Cboe Global Markets and Applied Digital have been highlighted as Zacks Bull and Bear of the Day

For Immediate ReleaseChicago, IL – June 24, 2026 – Zacks Equity Research shares Cboe Global Markets CBOE as the Bull of the Day and Applied Digital APLD as the Bear of the Day. In addition, Zacks Equity Research provides analysis on Meta Platforms META, Snap SNAP and Reddit RDDT. Here is a synopsis of all five stocks:Bull of the Day:Cboe Global Markets is a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) that is the world's largest options exchange and a leading provider of market infrastructure across equities, derivatives, foreign exchange, and futures.The stock has been taken to the woodshed over the past month, with shares tumbling from $370 to around $250. Wall Street repriced the stock on competitive fears rather than fundamentals, which has made this one of the more compelling beaten-down setups in the market right now.About the CompanyThe Chicago-based company operates the exchanges where investors buy and sell options on the S&P 500 (SPX), the VIX volatility index, and thousands of individual stocks and ETFs. These are products that institutions and retail investors alike use to hedge portfolios, express market views, and generate income.Cboe also owns a robust market data business called Data Vantage that sells real-time and historical trading data to financial firms globally. In short, every time volatility spikes and options volume surges, Cboe is the toll booth.The company is valued at $27 billion and has a Forward PE of 19. The stock has Zacks Style Scores of “D” in Value, but “A” in Growth and Momentum.Q1 Earnings BeatThe irony is that the selloff followed one of the best quarters in company history. Cboe posted Q1 adjusted EPS of $3.70, beating estimates by 9%, on net revenue of $729M versus the $688M consensus. Operating margins expanded to 72.4% from 66.0% a year ago, net revenue grew 29%, and diluted EPS surged 54%.Management raised full-year organic revenue growth guidance to low double-digit to mid-teens from mid-single-digit, cut operating expense guidance to $838-853M from $864-879M, and announced a strategic realignment expected to reduce the workforce by 20% while directing capital toward higher-return businesses.Record index options volumes, a 32% jump in global trading hours activity, and 19% Data Vantage revenue growth rounded out the print.Cboe Global Markets, Inc. price-consensus-chart | Cboe Global Markets, Inc. QuoteEstimates Head HigherThe estimate trend tells an important story. Over the past 60 days, analysts have revised current-year EPS estimates up nine times with zero downgrades.Full-year consensus has gone from $12.44 to $13.34 and next year's estimate from $13.05 to $14.08. The current quarter consensus has moved from $2.81 ninety days ago to $3.23 today.Not a single analyst has cut numbers across any time period, while the stock has been punished by fear while the fundamental earnings picture has done nothing but improve.CompetitionWhat sent the stock into freefall wasn't the earnings, it was the narrative. CFTC approval of perpetual futures for Kalshi, Schwab announcing plans to launch its own binary options product, and broader fears of prediction market disruption spooked investors into treating CBOE's moat as existentially threatened.But management pushed back hard on that read, noting that SPX options are cleared through OCC infrastructure with 34 retail brokers, 11 floor broker groups, and 20 market-making groups participating. It’s an ecosystem that took decades to build and cannot be replicated overnight.Cboe is also moving into event markets itself, with securities-based XSP event contracts in the pipeline and company-specific KPI contracts to follow, positioning it as a participant in the disruption rather than a victim of it.The Technical TakeThe stock started the year at $250 and recently tested that level, where it showed some support. This was after a move to $370 that erased the year's gains in just a month.The stock will look to bounce and test the moving averages, which will now be resistance. Let us look at those moving averages:21-day: $29550-day: $314200-day: $275In SummaryCBOE has erased an entire year's gains on fear-driven selling while the underlying business is firing on all cylinders. The stock offers a rare combination of near-term bounce potential and a long-term entry point into one of the most durable franchise businesses in financial infrastructure.Bear of the Day:Applied Digital  is a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) that has captured investor imagination with its AI data center buildout story. However, with a $13 billion market cap, a beta of 5.69, and F scores across Value, Growth, and VGM, the stock is priced for a future that is still years away from being realized.About the CompanyApplied Digital is a data center developer and operator building large-scale GPU-optimized AI infrastructure campuses in the Dakotas, with a side business in bitcoin mining hosting that ironically remains the most profitable part of the company.The firm is developing what it calls "hyperscale data center regions" which are massive campuses designed to serve the compute demands of AI workloads for some of the world's largest technology companies.The Quarter Looked Good on the SurfaceTo be fair, Q3 results were impressive at first glance. Applied Digital reported EPS of $0.09 versus estimates of negative $0.10, and revenue of $126.6M absolutely demolished the $75.1M consensus. Adjusted EBITDA came in at $44.1M versus $6.3M a year ago.But dig into the details and the picture gets more complicated. The standout performer was the bitcoin mining hosting business, which generated nearly $14 million in segment operating profit on $120 million in net assets, the highest return on assets in the company.The AI data center story, the reason the stock trades at $13 billion, is still largely a construction project.The Debt Load is Real, the Revenue Ramp is Not YetApplied Digital has placed $2.15 billion in senior secured notes at 6.75% due 2031, sits on $2.7 billion in total debt, and is still working to place one remaining debt tranche for its final 150MW building at Polaris Forge 1.Management targets long-term leverage of 5 to 6 times NOI, but they have to actually get to $1 billion in NOI first, which is a five-year goal. In the meantime, the company is carrying significant interest expenses on a construction-stage asset base.Revenue recognition will be lumpy and non-linear by management's own admission. The next meaningful step-up comes when the second 150MW building at Polaris Forge 1 goes live around July 1, with phased energization running through September.Delta Forge 1 won't see initial operations until mid-2027. Investors buying the stock today at $13 billion are paying a steep price for cash flows that are still being built, not earned.Another important note is that of the $16 billion in disclosed contracted lease revenue, approximately $11 billion is tied to CoreWeave. This is a single customer representing roughly 70% of the contracted backlog. Management has explicitly stated its goal is to shift the mix toward 70% investment-grade tenants, which signals they know the concentration risk is real. Any deterioration in CoreWeave's business or creditworthiness hits Applied Digital disproportionately hard.Estimates and ValuationThe estimate revision picture offers no support. Analysts have made zero upward revisions over the last 30 or 60 days while cutting current-year estimates, and the Style Scores tell the same story, with a F in Value, F in Growth, and F in VGM.With a beta of 5.69, this is a stock that moves violently in both directions, and with the AI data center trade having already priced in years of future growth, the risk-reward skews unfavorably from here.Technicals Look BleakThe stock has been one of the most volatile in the market, rocketing from a 52-week low of $9 to a high of $50 before settling around $45 today. And for now, the chart still looks good as it trades near the recent highs. However, a break of the $40 level could start a cascade of selling that would cause a test of the 200-day MA down at $32.In SummaryApplied Digital has a real asset base, real contracted revenue, and a management team executing on an ambitious long-term vision. But at $13 billion in market cap, the stock is pricing in flawless execution on a pipeline that won't fully ramp until 2027 or beyond.For investors who like their risk-reward balanced, the Zacks Rank #5 says look elsewhere.Additional content:META Broadens Instagram TV Reach: Can It Boost User Engagements?Meta Platformsis benefiting from its strategic expansion of Instagram TV (IGTV) reach, leveraging the platform’s growing emphasis on video content to drive higher user engagement. The company’s focus on enhancing video experiences, including improvements to content recommendations and AI-driven personalization, has led to significant increases in time spent on video features such as Reels and IGTV.Meta Platforms' expanding portfolio has been noteworthy. The company recently expanded Instagram for TV to Samsung Smart TVs in the United States, adding to its availability on Amazon Fire TV and Google TV devices. The company is also testing new features to make shared viewing easier, including interest-based channels, casting Reels from phones, Stories on TV and support for horizontal videos. META is exploring longer-form creator content, episodic series and live broadcasts tailored for the living room experience. The updates aim to make Instagram a more social, communal viewing platform while helping creators reach audiences on larger screens.Meta Platforms' AI advancements facilitate the auto-translation and dubbing of videos, making IGTV content accessible to a broader, global audience. Over half a billion users on both Facebook and Instagram now watch AI-translated videos weekly. This broadening of reach increases the potential audience for IGTV creators and enhances the platform’s appeal to advertisers seeking to target diverse demographics with localized content. The company continues to see improvements on Instagram, which have driven a 10% lift in reel time spent, while Facebook saw an 8% increase in total video time globally, the largest quarter-over-quarter gain in four years.Meta Platform’s strong portfolio is fueling robust financial results and is expected to benefit the company’s top-line growth. For the second quarter of 2026, the company expects total revenues between $58 billion and $61 billion.META Faces Stiff CompetitionMeta Platforms is facing stiff competition from competitors likeSnap and Reddit. Both Snap and Reddit are expanding their portfolio to compete in the rapidly growing digital ad market.Reddit is continuing to grow as engagement rises and monetization gets better through a stronger performance ad stack. The company is benefiting from an increase in daily active users and weekly active users, along with a higher average revenue per user and more advertisers using tools like Reddit Max, Dynamic Product Ads and improved measurement. AI-led features, including translation and better discovery, are helping broaden the user base and deepen intent-driven use cases, while content licensing adds diversification.Snapchat has reached 956 million monthly active users and 483 million daily active users in the first quarter of 2026, driven by continued adoption of Augmented Reality Lenses, Spotlight and AI-powered features. Key growth drivers include its AI-powered automation solutions, AI Sponsored Snaps, Sponsored Snaps, Promoted Places, Dynamic Product Ads and subscription offerings including Snapchat+, Memories Storage and Lens+.META’s Share Price Performance, Valuation, and EstimatesMETA’s shares have lost 14.6% in the year-to-date period, underperforming the broader Zacks Computer & Technology sector’s return of 20%.META Stock's PerformanceMETA shares are overvalued, with a forward 12-month Price/Sales of 5.15X compared with the Internet - Software’s 3.66X. META has a Value Score of C.The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 earnings is pegged at $33.01 per share, which has increased by a penny over the past 30 days. This suggests 40.53% year-over-year growth.Meta Platforms, Inc. price-consensus-chart | Meta Platforms, Inc. QuoteMeta Platforms currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.Why Haven't You Looked at Zacks' Top Stocks?Since 2000, our top stock-picking strategies have blown away the S&P's +7.7% average gain per year. Amazingly, they soared with average gains of +48.4%, +50.2% and +56.7% per year.Today you can access their live picks without cost or obligation.See Stocks Free >>Media ContactZacks Investment Research800-767-3771 ext. 9339https://www.zacks.cZacks.com provides investment resources and informs you of these resources, which you may choose to use in making your own investment decisions. 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These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit https://www.zacks.com/performancefor information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release. 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 DaysJust released: Experts distill 7 elite stocks from the current list of 220 Zacks Rank #1 Strong Buys. They deem these tickers "Most Likely for Early Price Pops."Since 1988, the full list has beaten the market more than 2X over with an average gain of +23.7% per year. So be sure to give these hand picked 7 your immediate attention. See them now >>This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).Zacks Investment ResearchWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Zacks Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Zacks