Warner Bros. board deems Paramount’s $31-per-share offer a superior deal, starting four-day countdown for Netflix response
The Warner Bros. Discovery board has determined that Paramount’s latest deal constitutes a superior proposal to the $83 billion agreement it has with Netflix.
The Netflix merger remains in effect, but the determination kicks off a four-business-day window for the streamer to amend its deal to match or beat Paramount’s.
Should Netflix decide to not raise its own offer to a degree the Warner Bros. board determines to be the “Company Superior Proposal,” Warner Bros. would be entitled to terminate that merger agreement.
Netflix is said to have ample cash to increase its own offer for Warner Bros., but it’s yet to be seen how high the company is willing to go. Netflix shares have increased since Paramount boosted its bid, signaling that its own investors aren’t exactly rooting for it to make the purchase.
Warner Bros.’ announcement boosted Paramount’s odds on prediction markets to end up in control of the company. As of 4:40 p.m. ET on Thursday, event contracts speculating on which company will ultimately come out on top of the bidding war have Paramount at a 62% chance over Netflix’s 33% odds.
(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)
Should Netflix decide to not raise its own offer to a degree the Warner Bros. board determines to be the “Company Superior Proposal,” Warner Bros. would be entitled to terminate that merger agreement.
Netflix is said to have ample cash to increase its own offer for Warner Bros., but it’s yet to be seen how high the company is willing to go. Netflix shares have increased since Paramount boosted its bid, signaling that its own investors aren’t exactly rooting for it to make the purchase.
Warner Bros.’ announcement boosted Paramount’s odds on prediction markets to end up in control of the company. As of 4:40 p.m. ET on Thursday, event contracts speculating on which company will ultimately come out on top of the bidding war have Paramount at a 62% chance over Netflix’s 33% odds.
(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)
Grindr rises after beating earnings, revenue expectations
The company reported earnings results on Thursday.
Michael Burry flags “troubling” jump in Nvidia’s supply commitments
“The Big Short” investor Michael Burry — famous for betting against the 2008 housing bubble — just warned of a major risk in Nvidia’s latest annual report, pointing to a sixfold surge in purchase obligations over the past year.
In a Substack post Thursday, Burry called the increase from $16.1 billion to $95.2 billion in just 12 months “troubling,” noting that Nvidia has been forced to place noncancelable purchase orders well before knowing the final demand for its AI chips. The surge is partly tied to supplier TSMC requiring longer-term contracts, he added.
Vistra beats Q4 earnings expectations for adjusted EBITDA, but dips on income decline
Power provider Vistra, a key player in the AI energy trade, reported better-than-expected adjusted earnings results early Thursday, but shares dipped in early trading as Q4 net income dropped.
The Texas-based company, which supplies nuclear- and natural gas-fueled power to wholesale and retail markets, reported:
Net income of $233 million, a decline of 52% from Q4 2024.
Adjusted EBITDA from ongoing operations of $1.74 billion vs. the $1.71 billion expected by Wall Street analysts.
Vistra maintained previously issued guidance for full-year EBITDA from ongoing operations and adjusted free cash flow from ongoing operations.
Vistra shares soared 258% in 2024 amid a flurry of excitement over the AI energy boom. Last year was more muted, with the stock rising 17%. So far in 2026, shares were up roughly 9% before the report.
Net income of $233 million, a decline of 52% from Q4 2024.
Adjusted EBITDA from ongoing operations of $1.74 billion vs. the $1.71 billion expected by Wall Street analysts.
Vistra maintained previously issued guidance for full-year EBITDA from ongoing operations and adjusted free cash flow from ongoing operations.
Vistra shares soared 258% in 2024 amid a flurry of excitement over the AI energy boom. Last year was more muted, with the stock rising 17%. So far in 2026, shares were up roughly 9% before the report.
Sandisk rises on partnership with SK Hynix to standardize memory chip architecture tailored for AI data centers
Sandisk is up 3% in premarket trading on Thursday after it began its global standardization strategy of high-bandwidth flash (HBF) memory solutions with SK Hynix.
SK Hynix commented in a press release on Thursday that “by making HBF an industry standard, together with Sandisk, we will lay the foundation for the entire AI ecosystem to grow together,” adding that the companies will set up a dedicated workstream to work on the standardization under the Open Compute Project, the world’s largest organization dealing with data center technologies.
First debuted last February, Sandisk’s HBF technology lies in between ultrafast high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and high-capacity SSDs. That is, these have more storage capacity than HBMs, but are still fast enough to be utilized in AI inferencing (albeit not as quick as HBM).
Sandisk has previously argued that this hybrid architecture is central to AI services that need user applications but require a significant amount of fast interconnect between GPUs. The latest announcement also notes that HBF technology is expected to be more cost-efficient compared to alternatives of similar scale.
The launch, which was shared in an kickoff event on Thursday evening, starts SK Hynix and Sandisk’s workflow, which was announced when the two companies signed a memorandum of understanding “to standardize the specification, define technology requirements and explore the creation of a technology ecosystem” last August, per Sandisk’s press release at the time. Ultimately, by collaborating with SK Hynix, one of the three key HBM suppliers, to standardize and commercialize the technology, Sandisk is manufacturing somewhat of a first-mover advantage to offer the system-level “AI-optimized memory architecture” required for AI inference markets, rather than focusing on the performance of a single chip element.
Warner Bros. reports deeper-than-expected Q4 loss amid its bidding war
Warner Bros. Discovery reported its fourth-quarter earnings before the market opened on Thursday. The results come as the company finds itself in the middle of a still-hot bidding war between Netflix and Paramount. Its shares were flat in premarket trading.
In the three months ended in December, WBD reported:
A loss of $0.10 per share, deeper than the $0.03 loss expected by analysts polled by FactSet.
Total revenue of $9.46 billion, ahead of the $9.35 billion consensus.
Warner Bros.’ cable business booked $4.2 billion in revenue, beating estimates of $4.04 billion but down 12% from last year. The division is a key difference between the Netflix and Paramount acquisition offers: Netflix is seeking to acquire everything except Warner’s cable networks, while Paramount is seeking to purchase WBD in its entirety.
Industry analysts mostly view WBD’s cable networks as being worth between $2 and $4 per share, and Paramount’s most recent bid is $3.25 per share more than Netflix’s. Paramount has said its own analysis values Warner’s cable division at $0 per share.
WBD said it would not answer any questions about the two proposals on Thursday’s earnings call, but noted the following about Paramount’s recent offer:
“There can be no assurance that the Board will conclude that the transaction proposed by PSKY is superior to the merger with Netflix or that any definitive agreement or transaction will result from Warner Bros. Discovery’s discussions with PSKY.”
Zoom slumps on weaker-than-expected profit outlook, reports mixed Q4 earnings
Zoom fell 4% in premarket trading on Thursday after offering a profit outlook that came in lower than analysts had expected as part of its FY26 Q4 earnings results.
For the fiscal year ending in January 2027, the video conferencing platform expects:
Adjusted earnings per share between $5.77 and $5.81, missing analysts’ average projection of $6.06 a share, per Bloomberg data.
Revenue between $5.065 billion and $5.075 billion.
The weak bottom-line forecast came after lackluster adjusted profit results for Q4, which came in at $1.44 per share, compared with Wall Street estimates of $1.49. Revenue increased 5% year on year to $1.25 billion, just ahead of average analyst expectations.
The company maintained an optimistic tone on its mixed FY26 results, with CEO Eric S. Yuan saying on the earnings call, “In the age of AI, Zoom becomes more essential. We are building the system of action that turns conversations into coordinated execution across work inside the organization and with the world outside, including customer engagement, sales, recruiting, and more.”
Indeed, Zoom has been doubling down on its office collaboration tools recently as it continues to turn toward serving enterprises after the pandemic boom, including launching a corporate phone system and a customer service platform, both of which can sometimes be heavily dependent on expensive AI models.
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang thinks markets “got it wrong” on software stocks sell-off
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said markets have misjudged AI’s impact on software firms in a CNBC interview on Wednesday, hours after the chip designer reported better-than-expected Q4 results and a strong sales outlook for the current quarter.
So far this year, a slew of software stocks, like Adobe, DocuSign, and Workday, have cratered amid mounting concerns that AI agents would eventually displace traditional enterprise software models.
Huang, however, said he believes “the markets got it wrong,” describing agentic AI as “tool users” of existing software rather than a threat to it.
Products like Microsoft Excel, or platforms such as Cadence, Synopsys, ServiceNow, and SAP, all “exist for a fundamentally good reason,” he said, adding that agentic AI will be using those tools “on our behalf and help us be more productive.”
The leader of the world’s most valuable publicly traded company has struck a consistent tone on this subject, perhaps because some of his biggest customers and most eager adopters of AI are in this industry. Earlier this month, Huang called the idea that the software industry would be replaced by AI the “most illogical thing in the world,” arguing that AI agents will leverage existing software tools rather than reinvent them.
So far this year, a slew of software stocks, like Adobe, DocuSign, and Workday, have cratered amid mounting concerns that AI agents would eventually displace traditional enterprise software models.
Huang, however, said he believes “the markets got it wrong,” describing agentic AI as “tool users” of existing software rather than a threat to it.
Products like Microsoft Excel, or platforms such as Cadence, Synopsys, ServiceNow, and SAP, all “exist for a fundamentally good reason,” he said, adding that agentic AI will be using those tools “on our behalf and help us be more productive.”
The leader of the world’s most valuable publicly traded company has struck a consistent tone on this subject, perhaps because some of his biggest customers and most eager adopters of AI are in this industry. Earlier this month, Huang called the idea that the software industry would be replaced by AI the “most illogical thing in the world,” arguing that AI agents will leverage existing software tools rather than reinvent them.
Nvidia’s strong results, guidance lift AI ecosystem
Data center stocks Applied Digital, IREN, CoreWeave, and Nebius as well as foundry giant TSMC and optical communications company Corning are catching a bid in after-hours trading thanks to strong results and guidance from Nvidia.
The chip designer’s massive outlook for Q1 sales — with the midpoint at $78 billion, versus a consensus estimate of $72.8 billion — underscores the magnitude of the near-term demand for AI compute and chips. As if the hyperscalers’ massive capex budgets hadn’t already done that!
To be sure, the advances in these stocks in after-hours trading are fairly mild, since most had been on fire in recent sessions in anticipation of a strong quarter.
The chip designer’s massive outlook for Q1 sales — with the midpoint at $78 billion, versus a consensus estimate of $72.8 billion — underscores the magnitude of the near-term demand for AI compute and chips. As if the hyperscalers’ massive capex budgets hadn’t already done that!
To be sure, the advances in these stocks in after-hours trading are fairly mild, since most had been on fire in recent sessions in anticipation of a strong quarter.
Joby posts smaller loss, larger cash pile than expected in Q4, says it expects US early operations to begin this year
Air taxi maker Joby Aviation reported its fourth-quarter earnings after the bell on Wednesday. Shares climbed more than 3% in after-hours trading.
The company posted a loss of $0.14 per share, beating estimates of a $0.20 loss.
Joby ended the fourth quarter with $1.41 billion in cash (and cash equivalents), compared to Wall Street expectations of $1.01 billion.
Investors have closely watched Joby’s progress with FAA certification, which will be the determining factor for launching commercial air taxi services in the US. As of the end of Q4, Joby said it is 80% complete with the fourth stage of its five-stage certification process, up from 77% in the third quarter. Joby is 12% complete with the fifth stage, up from 10% in Q3.
Earlier on Wednesday, Joby announced it plans to partner with Uber to offer air taxi rides on the ride-hailing app in Dubai later this year. The companies already partner on Blade helicopter rides.
Joby also said it expects US early operations to begin this year, with the White House’s eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) Integration Pilot Program “set to select at least five sites for mature eVTOL aircraft to begin operating ahead of Type Certification.”
The Trade Desk plunges on weak Q1 sales guidance
Ad tech platform The Trade Desk offered weak Q1 sales guidance as part of its Q4 earnings numbers, sending the stock down sharply after-hours on Wednesday and into premarket trading on Thursday, with the stock still down almost 17% at 5
The advertising software company reported:
Adjusted Q4 earnings per share of $0.59 vs. the $0.58 consensus estimate, per FactSet.
Q4 revenue of $847 million vs. the $840.6 million expectation.
Q1 sales guidance of “at least” $678 million vs. Wall Street’s $688.6 million expectation.
The Trade Desk specializes in helping client advertisers shift their ads from traditional linear television toward online streaming services. And the shares posted some impressive gains at times, rising more than 400% over five years starting at the end of 2019.
But the company’s shares have cratered in recent years, in part because of a daunting competitive threat from Amazon’s demand-side advertising platform. Through Wednesday’s close, the stock was down roughly 80% from where it was trading at the end of 2024.