

Read more: Marvell’s higher sales targets →

Micron’s separate Taichung site, 2023. Thingreenline4546 / Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Micron has spent the past few quarters trying to produce enough memory. This morning, investors have another supply question: whether a labor dispute in Taiwan turns into a strike.

The union at its Taoyuan operations has secured authorization to strike. Reuters reported that 1,994 votes were cast, with 99% supporting action. The timing was still being discussed. That is a mandate to act, not confirmation that production has stopped.

Shares were around $1,018.39, down 2.60% from Tuesday’s close, at 8:12 a.m. ET in Yahoo Finance’s premarket feed. The labor news comes on a weaker morning for chip stocks more broadly.

Taiwan matters because Micron manufactures DRAM and high-bandwidth memory there. DRAM is the working memory used in computers and servers; high-bandwidth memory sits alongside powerful AI processors to feed them data quickly. A memory shortage can constrain the usefulness of a much more expensive chip.

The location matters, too. Micron has around 15,000 employees in Taiwan, with separate unions in Taoyuan and Taichung. The vote covers Taoyuan, rather than the entire Taiwan workforce. Mediation there ended without agreement in September, while talks in Taichung were continuing, Reuters reported.

For shareholders, the next important update is operational: will action actually be called, which facilities would it affect, and can shipments continue? A settlement that raises labor costs has a different financial effect from missed production. For now, the size and duration of any disruption remain unknown.

There is a wider tension here. Strong demand gives suppliers more pricing power, but it also makes dependable output more valuable. Micron’s customers need memory delivered on schedule, not just reserved on a contract. This dispute puts that delivery question back in focus.

Read more: the Taiwan vote and what happens next →

Shell Pernis refinery, 2019. Steven Lek / Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Shell delivered a fresh reminder this morning that an oil shock has winners as well as losers. Its indicative refining margin jumped to $42 a barrel in Q3 from $24 in Q2, according to its Wednesday update, reported by Proactive. That is a 75% increase.

This measures the economics of turning crude into products such as gasoline and diesel. It is a margin indicator, not Shell’s final profit on every barrel. But the direction matters: tighter fuel supplies can allow finished-product prices to rise faster than the crude that goes into them.

Disruption in the Middle East and attacks on Russian refineries have helped squeeze those supplies, Dow Jones reported. That makes refining an important part of the earnings story, alongside the price Shell receives for oil and gas it produces.

There are offsets. Shell’s indicative chemicals margin fell to $208 a tonne from $270, while refinery utilization is expected at 93%–97%. Low Rhine water levels affected its Rheinland refinery. A stronger margin cannot fully help a plant that cannot run at the same rate.

Watch the refining contribution when Shell reports full results on October 29. The update gives investors a concrete reason to expect strength there, while chemicals show why it would be premature to assume every division enjoyed the same quarter.

For U.S. investors, it also gives a useful question to take into domestic refiners’ earnings: how much of the improvement in fuel margins reached their income statements? Shell’s result will not answer that for everyone, but it shows where to look.

Compare Shell’s refining, chemicals and production outlook →

Image: Penguin Solutions.

Penguin reported $567 million in quarterly sales, up 68%, after Tuesday’s close. Adjusted earnings rose to $1.00 a share, from $0.43 a year earlier. The stock was around $67.50, up 5.12%, at 8:12 a.m. ET in Yahoo Finance’s premarket feed.

The segment table explains the acceleration. Integrated Memory sales rose to $340.8 million from $132.2 million. That accounts for about 91% of the company’s year-over-year dollar sales increase, calculated from the reported figures. Advanced Computing grew more modestly, to $154 million from $138.3 million.

Management now expects fiscal 2027 sales of approximately $2.43 billion at the midpoint, up from its earlier $2.17 billion view, and adjusted EPS of $4.45, plus or minus $0.70. It also reported six new AI infrastructure customers in Q4, including four specialist cloud providers.

The business is benefiting from data-center demand, but memory is doing much of the work in the current numbers. Keep the segment breakdown alongside the new outlook when judging how quickly the AI infrastructure business is catching up.

Read more: the earnings call and new outlook →

Nvidia headquarters, 2018. Coolcaesar; edit by Jacek Halicki / Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

SpaceX is seeking about $40 billion to purchase Nvidia chips, the Financial Times reported Tuesday evening, according to Reuters. The proposed package includes roughly $10 billion in bank loans and $30 billion in investment-grade debt.

Apollo is expected to lead the financing, with Pimco among the lenders in discussions. The reported transaction is expected to close in 2027. SpaceX, Apollo and Nvidia had not immediately responded to Reuters; Pimco declined to comment.

For Nvidia holders, this gives a specific potential use for the financing: another large hardware purchase. For Apollo, it would be another role arranging capital for the AI buildout. The terms and participants remain reported negotiations, rather than a completed transaction.

The size also makes financing conditions part of the chip-demand story. Customers may want more computing capacity, but someone has to supply the capital on terms they can afford. That connects the next wave of AI spending directly to banks and bond investors.

Who is arranging the financing, and when could it close? →