Adani shares plunge on US indictment of Indian oligarch

The tumble dragged down India’s benchmark BSE Sensex Index.

11/21/24 11:28AM

The share prices across various parts of Indian infrastructure tycoon Gautam Adani’s sprawling empire dove Thursday, after US federal prosecutors indicted him on securities-fraud charges tied to alleged bribery of Indian government officials in order to secure billions of dollars’ worth of financing and contracts.

Adani Enterprises Ltd. fell nearly 23%. Adani Green Energy Ltd. dropped nearly 19%. Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone Ltd. dropped 14%. (All prices in terms of the Indian rupee.) Those drops drove the overall Indian market lower, with the benchmark BSE Sensex down by about 0.5%.

Shares in India have attracted interest in recent years as global investors looking for exposure to fast-growing Asian markets have sought to diversify away from China and its economic troubles.

Over the last 12 months, the BSE Sensex is up roughly 18%, making it one of the best-performing markets in the Asia Pacific region. But Indian shares have come under pressure more recently, both because of the strength of the US dollar and growing attention to risks associated with the politically connected nature of India’s largest companies, a concern underscored by the Adani indictment.

Luke Kawa2h

AppLovin gains amid report on its plans to launch a social networking platform

Ad tech company AppLovin has designs on starting a social networking platform of its own after it was unable to get its hands on TikTok’s US operations.

Shares are up today on the heels of a massive gain on Wednesday, though it’s unclear whether this has much to do with this potential foray or if traders are aiming to call a bottom in the stock after last week’s post-earnings tumble took shares below $360 for the first time since July.

These social plans were discussed in a podcast days ago, and the company has had a job posting for a software engineer to build this platform, though a Bloomberg headline on the subject was only shared this morning.

“We aim to build a completely new next-generation social media platform,” Chief Product and Engineering Officer Giovanni Ge said on the “Valley 101” podcast.

He described the course the company is charting as the opposite of Meta’s, which started by gathering eyeballs and then built advertising around it.

Presumably, such a venture would give AppLovin more digital real estate to run ads, and any data it collects from its users may be useful in offering better targeted ads on other apps.

Last April, CNBC’s Marc Faber reported that the ad tech firm had made an offer for TikTok, and that the Trump administration had been “fully aware” of its interest.

AppLovin’s post-earnings swoon last week, despite solid Q4 results and a better-than-expected Q1 outlook, came as investors have worried about competitive threats to its business from new AI entrants as well as Meta.

Max Knoblauch2h

Airline stocks fall as US-Iran tensions push oil prices up

President Trump on Thursday said “bad things will happen” if a “meaningful deal” is not reached between the US and Iran, escalating tensions between the two countries as well as the threat of a possible conflict.

“Now we may have to take it a step further or we may not. Maybe we are going to make a deal [with Iran]. You are going to be finding out over the next probably 10 days,” Trump said. West Texas Intermediate crude futures climbed more than 2% on Thursday morning.

Oil’s reaction sent airline stocks, which are sensitive to fuel costs, downward. JetBlue, Allegiant, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Alaska Air, and United Airlines all experienced a sell-off on Thursday morning. Other airlines including Frontier and Southwest Airlines also dipped.

Luke Kawa2h

Super Micro jumps above 50-day moving average on elevated call activity

A jump in call activity has propelled shares of Super Micro Computer sharply higher, above their 50-day moving average.

As of 10:45 a.m. ET, call volumes of 114,333 are on track to handily surpass the 20-day average of 166,558 for a full session (a period that encompasses the release of its quarterly results earlier this month).

The action has a bullish tilt, with a put/call ratio of less than 0.16 compared to a 20-day average of 0.38. Call options that expire this Friday and next Friday with strike prices between $32 and $33.50 are seeing the most activity.

The AI server company’s post-earnings bounce had been short-lived, with shares returning to near a 52-week low before today’s surge.

Luke Kawa4h

Klarna sinks after Q1 guidance for revenue and gross merchandise value comes in short of estimates

Buy now, pay later, issue guidance that Wall Street likes even later.

Shares of Klarna are tumbling in early trading after the fintech payments company’s Q1 outlook came in below analysts’ projections.

Management sees Q1 revenues between $900 million and $980 million, the midpoint of which is below Wall Street’s call for $965.1 million. The company’s range for gross merchandise value in the current quarter of $32 billion to $33 billion is fully below the consensus estimate for $33.37 billion.

(Gross merchandise value is the dollar figure associated with all purchases made via Klarna’s different modes of payment.)

This disappointing outlook outweighed a solid set of Q4 top-line results. Revenues of $1.08 billion came in $10 million above expectations, gross merchandise volume beat estimates at $38.7 billion (consensus: $38.06 billion), and active consumers of 118 million were nearly a full million above what Wall Street had penciled in.

The stock is poised to open at an all-time low.

Luke Kawa4h

Palantir dips as stock removed from Bank of America’s list of best US investment ideas

Palantir is lower in premarket trading amid news that the stock has been removed from Bank of America’s US 1 List.

That list is the best of the best: the subset of “buy”-rated stocks that BofA selects as its top US-listed investment ideas.

Between this news, Michael Burry, and, well, just the share price, it certainly seems like investor sentiment has decisively shifted on the once high-flying AI retail darling.

Palantir recently traded at its biggest discount to Wall Street’s average price target since late 2022.