Chewy Stock Sinks on Weak Outlook as AI and Bitcoin Plays Surge on September 9

Wednesday's session brought a broad split in the market as individual catalysts drove sharp moves in both directions, with oil at $100 a barrel providing a macro headwind for stocks broadly and Apple's iPhone launch day adding to the day's storylines.

Chewy was the headline decliner after reporting its fiscal second-quarter results. The pet retailer posted net sales of $3.33 billion, up 7.3% year over year and at the high end of its prior guidance, with active customers growing 3.8% to 21.7 million and Autoship sales rising 9.3% to represent 84.6% of revenue. Adjusted EBITDA margin came in at 6.8%, beating guidance, though analysts noted much of the outperformance reflected timing benefits including tariff refunds and rebates rather than structural gains. The stock fell sharply as investors focused on the cautious forward outlook.

On the rally side, Strategy surged as Bitcoin's rebound lifted crypto-linked equities. Cloudflare climbed, building on a strong year in which the cloud security company had already gained more than 40% as AI-driven demand for secured deployments accelerated. Fastly also moved sharply higher, with analysts attributing the jump to delayed recognition of its August beat-and-raise quarter and fresh price-target increases. AMD gained after disclosures pointing to server CPU revenue growth of more than 80% year over year in the second half of 2026, powered by agentic AI workloads, though supply constraints in advanced wafers and high-bandwidth memory were flagged as a ceiling on upside. Dell Technologies and Celestica also rallied, and Rocket Lab climbed on unspecified positive catalysts.

Decliners beyond Chewy included Alphabet, UnitedHealth, MercadoLibre, BKV, and Tyra Biosciences, which plunged. UnitedHealth has been under sustained pressure since warning earlier in 2026 of its first annual revenue decline in decades. MercadoLibre has continued to face investor concern over falling operating income despite strong top-line growth.