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Merida, Mexico, Paseo Montejo Avenida Colon, Chili's restaurant, Shrimp Caesar Salad with menu
Merida, Mexico, Paseo Montejo Avenida Colon, Chili’s restaurant, shrimp Caesar salad with menu (Jeffrey Greenberg/Getty Images)

Brinker feels god in this Chili’s tonight; restaurant owner soars on huge sales growth

Luke Kawa

Shares of Brinker International are spiking after the owner of Chili’s and Maggiano’s Little Italy posted much larger profits than Wall Street expected and said that trend was poised to continue.

Earnings per share of $0.95 were about 40% above the consensus estimate for its fiscal Q1 2025, and management boosted their guidance for full-year sales and profits. The stock is up nearly 8% in the premarket.

While most of the industry — particularly the quick-service restaurant space — continues to be obsessed with providing value to price-conscious consumers, Brinker doesn’t seem to have the same problem at the chain that accounts for 90% of its revenues.

Management credited both higher traffic and higher prices for driving robust same-store sales growth of 14.1% year on year at company-owned Chili’s locations. 

Brinker International Q1 2025 results
Source: Brinker International

“Great food with great service at industry-leading value is driving strong Chilis sales and traffic, President and CEO Kevin Hochman said.

This marks Brinker as a winner in a slowing market: after booming from 2021 through 2023, the annual growth in US spending at “food dining and drinking places” has decelerated to well below its prepandemic rate.

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Lilly says its next-gen GLP-1 shot drove 28.3% weight loss, reduced comorbidities

Eli Lilly has risen around 4% in premarket trading after reporting impressive trial results for its next-generation weight-loss drug over the weekend.

According to the results unveiled on Saturday, Lilly’s experimental weight-loss shot, retatrutide, helped patients lose 28.3% of their body weight at 80 weeks. That’s more than tirzepatide, Lilly’s weight-loss shot currently considered the most effective in the market, which helped people lose 26% of their weight over 88 weeks.

Retatrutide is a triple agonist, meaning it mimics three different hormones that promote weight loss, compared to one by Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide and two by tirzepatide. Lilly says it helps preserve more muscle mass than other weight-loss shots and also helped improve knee osteoarthritis pain and obstructive sleep apnea.

Lilly has said it would submit the drug for approval this year with the goal of getting it out to market in 2027. The jab could be the next big money-maker for Lilly, which currently sells the most lucrative drug in the world but has had an underwhelming rollout of its oral weight-loss pill, which came to market earlier this year.

Retatrutide is already quite popular among those who experiment with peptides, or unapproved injectable drugs often sold online “for research purposes only.” For gym bros trying to attain a certain physique, a drug that has shown it can melt fat while preserving muscle is enticing.

But in a market full of knock-off drugs, will retatrutide enthusiasts pay full price for the drug when it officially goes to market?

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Marvell and Flex rise on S&P 500 inclusion announcement

Chipmaker Marvell Technology and electronics manufacturer Flex are jumping 7% and 3%, respectively, in premarket trading on Monday, after S&P Dow Jones Indices announced late on Friday that the two companies are set to join the S&P 500 benchmark index.

Replacing Pool Corp and Campbell’s in the S&P 500, Marvell and Flex’s addition will be effective from June 22, per a press release from the provider, which assesses and updates the index on a quarterly basis.

Marvell has been one of the leading candidates for inclusion across the last few quarterly index rebalances. The company has ballooned into a $230 billion chip giant of late, thanks to the wider AI boom, investors chasing momentum, and, yes, Jensen Huang. Flex, which has been part of the S&P MidCap 400 index since 2024, has also grown recently, having played a part in the data center boom with its portfolio spanning across infrastructure and cooling systems.

With today’s premarket movement taken into account, MRVL has now risen almost 40% in the last week alone.

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