Earnings Season Bites: OppFi and Purple Innovation Sink on Guidance Cuts While Plug Power and Riot Rally
Small-cap earnings season delivered a stark lesson in dispersion Tuesday, as investors punished companies that trimmed their outlooks and rewarded those that cleared expectations, producing double-digit swings in both directions across the market's smaller names.
On the downside, shares of OppFi, the Chicago-based online lending platform, dropped roughly 18% after the company lowered its full-year revenue guidance to a range of $600 million to $625 million, down from a prior range of $650 million to $657 million, according to Investrade's mid-morning market note. The fintech had reported second-quarter results on Monday, per MarketBeat's earnings calendar, and the reduced top-line outlook overshadowed the rest of the report.
Mattress maker Purple Innovation fared even worse, falling about 23% after second-quarter results came in below expectations and management cut its 2026 revenue guidance to $420 million to $440 million from a previous $465 million to $485 million, per the same Investrade summary. The reaction underscores how little tolerance investors currently have for deteriorating fundamentals in consumer-facing small caps, even in a year when the broader small-cap indexes are trading near records.
The gainers' column told the opposite story. Plug Power, the hydrogen fuel cell company, jumped around 12% after a second-quarter beat that featured improved gross margins and a maintained positive outlook, according to Investrade. Bitcoin miner and data center operator Riot Platforms also rose about 12% after reporting quarterly revenue of $174.2 million, well above the roughly $152 million analysts had expected, alongside a 191-megawatt data center lease agreement that the note valued at approximately $9.1 billion over its term, the latest example of crypto-mining infrastructure being repurposed toward AI-related compute demand.
Elsewhere in the mid-cap space, ACV Auctions slipped around 4% after a mixed quarter in which revenue fell short of estimates; Investrade's note added that the digital wholesale auto marketplace is exploring a potential sale amid takeover interest, which limited the downside. Rocket Lab eased about 2% after the launch company pushed the debut of its Neutron rocket to the fourth quarter, even though quarterly revenue exceeded forecasts. Telehealth company Hims & Hers declined modestly after pairing a raised 2026 revenue outlook with a lowered EBITDA forecast.
Tuesday's action followed a Monday session that produced its own outsized small-cap moves. As reported by TheStreet, AbCellera Biologics soared more than 38% after presenting strong clinical trial results for a hot flash treatment, while shares of Archer Aviation climbed 18.4% on news of its agreement to acquire three Boeing subsidiaries.
The common thread through both sessions is that single-stock risk in the small-cap space remains elevated even as index-level volatility has stayed contained. With the Russell 2000 up only modestly Tuesday morning and hovering just below all-time highs, the double-digit moves in individual names suggest investors are actively re-sorting winners from losers within the rally rather than buying or selling smaller companies indiscriminately.
That dynamic is likely to persist through the remainder of the reporting season, and the stakes rise again Wednesday morning, when July inflation data could reset expectations for the rate path that has underpinned this year's small-cap leadership.
