Vicor rises 10% at 93 times earnings, up 70% since August; Corteva's 84% "drop" is a Vylor spin-off
What retail investors are buying: 12 names entered Robinhood's Trending list overnight. Vicor is up 10% today at 93 times earnings, Corteva's 84% drop is a spin-off, and Home Depot hit a new 52-week low.
Twelve stocks entered Robinhood's Trending list between Wednesday's close and early Thursday, and the newcomers split cleanly into two groups. A handful of chip and power names are up sharply over the past month. A larger group, led by Home Depot, Lime and Nike, is down hard. In between sits Corteva, which looks like the worst performer on the list and is not.
The arrivals: Vicor, Corteva, Home Depot, Applied Materials, Lam Research, Nike, JPMorgan Chase, Vistra, Constellation Energy, Waste Management, Lime (listed as Neutron Holdings) and Alphabet, which left and came back. Leaving were Fair Isaac, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, AppLovin, PayPal, Robinhood and six others. The "100 most popular" list did not change.
The new names, against the numbers
| Company | Thursday, 12:11 p.m. ET | Since Aug. 31 close | P/E |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vicor (VICR) | $318.89, +10.4% | +69.9% | 93.3 |
| Applied Materials (AMAT) | $524.98, +2.7% | +14.5% | 44.1 |
| Lam Research (LRCX) | $333.52, +1.5% | +10.6% | 56.2 |
| Home Depot (HD) | $280.07, -1.6% | -14.6% | 20.2 |
| Nike (NKE) | $35.83, +1.2% | -8.3% | 17.1 |
| Lime (LIME) | $27.81, -1.3% | -31.1% | none reported |
| JPMorgan Chase (JPM) | $329.36, -0.4% | -7.5% | 14.4 |
| Corteva (CTVA) | $12.05, -84.5% | spin-off, see below | n/a |
Change since Aug. 31 runs from that day's close to the 12:11 p.m. price on Oct. 1. P/E is trailing, as of Wednesday's session. Lime's fundamentals data carries no trailing P/E.
Vicor: the biggest gain, the richest multiple
Vicor, which makes modular power components such as AC-DC converters, is where popularity and valuation are furthest apart. The stock closed Aug. 31 at $187.68 and was at $318.89 at midday, after trading as high as $331. It is now about 6.6 times its 52-week low of $48.53, and it trades at about 93 times trailing earnings, roughly double Applied Materials' multiple. Volume by midday was about 836,000 shares, already in line with a full normal day.
We could not find a cause for Thursday's 10% jump. Vicor's most recent 8-K on SEC EDGAR is dated Sept. 10, and none of the day's news feeds we read carried company news. The move rode alongside gains in chip-equipment makers Applied Materials and Lam Research, but that is a coincidence of timing, not an explanation.
Corteva: the 84% drop is a spin-off
Corteva is almost certainly on the list because of the red number. It spun off its seed business as Vylor (VYLR) on Thursday, one share for one share, according to its 8-K, and Barron's made the same point: the stock is not really down 80%. At midday Corteva was at $12.05 and Vylor at $68.95, so one share of each was worth $81.00 against Wednesday's $77.65 close for the combined company, a gain of about 4.3%. That is narrower than the 7.7% we calculated at 9:57 a.m., because Vylor has slipped. Corteva volume of 42 million shares by midday was about nine times its daily average.
Home Depot and Nike: popular on the way down
Home Depot touched $277.20 on Thursday, below the $284.01 that had been its 52-week low, and is about 31% under its 52-week high of $405.13. We found no company-specific news. The backdrop is housing: Freddie Mac said Thursday the 30-year mortgage rate rose to 7.28%, its highest since November 2023. Home Depot sells building materials as well as home improvement products, so its customers include the trades as well as homeowners.
141,913 independent construction and contractors are listed on CheckThisBiz, a directory of 7,704,724 independent US businesses, including 12,896 in TX, 12,642 in CA, 11,414 in FL. Chains and franchises are excluded from that count, so these are the owner-operated businesses that actually apply for funding.
Rep. Kevin Hern disclosed seven Home Depot sales between Aug. 23 and Sept. 14, with reported ranges adding up to roughly $98,000 to $295,000, according to TipRanks. Those disclosures arrive with a lag of up to 45 days and describe late summer, not this week. The full record is on our congressional trades tracker.
Nike reports fiscal first-quarter results after the close today. CNBC noted the shares are down more than 40% this year and that management had guided to "flattish" sales for the first half of fiscal 2027. At $35.83, the stock is about 53% below its 52-week high. Our preview explains why last quarter's 72 cents was really 20 cents once the tariff refund is taken out.
What else moved
Lime, the shared scooter and e-bike company, has lost 31% since Aug. 31 and trades about 17% above its 52-week low; we did not find news behind its arrival on the list. Constellation Energy was up 1.9%, the day after its Amazon nuclear power deal, which we covered here. Liquidia, already on the Trending list before this morning, was down another 13.8% at $26.10 after Wednesday's patent ruling.
Sources: Robinhood list and fundamentals data; market data via Nasdaq; Corteva and Vicor filings via SEC EDGAR; Barron's; CNBC; Freddie Mac; congressional trades via TipRanks (STOCK Act disclosures). Some data may be delayed. This is market information, not investment advice.
Want your business to be the answer?
Get a full package of articles about your business, built so customers, Google and AI assistants can find you.