Rina Sherbel

Good afternoon.

Today is Monday, January 26.

I'm your host today, Rina Sherbel, filling in for Kim Kahn.

Our top story so far.

The largest restaurant chain in the world by number of locations isn't McDonald's or Starbucks.

It's China-based Mishue Ice Cream and Tea, trading under tickers MXUBY and MXUGF.

The beverage and dessert chain was founded in 1997 as a small ice cream stall near a university targeting students and budget-conscious consumers with ultra-low-priced treats.

Over time, Mishwa expanded its menu to bubble tea, fruit tea, milk tea, coffee, and other value-focused drinks, leaning on a franchise model that drove rapid store growth.

More recently, it has pushed aggressively overseas, especially in Southeast Asia, where it now operates thousands of locations in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

Growth plans now center not just on opening more shops, but on strengthening its supply chain backbone, including new production facilities in Henan and Henan and an international supply chain platform in Southeast Asia to support franchisees.

In the U.S., Mishwe entered the market with its first store in Los Angeles in December, marking its formal North American debut, followed by two locations in New York.

Among active stocks, Applovin, under ticker APP, is higher after Needham upgraded the mobile software company to buy from hold.

Analyst Bernie McTernan said additional work on its e-commerce business has given the firm more confidence in the trajectory of e-commerce revenue growth in 2026, just as the stock has pulled back from its highs a month ago.

USA Rare Earth, ticker USAR, is surging after the company said it entered into a non-binding letter of intent with the U.S.

Department of Commerce and announced a collaboration with the U.S.

Department of Energy, confirming earlier reports.

And Corweave, under ticker CESAR,

CRWV is rallying after NVIDIA, I'm not telling you that ticker, invested $2 billion in the company and expanded their collaboration to help CoreWeave accelerate the build-out of more than 5 gigawatts of AI factories by 2030.

The company is also planned to deploy multiple generations of NVIDIA infrastructure across CoreWeave's platform through early adoption of NVIDIA's computing architectures, including the Rubin platform,

Vera CPUs, and Bluefield storage systems.