Build-A-Bear Workshop Store At Mall of America

(Adam Bettcher/Getty Images)

Build-A-Bear stitches up its fourth straight year of record sales as fans cash in on cuddly creatures

The DIY toy biz plans to open at least 50 new locations this year.

3/13/25 3:17PM

Build-A-Bear shares surged as much as 11% on Thursday before paring back gains after the DIY stuffed-toy company topped Q4 expectations, delivering its fourth consecutive year of record revenue.

Build-A-Bear net earnings per share for the quarter hit $1.62, beating FactSet estimates of $1.51. Revenue inched up to $150.4 million, topping Wall Street’s forecast of $147.7 million. Excluding an extra week of operations, revenue climbed 5.7%, while net income landed at $21.7 million — also above expectations. Annual revenue came in at a record-breaking $496 million.

Build-A-Bear isn’t just for kids anymore. The brand has expanded beyond its younger audience, luring millennials and Gen Z with collaborations ranging from Swarovski to Harry Potter — not to mention its 18-plus After Dark collection. Today, about 40% of its customers are teens and adults. The company is also in expansion mode. Last year, it added 64 net new retail units and grew its footprint to over 25 countries.

This year, Build-A-Bear plans to open at least 50 new experience-based locations globally. Despite an expected $10 million hit from tariffs, the company is still aiming for a fifth consecutive year of record revenue. The stock is up 41% over the past year.

Max Knoblauch4h

Gaming stocks plunge following release of Google’s AI tool that can create playable, copyrighted worlds

Shares of major gaming companies are plunging on Friday as investors get a deeper look at the capabilities of Google’s new generative-AI prototype, Project Genie.

The tool allows users to “create and explore infinitely diverse worlds” with a text or image prompt. Users have already exposed its ability to realistically recreate knockoffs of copyrighted games from Nintendo and other gaming companies.

As users experiment with recreations of game worlds like Take-Two’s “Grand Theft Auto 6,” shares of major gaming companies are sinking. Unity Software, the maker of the popular Unity game engine, is down over 25%, while gaming platform Roblox is down about 9%.

D-Wave Quantum CEO on what’s next after the most eventful month in the company’s history

“If 2025 was the international year of quantum, 2026 is the international year of D-Wave Quantum,” said CEO Dr. Alan Baratz.

Luke Kawa4h

Matt Phillips6h

SoFi bests Wall Street’s Q4 expectations, shares rise

SoFi Technologies reported better-than-expected Q4 sales and earnings-per-share numbers Friday before market open, sending the shares higher in the premarket.

The online lender reported:

Adjusted Q4 earnings per share of $0.13 vs. the $0.12 consensus estimate collected by FactSet.
Adjusted revenue of $1.01 billion in Q4 vs. the Wall Street forecast for $977.4 million.
Q1 2026 adjusted net revenue guidance of approximately $1.04 billion vs. the $1.04 billion consensus expectation, according to FactSet.

SoFi shares rallied roughly 70% last year, as the company’s growing menu of financial products — including trading, wealth management, mortgages, credit cards, and cryptocurrency trading — showed signs of gaining traction beyond its traditional base of student borrowers. But the stock has stumbled in early 2026, falling nearly 7% in January through Thursday’s close, though most of that slump seems to have been reversed this morning.

Matt Phillips6h

Exxon Mobil beats Q4 earnings bogeys, despite softer chemical results

Exxon slid in early trading Friday despite reporting better-than-expected Q4 numbers.

The largest US energy company by revenue reported:

Q4 revenue of $82.31 billion vs. analysts’ $80.63 billion consensus expectation, per FactSet.
Adjusted earnings per share of $1.71 vs. the $1.70 analysts predicted, according to FactSet.
Global production of 4.99 million oil-equivalent barrels per day vs. a 4.84 million expectation on Wall Street.

Analysts at RBC Capital spotlighted weaker margins in its chemical division, which is one factor that could be weighing on sentiment. Writing about the division’s earnings, they noted:

“Chemicals products results were particularly weak (-$11m vs consensus +$271m). Notably, this is the first negative result for XOM’s chemicals product division since 4Q19, and highlights the severity of the chemicals downturn the industry is facing.”

Low oil prices have dogged sales and profits at oil giants like Exxon over the last year.

But the recent surge in tensions between the US and oil-rich nations like Venezuela and Iran have contributed to rising oil prices in early 2026, with benchmark US crude oil up roughly 12% since the start of the year.

This morning’s immediate reaction might just be traders taking some of the air out of the stock — Exxon was up 17% for the year through Thursday’s close, compared to a 1.8% gain for the S&P 500.

Claire Yubin Oh7h

Deckers soars on record revenue thanks to Hoka and Ugg demand

Deckers had a lot to celebrate over the holiday period, with the footwear company’s shares up more than 14% as of 6:45 a.m. ET on Friday, after the Hoka and Ugg maker posted record revenue for the quarter ended December 31, 2025. The company notched:

Record revenue of $1.96 billion, ahead of the $1.87 billion forecast by analysts (Bloomberg consensus).
Adjusted earnings per share of $3.33, a whopping 21% higher than the $2.76 predicted by analysts.

Looking ahead, the company also hiked its guidance for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2026, to $5.4 billion to $5.425 billion, up from the $5.35 billion expected in the quarter before.

Deckers’ record revenue and EPS figures were “driven by the significant global demand for UGG and HOKA,” CEO Stefano Caroti said in a press release. Both brands saw “high levels of full-price selling” that resulted in a strong gross margin of 59.8%. Between the two brands, winter favorite Ugg maintained the upper hand with $1.3 billion in revenue, but Hoka saw a whopping 18.5% sales uptick (versus Ugg’s 5%) to $629 million last quarter.

Deckers also shared that the company has now repurchased stock worth $813.5 million in the last nine months, and that it expects its share repurchases to exceed $1 billion for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2026.