In partnership with IO

AeroVironment posted a record quarter, jumped as much as 13% on Thursday morning, and closed up 4.5% after oil and Treasury yields took over the tape. A $3 million medical device company more than doubled by paying off its convertible notes a day early. And Skillsoft lost a third of its value on a $12 million cut to revenue guidance.

The S&P 500 fell 0.6% to 7,592 for a fourth straight loss, its longest losing streak since March, and the Russell 2000 dropped 1.0% to 2,891. WTI crude settled at $102.48, the 10-year yield touched 4.94%, and futures now price roughly 70% odds of a Fed hike next week. The August CPI report lands Friday morning.

Here's what's inside today:

📉 How to read a spike that fades by the close
🛩️ The $7 billion drone maker with a $1.5 billion backlog
🏛️ Congress filed 378 trades last month. Here's what they bought.
📈 Top gainers (and biggest losers) from Thursday's session

This is not financial advice. Always do your own research. Past performance doesn't guarantee future results.

AeroVironment opened up 4%, ran to $159.24 by mid-morning (a 13% gain), and closed at $147.07, up 4.45%. Nothing changed about the quarter between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. What changed was everything around it: WTI crude jumped 6.7% to $102.48, the 10-year yield climbed 10 basis points to 4.94%, and PPI came in at 5.4% year over year, pushing rate-hike odds for next week's Fed meeting to about 70%.

A fade like that is worth reading carefully before deciding what it means.

Check the close against the market, not against the high. AVAV finished up 4.5% on a day the Russell 2000 lost 1.0%. That's still 5.5 points of outperformance. The high is where the enthusiasm peaked; the close is where money agreed to hold overnight.

Check the volume. Thursday's 8.4 million shares was about five times AeroVironment's average. A fade on heavy volume means real buyers and real sellers met, which is more informative than a spike on thin volume that nobody contested.

Separate the stock's story from the day's story. On Thursday, the day's story was oil, yields, and the CPI print ahead. Rate-sensitive and high-multiple names got sold across the board. If a stock holds a gain through that kind of session, the news was probably strong enough to survive a calmer one.

Give it two or three sessions. Earnings reactions often settle on day two or three, once analysts publish and the initial short covering or profit taking works through. Thursday's price is a data point, not a verdict.

The practical version: on a macro-driven day, a single-stock move that fades is less damning than it looks, and one that holds is more impressive than it looks.

AeroVironment spent most of 2026 as one of the worst performers in defense. On Thursday it gave investors the first quarter in a while that argued for the other side.

The news: For its fiscal first quarter ended August 1, AeroVironment reported record revenue of $480.5 million, up 6% from a year ago and above the $456 million analysts expected. Adjusted earnings came in at $0.59 per share against a $0.25 consensus. Bookings hit $700 million for a book-to-bill of 1.4, and funded backlog reached a record $1.5 billion, up 37% year over year. Uncrewed aircraft revenue jumped 71% to $120 million, and precision strike rose 8% to $197 million.

The company reaffirmed fiscal 2027 guidance of $2.125 billion to $2.225 billion in revenue and $3.02 to $3.34 in adjusted EPS, weighted to the second half.

Why it matters: The backlog number is the one to watch. A 37% increase in funded, contracted work is a different kind of signal than a beat on a single quarter. It arrived alongside a $464.8 million Army contract for the LOCUST laser counter-drone system in August and the first international LOCUST order last week. Management told analysts it sees directed energy as a potential third franchise beside drones and loitering munitions.

Adjusted EBITDA came in at $53.4 million, and free cash flow improved to negative $36 million from negative $147 million a year earlier. The company is still spending on capacity, but the burn is shrinking.

The honest risk: The stock closed Thursday at $147.07, down about 39% for the year and 65% below its October 2025 high of $417.86. Two things drove that: the Space Force canceled a roughly $1 billion BADGER antenna contract in March, and defense stocks have sold off broadly on concerns that a divided Congress after the midterms could stall budgets. The space, cyber and directed energy segment still shrank 21% this quarter. Management expects negative free cash flow for the full year because of capital spending, and at least one plaintiffs' firm is investigating the board. At roughly 43 times forward earnings, the multiple has compressed but the stock is not cheap. The 13% intraday move faded to 4.5% by the close, which tells you the market has not made up its mind. Position small, and let the next two quarters confirm the backlog is converting.

Our partners at AltIndex maintain a Congress trading tracker built from STOCK Act disclosures, which require members of Congress to report trades within 45 days. Over the past 30 days it logged 378 disclosed trades worth an estimated $5.3 million, split 199 buys to 179 sells.

The largest single trade was a $175,000 purchase of Alibaba by Rep. Gilbert Cisneros. Rep. Ro Khanna filed 89 buys in a month, spread across names like Eaton, NXP Semiconductors, Lennar and First Solar. By sector, industrial products, semiconductors and application software led the activity.

Each politician has a profile page with full trade history and returns, and the tracker refreshes daily. Signing up adds alerts when a member of Congress files a trade on a stock in your watchlist.

See what Congress is trading →

Here's where Thursday's biggest moves landed. Bitcoin's break above $81,000 did a lot of the work on the gainers side, while the losers list filled up with guidance stories.

Tenon Medical more than doubled on about 116 million shares traded after it paid off $5.16 million in senior convertible notes a day before maturity, removing the risk that holders would convert at a discount and dilute a company with a market cap under $4 million. Qorvo rose in tandem with Skyworks after Skyworks said China's review of their merger is in its final phase, on a day the broader chip group sold off. Clover Health rode a rally in health insurers after Elevance said its third quarter is tracking ahead of plan, and Revolve added 5% on light news.

On the loser side, Skillsoft cut fiscal 2027 revenue guidance to $380 million to $390 million from $388 million to $406 million, citing pressure in its consumer business, and the stock lost a third of its value. Navan fell after a narrow earnings beat and an acquisition of AI events platform BoomPop. Redwood Trust announced a $150 million convertible note offering and hit a new 52-week low. American Eagle's comparable sales fell 1%, and Axogen priced a $208.7 million stock offering at $42.50, a 10% discount to Wednesday's close, to fund its $200 million purchase of BioCircuit Technologies.

(Data: Yahoo Finance.)

Thursday brought a drone maker with a record $1.5 billion backlog whose 13% spike settled to 4.5%, a $3 million med-tech stock that doubled by clearing a $5 million debt overhang, and a corporate-learning company that lost a third of its value on a 3% guidance cut. Oil above $100 and a 10-year yield near 5% did the rest. Friday morning's CPI print decides whether that pressure eases or builds into next week's Fed meeting.

We'll be back soon. Watching a name we should cover? Hit reply and tell us.

Cheers,
— Brandon & Blake of Invested Inc.