NEW YORK — Before Wall Street even opened Friday, investors were already dealing with several very different market shocks.
AMC Entertainment jumped. Lululemon collapsed. U.S. rare-earth stocks rallied. Samsara and Planet Labs surged. Adobe dropped after naming its next CEO. And a group of enterprise-software stocks learned an increasingly painful lesson: beating yesterday’s numbers may no longer be enough.
CNBC’s September 4 premarket snapshot showed just how fragmented the U.S. market has become.
Some stocks were responding to earnings.
Others were being driven by geopolitics.
Still others were reacting to government policy, executive changes or a rapidly developing fight over the future of tokenized shares.
And all of it happened before an unexpectedly strong U.S. employment report later pushed Treasury yields higher and revived expectations of another Federal Reserve interest-rate increase.
That makes Friday’s premarket action more than a list of winners and losers.
It was a preview of what investors increasingly face in late 2026: a market capable of producing enormous gains and losses simultaneously depending on which side of AI, consumer spending, geopolitics or regulation a company happens to occupy.
AMC Surges as Its CEO Goes to War With Robinhood
One of the morning’s strangest stories belonged to AMC Entertainment.
AMC shares climbed about 5.5% in CNBC’s premarket snapshot after CEO Adam Aron publicly attacked Robinhood’s offering of tokenized products linked to AMC stock.
The dispute goes far beyond another episode in AMC’s long-running meme-stock saga.
Robinhood has been offering tokenized exposure to U.S. equities for certain overseas customers. Those products can track the economic value of an underlying stock but do not necessarily give their holders the same legal rights as owners of the actual shares.
Aron argued that AMC did not authorize the products and questioned their legality.
The confrontation immediately attracted traders. Barron’s reported AMC shares were up as much as roughly 9% at one stage, while Robinhood moved lower.
What looks like a meme-stock battle actually raises a serious financial-market question:
Who gets to create a blockchain representation of a public company’s shares — the company itself, or anybody with the infrastructure to build one?
That debate is likely to grow as Wall Street experiments with putting conventional assets onto blockchain rails.
For AMC, the controversy delivered something the stock has historically responded to extremely well:
attention.
USA Rare Earth Jumps — But China Is the Real Story
The next big move came from an industry with much larger geopolitical implications.
USA Rare Earth and Critical Metals gained roughly 4% in early trading, while MP Materials and Energy Fuels climbed around 3%, after Reuters reported that some Chinese suppliers had stopped shipments of rare-earth materials to U.S. customers.
The companies were responding to renewed fears about America’s reliance on China for strategically important materials.
Rare earths are crucial inputs for products ranging from electric vehicles and semiconductors to aerospace systems, advanced electronics and military equipment.
Reuters reported that some Chinese suppliers had become reluctant to continue U.S. shipments amid concerns about Beijing’s sanctions and escalating geopolitical tension. Licensing difficulties were already affecting access to materials including yttrium and other critical inputs.
That helps explain why American rare-earth companies can rally on negative supply news from China.
The logic is straightforward:
the harder Chinese material becomes to obtain, the more strategically valuable non-Chinese production becomes.
And USA Rare Earth had another catalyst.
The company announced that it had completed its combination with Brazil’s Serra Verde Group, giving it exposure to an operating heavy-rare-earth producer and moving it closer to its ambition of building a vertically integrated supply chain outside Asia.
That makes Friday’s rally more than a speculative reaction to a headline from Beijing.
It reflects a much larger race among Washington, Western manufacturers and mining companies to reduce dependence on China for materials considered essential to both economic and national security.
Lululemon Falls 20% Before the Bell
If rare-earth investors were celebrating, Lululemon shareholders were experiencing the opposite.
The athletic-apparel company sank about 20% in premarket trading after cutting its outlook and delivering another sign that its once-formidable growth story has lost momentum.
Lululemon forecast current-quarter revenue of roughly $2.29 billion to $2.32 billion, below the approximately $2.53 billion Wall Street consensus cited in CNBC’s report.
The company also reduced its full-year forecasts for a second time. Full-year revenue is now expected at about $10.35 billion to $10.5 billion, with earnings of $9.48 to $9.73 a share.
The numbers reveal a much deeper problem.
Revenue in the Americas dropped 8% in the second quarter, while sales of Lululemon’s signature leggings fell roughly 20%. Competitors including Alo Yoga and Vuori have been gaining ground as Lululemon struggles with product innovation, merchandising and brand momentum.
Now former Nike executive Heidi O’Neill is preparing to take over as CEO on September 8.
She is not inheriting a normal retail slowdown.
She is inheriting a brand turnaround.
Reuters noted that at least 12 brokerages reduced their price targets after the results, while concerns are growing that restoring Lululemon’s former growth rate could take years rather than quarters.
Friday therefore delivered an uncomfortable message for premium consumer brands:
Even exceptionally strong brand recognition cannot protect a company forever when consumers start finding alternatives.
Samsara Surges as AI Meets the Physical Economy
One of the morning’s biggest winners was Samsara.
Shares surged roughly 13% to 15% premarket after the company delivered better-than-expected results and raised its outlook.
Samsara reported second-quarter fiscal 2027 revenue of $508.4 million, up 30% from a year earlier.
Its annual recurring revenue reached approximately $2.125 billion, also growing 30%.
Perhaps more important, Samsara added a record 242 customers generating more than $100,000 in ARR and 20 customers generating over $1 million.
The company now expects full-year revenue of roughly $2.043 billion to $2.047 billion, above its previous outlook.
Samsara’s business is an interesting part of the AI story because it is not primarily selling chatbots.
Its technology connects vehicles, industrial equipment and frontline operations, combining sensors, software and increasingly AI-driven analysis.
Management said adoption of some of its newest AI functionality had increased more than fourfold in just two months.
That is exactly the kind of AI story investors have increasingly been demanding:
not merely promises about artificial intelligence, but evidence that customers are actually paying for it.
Planet Labs Blasts Higher After Record Revenue
Planet Labs provided another example.
Shares jumped roughly 10% to 13% premarket after the satellite-imaging company reported record quarterly revenue of $116.1 million, up 58% year over year.
One of the most significant details was where that growth came from.
Barron’s reported that defense and intelligence customers generated around 70% of Planet’s revenue, compared with 57% a year earlier. Revenue from that segment approached $81 million.
Planet’s technology uses satellites to repeatedly image the Earth, providing data for agriculture, mapping, environmental monitoring and increasingly defense and intelligence applications.
That places the company at the intersection of two powerful spending trends:
space infrastructure and national security.
There was, however, a caution sign.
Planet forecast third-quarter revenue of about $101 million to $105 million, below Wall Street’s roughly $114 million expectation.
That contrast became important later in the session: Planet’s early rally did not hold, underscoring how quickly investors can rethink even strong earnings when future guidance raises questions.
Smith & Wesson Jumps Double Digits
A much more traditional company also produced a dramatic move.
Smith & Wesson Brands rose about 11.7% premarket after posting stronger-than-expected quarterly results.
The firearms manufacturer reported first-quarter fiscal 2027 sales of $112.6 million, up 32.3% from the previous year.
Earnings came in at 6 cents per diluted share, compared with a loss of 8 cents in the comparable period a year earlier.
Smith & Wesson also benefited from $2.9 million in tariff refunds, which added roughly 260 basis points to gross margin — an important qualification because management described the benefit as nonrecurring.
So while the headline numbers were strong, investors will still need to separate durable operating improvement from one-time benefits.
Guidewire Shows Why Good Earnings Can Still Destroy a Stock
Then came perhaps the morning’s clearest lesson about investor expectations.
Guidewire Software plunged roughly 14% to 16% before the open, despite reporting strong fiscal fourth-quarter performance.
Guidewire reported non-GAAP earnings of 99 cents per share and said fiscal 2026 total revenue had increased 23%.
Annual recurring revenue rose 19%.
But investors focused on what came next.
Guidewire forecast first-quarter fiscal 2027 revenue of $372 million to $378 million. CNBC reported that Wall Street had expected about $387 million.
That relatively small numerical gap triggered an enormous valuation adjustment.
And after regular trading began, the punishment became even harsher: Guidewire eventually fell around 21%.
That is the market environment high-growth software companies now face.
Investors are no longer satisfied with:
“We beat expectations.”
They increasingly want:
“We beat expectations, and our next quarter will beat them too.”
Anything less can be expensive.
Asana and UiPath Get Caught in the Same Trap
Asana fell roughly 9.5% premarket after forecasting third-quarter adjusted earnings of about 8 cents a share, below the roughly 9 cents analysts expected.
Revenue guidance of $217 million to $219 million was essentially around Wall Street’s estimate, but investors were looking for more after the company’s second-quarter beat.
UiPath fell roughly 7% before the bell, despite reporting second-quarter revenue of $410 million, up 13%.
Annual recurring revenue reached $1.938 billion, up 12%, while the automation company forecast third-quarter revenue of $440 million to $445 million.
UiPath’s selloff later accelerated substantially.
The pattern is revealing.
Software companies associated with automation and AI are supposed to be among the biggest beneficiaries of the new technology cycle.
But precisely because investors expect so much from them, the tolerance for merely adequate growth has become extremely low.
Even Zscaler Beat Expectations — And Still Fell
Zscaler demonstrated the same phenomenon.
The cybersecurity company slipped roughly 2% premarket despite beating Wall Street expectations.
Fiscal fourth-quarter revenue increased 25% to $898.2 million, while adjusted earnings reached $1.19 per share.
Annual recurring revenue also increased 25% to $3.771 billion.
Those are hardly weak numbers.
But investors focused on questions surrounding future ARR growth and how much of the company’s growth would be organic after acquisitions.
That matters because cybersecurity has become one of AI’s most complicated investment stories.
AI can make attacks more sophisticated.
But it can also potentially automate parts of security.
Companies such as Zscaler therefore need to convince investors not only that they can survive the AI transition, but that AI actually makes their products more valuable rather than less necessary.
Adobe’s New CEO Gets a Brutal Welcome
Adobe fell nearly 3% in premarket trading after announcing that longtime executive Anil Chakravarthy will become president and CEO on December 1.
Shantanu Narayen will move into the executive-chair role after more than 18 years running Adobe.
The appointment itself was not necessarily the problem.
Investors are trying to understand what it says about Adobe’s strategy during the most disruptive technological period in the company’s recent history.
Another senior executive, David Wadhwani, who ran the company’s creative business and had been considered a potential CEO candidate, is leaving Adobe.
Adobe now faces aggressive competition from Canva, Figma and a growing universe of generative-AI tools capable of producing images, videos, layouts and other creative content.
The market’s anxiety deepened after the opening bell, with Adobe ultimately falling about 7% during Friday’s regular session.
The message from investors was unmistakable:
Adobe’s new CEO is taking over not simply during a management transition, but during a fight over whether generative AI strengthens Adobe’s software empire or slowly unbundles it.
A Quiet Revolution Hits the Credit-Score Industry
Another major premarket story deserves more attention than it received.
Shares of Fair Isaac, Equifax and TransUnion fell after Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to allow all lenders to use VantageScore, increasing competition with the dominant FICO system.
Pulte also criticized the three major credit bureaus over pricing and suggested regulators were considering changes to the traditional mortgage-credit-report structure.
The reaction eventually became enormous.
Fair Isaac fell roughly 16.7% at the close, while Equifax and TransUnion also suffered steep losses.
VantageScore was created by Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, while Fair Isaac owns the FICO scoring system.
That creates an unusual market dynamic: expanding VantageScore threatens FICO directly, while potential changes to how many bureau reports mortgage lenders must purchase could simultaneously hurt the bureaus themselves.
A regulatory change that sounds obscure could therefore reshape a highly profitable part of the U.S. mortgage ecosystem.
Oxford Industries Joins the Consumer Selloff
Lululemon was not the only fashion company investors punished.
Oxford Industries, owner of Tommy Bahama, Lilly Pulitzer and Johnny Was, sank around 17% premarket after cutting its annual outlook.
The company now expects annual revenue of approximately $1.43 billion to $1.47 billion, compared with $1.478 billion in fiscal 2025.
Adjusted earnings guidance was cut to $1.60 to $2.00 per share.
Lilly Pulitzer remains a particular weak spot, while management cited softer consumer sentiment and merchandising challenges.
Taken alongside Lululemon’s collapse, the move strengthened concerns that affluent consumers are becoming more selective about premium discretionary purchases.
Then the Jobs Report Changed Everything
All of those moves were occurring before Wall Street received the morning’s biggest macroeconomic surprise.
The U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs in August, compared with expectations around 56,000 in Reuters’ survey.
The unemployment rate held at 4.1%.
For ordinary workers, stronger job creation sounds positive.
For financial markets worried about inflation, it created a problem.
The report pushed traders to raise their expectations that the Federal Reserve could increase interest rates at its September meeting.
By the end of Friday:
S&P 500: -0.38%
Dow Jones Industrial Average: -0.51%
Nasdaq Composite: -0.29%
The two-year Treasury yield climbed to roughly 4.37% as investors repriced the rate outlook.
That means CNBC’s morning list ultimately captured only the first chapter of the session.
What Friday’s Premarket Really Revealed
Put the moves together and an unusually clear picture emerges.
There were effectively four different markets trading simultaneously.
Rare-earth companies were reacting to geopolitical supply risk.
AMC was reacting to financial-market tokenization.
Consumer companies such as Lululemon and Oxford were being punished for deteriorating demand.
Software companies were discovering that even respectable growth is no longer enough when investors have priced in exceptional AI-era expansion.
Meanwhile, Washington was threatening to change a decades-old credit-scoring system.
Then the jobs report arrived and reminded everyone that the Federal Reserve could still overpower every one of those narratives.
That may be Friday’s most important takeaway.
The stock market is not simply trading on “AI” anymore.
It is simultaneously pricing AI adoption, consumer weakness, China supply-chain risk, regulatory disruption, interest rates and extraordinarily demanding valuations.
That creates enormous opportunities for individual stocks to rally.
It also creates something investors have already seen repeatedly in 2026:
a company can deliver good news in the evening — and still wake up billions of dollars poorer the next morning.
WWC ONE MEDIA M.J.E
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