Wall Street Took Its Antidepressants

The Tape

The market ran a clean experiment this week: it bought proof and dumped promise. Psychedelics surged 30.4% on two genuine Phase 3 depression readouts, while Space fell 13.4% — this with SpaceX freshly public off an $86B IPO and Rocket Lab winning new NASA work. Hard clinical data got a bid; the speculative future — space, crypto, quantum, drones — got the bill.

Leaderboard

Sector by sector

• Psychedelics +30.4% — Definium Therapeutics, the depression-pill developer, aced its final-stage DT120 study and bolted on a $700M raise, soaring 84% on the week; a field that sold dreams for a decade finally printed a result.
• Emerging Therapeutics +7.3% — The drug-trial bid spread to the gene-editors and obesity hopefuls: Viking Therapeutics jumped 25.6% merely for dosing the first patients in an early amylin study, research spend tripling to $150M a quarter notwithstanding.
• Weight-Loss +5.9% — Zepbound, Eli Lilly's obesity shot, nearly doubled quarterly sales to $4.16B, lifting the maker 8.6% on an analyst's call for $2T in drug sales by 2032. The fattest market in pharma keeps eating.
• Biotech +5.8% — Incyte, the drugmaker behind eczema cream Opzelura, turned a CMS settlement into a $246M non-cash benefit and doubled quarterly net income to $303M, up 14.9%. Settlements, it turns out, pay better than science some weeks.
• Fast Food +3.2% — Up went Wendy's, the burger chain, popping 25% intraday with trading halted on pure meme momentum — even as quarterly net income fell to $23M from $39M. The drive-thru line moved; the profits reversed.
• Sports & Betting +3.1% — Bally's, the casino operator, booked $756M in quarterly revenue and rose 14.2%, untroubled by the $162M net loss that $110M of interest expense helped manufacture. The house won the quarter; the lenders won the year.
• Gaming +2.0% — Skillz, the mobile-game platform, grew quarterly revenue to $29M and halved its loss toward $11M, up 14.4%, while Nintendo fell 8.7% for the offense of raising worker pay 10%. Guess which one Wall Street rewarded.
• Hype Goods +1.7% — Ulta Beauty, the cosmetics retailer, lifted quarterly sales 11% to $3.16B and repurchased $560M of stock, climbing 8.4%; rival e.l.f. rose 8.3% while cutting prices to "rebuild demand" — a confession dressed as a rally.
• Robotics +1.5% — Teradyne, the chip-test equipment maker, grew quarterly revenue 87% to $1.28B and rose 6.9%, while Serve Robotics' delivery bots mustered $3M of revenue against a $49M loss and slid 10.2%. Profit beat performance art.
• Music +1.3% — iHeartMedia, the radio giant, cut jobs chasing $50M in savings and gained 15.5% as quarterly revenue rose 9.5%; the market loves nothing quite so much as the layoffs it will never have to sit through.
• Entertainment +0.3% — Sphere Entertainment, the Las Vegas dome, drove quarterly revenue to $386M as its "Wizard of Oz" run neared 3 million tickets, up 11.5%; the sector's flat line hid AMC cratering 18.8% on a cash burn it itself calls "not sustainable."
• Meme Stocks -1.5% — Lucid Motors, the EV maker, leapt 15.2% in the very week it axed 18% of staff — its second mass cut of the year — after raising roughly $1B. Apparently a pink slip now reads as discipline.
• AI Power -1.9% — Celestica, the contract manufacturer that assembles data-center gear, grew quarterly revenue to $4.05B and fell 11.3% regardless; Ciena's 9.8% gain on a strong quarter couldn't carry the cooling names. A beat is no longer a bid.
• Quantum -3.5% — Rigetti Computing, the quantum-chip firm, secured $100M in CHIPS Act federal funding and dropped 9.3%, flattened by an $857M industry cash warning. The cheque cleared; the conviction didn't.
• Nuclear Energy -4.7% — Nano Nuclear, the micro-reactor developer, fired its chief technology officer and reactor lead just as the NRC opened its review, collapsing 21.5%. Dismissing the engineers mid-inspection is, at minimum, bold.
• Crypto -7.5% — Bitcoin sank to its lowest since 2024 on record ETF outflows, off 5.9% — and it was the sector's strongest name, with Dogecoin leading the bleed at -12.5%. When the best performer is merely the least battered, the floor is hypothetical.
• Defense + Drones -10.7% — AeroVironment, the drone maker, absorbed a $151M goodwill writedown and a $179M quarterly operating loss, down 17.4%; even L3Harris, backlog swollen to $21B, couldn't dodge the fresh China export curbs.
• Space -13.4% — SpaceX, days off its $86B IPO, slid 20.1% and disclosed plans to borrow $20B — odd, for a company whose own stock was supposed to be the money. The final frontier met the margin call.

The Stories

Two Phase 3 Wins Did What a Decade of Trance Parties Couldn't

For years the psychedelic-medicine trade ran on vibes and conference-stage promises. This week it ran on data.

Compass Pathways, the depression-drug developer, hit its primary endpoint in a Phase 3 trial for treatment-resistant depression — the kind of late-stage win that separates a science from a séance. The stock rose 24.1%.

Definium Therapeutics went further. Its DT120 pill, a dissolving tablet for major depressive disorder, aced its own Phase 3 study, and the shares climbed 84% on the week.

In fairness, the underlying businesses are still bleeding. Definium's quarterly loss widened to $77.1M, and Compass posted a $91.2M net income only on a warrant-accounting quirk. The data is real; the profits are not.

And both companies did the thing companies do when the stock pops: they sold more of it. Compass priced a $150M raise, Definium a $700M one. The science cleared the trial. The dilution is the toll.

The Final Frontier Meets the Margin Call

SpaceX spent the spring as the market's favorite IPO — an $86B debut with a post-listing rally to match. This week it gave the rally back, sliding 20.1%, and then disclosed plans to borrow $20B.

That is a curious move for a company whose stock was supposed to be the cash. The buy-the-rumor crowd has, it seems, reached the list-the-company part of the cycle.

The pain spread. Rocket Lab, which launches small satellites, fell 21.7% even after NASA picked it for new science missions and it set a responsive-launch record. Redwire, the space-infrastructure firm, cratered 23.9% — its revenue rose to $97M, but an $83M expense bill, mostly stock compensation, widened the loss to $76.5M.

The one name that held was Globalstar, flat on the week, for the unglamorous reason that Amazon agreed to buy the satellite operator at a 23% premium. A takeover beat a moonshot.

Wall Street Bought the Proof and Dumped the Promise

The week split cleanly. Anything that produced hard clinical data got bought; anything trading on a future got sold.

The drug names led. Eli Lilly, maker of the obesity shot Zepbound, rose 8.6% as that single product's quarterly sales nearly doubled to $4.16B. Incyte doubled quarterly net income to $303M and rose 14.9%. Viking Therapeutics jumped 25.6% just for starting an early obesity trial.

Now the other side. Rigetti Computing, the quantum-chip firm, landed $100M in federal CHIPS Act funding — exactly the catalyst its bulls wanted — and fell 9.3%. IonQ grew quantum revenue 755% to $65M and dropped 9.8%.

The pattern repeated in crypto and defense: real news, red tape. Bitcoin slid to its lowest since 2024 even as Ripple won European regulatory approval across 30 countries.

The lesson isn't about qubits or coins. When a name gets the exact headline its holders prayed for and falls anyway, the catalyst was never the thing that was missing.

China Pulled the Drone Sector's Supply Cord

Kratos Defense, the drone and target-systems maker, posted record quarterly orders and grew net income to $11.9M — and the stock still fell 15.9%, dragged by reports of a $105M cash drain and insiders heading for the exits.

Then China tightened drone-component export restrictions, and the rest of the sector followed it down.

Red Cat Holdings, which builds first-person-view drones, dropped 17.1% on exactly that fear, its supply chain leaning on Chinese parts. AeroVironment fell 17.4% after a $151M goodwill writedown swung it to a $179M quarterly operating loss.

Even L3Harris, the defense prime whose backlog grew to $21.1B and revenue rose 12% to $5.74B, couldn't swim against it, sliding 7.0%. When the supplier of last resort is a geopolitical rival, the backlog is only as good as the parts.

The week, visualized