AI Stocks Dominate Friday’s Top 10 Performers

The stock market bounced back on Friday, erasing the week’s losses following news that a feared government shutdown is unlikely to happen amid news that a funding plan is likely to be passed.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq recorded the highest gain, adding 2.61 percent, followed by the S&P 500 with a 2.13-percent gain, and the Dow Jones with 1.65 percent.

Ten companies, predominantly under the AI industry, mirrored the broader market optimism, registering strong double-digit gains during the session. In this article, we have named the day’s best performers and detailed the reasons behind their performance.

To come up with the list, we only considered those with $2 billion in market capitalization and $5 million in trading volume.

A technical stock market chart. Photo by Energepic from Pexels

10. MicroStrategy Incorporated (NASDAQ:MSTR)

MicroStrategy Incorporated, doing business as Strategy, extended its winning streak for the fourth day on Friday, growing as much as 13.46 percent at intra-day trading before ending the day just up by 13 percent at $297.49 as investor sentiment was fueled by the recovery in Bitcoin prices.

As of this writing, Bitcoin prices were hovering around the $84,000 level over hopes that no government shutdown is happening as the US government would likely pass a government funding plan.

MSTR showed a strong performance throughout the week, bucking an overall market decline on all trading days.

On Monday, MSTR also announced that it would issue and sell shares of its 8-percent series A perpetual strike preferred stock, with a par value of $0.001 per share, for an aggregate amount of $21 billion.

According to the company, it intends to use the net proceeds for general corporate purposes, including the acquisition of Bitcoin and working capital.

9. IonQ Inc. (NYSE:IONQ)

Shares of IonQ jumped as high as 18.1 percent at intra-day trading on Friday before ending the day just up by 16.99 percent, marking a bounceback from Thursday’s drop that was dampened by criticisms from a short seller over its valuation, growth projections, and transparency.

In its report on Thursday, short seller Kerrisdale Capital criticized IONQ’s lofty growth projections and questioned the viability of its technology. It said that despite IONQ’s claims of significant technical and commercial milestones, the company was struggling with scalability.

“Although IONQ’s stock price has retreated from its all-time high, it is still trading at a value reaching 40 times its projected revenue for 2026,” the short seller said. “However, we believe IONQ is far from achieving new commercial success.”

In recent news, IONQ was able to raise another $360 million from an at-the-market (ATM) equity offering program, having sold over 16 million common shares.

Following the offer, IONQ said it was able to raise sufficient capital to meet its anticipated needs and recent market conditions.