NVIDIA, the top stock by trading volume on Monday, closed up 0.96% with a turnover of $32.492 billion. NVIDIA announced collaborations with Akamai, Forescout, Palo Alto Networks, Xage Security, and Siemens to integrate accelerated computing and artificial intelligence into operational technology (OT) cybersecurity. Brokerage firm Aletheia upgraded NVIDIA's rating from Hold to Buy, setting a price target of $250. The firm stated the stock appears "too cheap to ignore" ahead of its Q4 earnings report, anticipating results will exceed expectations.
Tesla Motors, the second most actively traded stock, closed down 2.91% with a turnover of $27.558 billion. Tesla recently announced the release of a dual-motor all-wheel-drive version of the Cybertruck, priced at $59,990. CEO Elon Musk stated this price is "valid for only 10 days." When asked about the price after 10 days, Musk responded it would "depend on the demand we see at this price level." Separately, OpenAI's Sam Altman called the idea of building orbital data centers before 2030 "ridiculous," despite Alphabet exploring similar concepts. Experts suggest engineering and cost hurdles mean any scaled implementation is years away. Musk's broader plans involve collaboration between SpaceX and xAI, while other companies like Amazon may also pursue financing initiatives in the future.
Microsoft, the third by trading volume, closed down 3.18% with a turnover of $16.604 billion. The company stated it is investigating an issue where U.S. users attempting to access services requiring multi-factor authentication (MFA) may encounter 504 gateway timeout errors.
SanDisk closed up 2.54% with a turnover of $12.44 billion, ranking fourth. The company officially launched an innovative open-source tool named SPRandom, designed to address major technical bottlenecks in SSD benchmarking. Preconditioning is a crucial step for testing SSDs based on real-world workloads to ensure accurate, repeatable performance that reflects actual customer usage.
Palantir, ranked ninth, closed down 3.43% with a turnover of $6.785 billion. The company announced a strategic partnership with Rackspace (RXT) to accelerate enterprise deployment and operation of Palantir's analytics and AI-driven software through hybrid multi-cloud and AI solutions.
Meta Platforms, ranked twelfth, closed down 2.81% with a turnover of $5.491 billion. The company forecasted approximately 30% revenue growth for the first quarter and outlined capital expenditures of $115 billion to $135 billion for 2026, primarily focused on artificial intelligence. In contrast, Netflix, with a similar valuation multiple, projected 2026 revenue growth of 12% to 14%. Analysts noted that Meta's forward price-to-earnings ratio is nearing the level of the S&P 500 index.
CrowdStrike, ranked fourteenth, closed down 9.85% with a turnover of $5.324 billion. Cybersecurity stocks broadly declined on Monday. Prominent Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives suggested the sector was being impacted by "AI ghost trading."
Eli Lilly, ranked fifteenth, closed up 4.86% with a turnover of $5.006 billion. The company launched a new formulation for its blockbuster weight-loss drug Zepbound: a single injection pen providing a one-month supply. Self-paying patients can purchase the multi-dose device, called KwikPen, through the company's direct website, LillyDirect, with a starting monthly cost of $299 for the lowest dose. This pen offers a more convenient option, reducing the number of devices needed per month to just one pen for a four-week dose. Current treatment requires patients to use different single-dose auto-injectors weekly. Eli Lilly also offers a single-dose vial of Zepbound, which requires users to draw the medication into a syringe for injection. This move comes as Eli Lilly aims to solidify Zepbound's early success, following surging demand since its launch in late 2023. The LillyDirect platform is crucial for the drug's market growth, and the new formulation is expected to attract more patients. Zepbound's strong growth has helped Eli Lilly capture significant market share in the weight-loss drug segment from competitor Novo Nordisk. In the fourth quarter, the drug generated $4.2 billion in U.S. revenue, a surge of 122% year-over-year.
IBM, ranked sixteenth, closed down 13.15% with a turnover of $4.472 billion. IBM has become a prominent example of a company impacted by the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence technology. This follows an announcement from Anthropic that its Claude Code tool can be used to modernize legacy systems running the COBOL language. Anthropic's statement on Monday that Claude Code can automate the most complex aspects of COBOL modernization—code exploration and analysis—triggered the sharp decline in IBM's share price. COBOL-related services represent a core business for IBM, which has long sold mainframe systems optimized for large-scale transaction processing, systems that predominantly use COBOL. COBOL, an acronym for Common Business-Oriented Language, is a mainstream code system developed in the late 1950s, widely used for business data processing such as payment processing and retail transaction systems. According to Anthropic, approximately 95% of U.S. ATM transactions rely on COBOL, making it a prime target for disruption by cost-effective AI technology. "Trillions of lines of COBOL code run in production environments daily, supporting critical systems in finance, aviation, and government. However, the number of people proficient in the language is declining each year," Anthropic wrote in a blog post on Monday. "AI excels at simplifying tasks that previously made COBOL modernization prohibitively expensive." Anthropic stated that Claude Code can assist in modernizing COBOL codebases by mapping dependencies across thousands of lines of code, generating workflow documentation, and identifying risks that "would take human analysts months to discover." The blog post added, "Legacy code modernization has stalled for years because understanding the old code cost more than rewriting it. AI has completely changed this equation." This new application represents another step by Anthropic to disrupt traditional legacy code systems and intervene in corporate digital transformation. The company suggested that digital transformation efforts are often hindered by declining developer efficiency and "technical debt"—the future costs arising from taking shortcuts in software development, which increase subsequent maintenance costs for companies.
Novo Nordisk, ranked twentieth, closed down 16.43% with a turnover of $3.939 billion. The company's next-generation weight-loss drug, CagriSema, demonstrated inferior efficacy compared to Eli Lilly's Zepbound in a head-to-head clinical trial. This outcome deals another blow to the Danish pharmaceutical firm's efforts to regain leadership in the weight-loss drug market.