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Jonathan Gray
Blackstone President and COO Jonathan Gray (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP)

Bumble drops after big shareholder Blackstone and founder Wolfe Herd move to sell a huge chunk of the company

Together the sales, which come after disappointing earnings report, account for more than 17% of the company’s shares outstanding.

J. Edward Moreno

Shares of dating app Bumble plunged after big shareholder Blackstone and Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd filed to sell more than 17% of the company.

Blackstone, which was listed in regulatory filings as several numerical holding companies with the title “BX Buzz” and an address “c/o the Blackstone Group,” registered to sell nearly 16.7 million shares, which would amount to about 16% of Bumble’s shares outstanding. The filings were signed by Robert Brooks, Blackstone’s senior managing director and head of private equity finance. According to the latest FactSet data, Blackstone recently owned more than 27% of the company.

Wolfe Herd, Bumble’s founder who recently returned as CEO, also filed to sell about 1.4 million shares, or $9.7 million worth, at the stock’s closing price. FactSet shows her stake was recently about 2.1 million shares.

Blackstone and Bumble didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Shares of Bumble were down 18% to $5.88 in early trading.

Blackstone sold chunks of its position for about $6.50 a share, significantly less than the $7.15 the stock closed at on Wednesday, the filings show. The dating app, which has struggled to spark sales growth, recently reported a surprise loss for the second quarter of this year.

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ChargePoint jumps as EV sales soar

Riding along with some other EV stocks, shares of ChargePoint jumped 4.1% in recent trading. The last rush to take advantage of Biden-era federal EV incentives has put a bunch of new EVs on the road, sending ChargePoint up, along with Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid.

Ford said earlier Wednesday that its EV sales hit a quarterly record, and it and other EV makers have been exploring unorthodox ways to replicate the EV tax credits for consumers through year end.

Still, ChargePoint is down over 47% for the year, and narrowly escaped NYSE delisting with a 20-1 reverse stock split back in July. And it’s not hard to see why: The company has never had a profitable quarter.

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Trump admin reportedly backs off on pharma tariffs

The Trump Administration will not be imposing tariffs on pharmaceutical companies by the deadline it had initially given them, a White House official told STAT.

Last week, President Trump announced on Truth Social that starting on October 1 there will be a 100% tariff on patented, branded pharmaceuticals “unless a Company IS BUILDING their Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plant in America." As of October 1, those tariffs have not gone into effect and its unclear when they will, according to STAT.

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GE Vernova declines after analyst downgrade of top AI energy trade

Power turbine maker GE Vernova is down midday after RBC analysts cut their rating on the stock from “outperform” (essentially a “buy”) to “sector perform” (essentially a “hold”), suggesting that long-term earnings expectations for the company might have gotten too optimistic.

RBC’s Christopher Dendrinos wrote:

“Our longer-term expectations are more conservative than consensus expectations which we think could be over appreciating the cadence of revenue growth in the power segment in 2029-2030. We believe investors are already fully valuing the company on the longer-term 2030 outlook and there could be more limited opportunity for positive rate of change in current expectations.”

Dendrinos argues that the Street’s expectations for when the river of payments will materialize from the service contracts GE sells to maintain the newly installed turbines is too soon. He wrote that it will take a much longer cycle:

“Mgmt sees an opportunity to double the installed base of baseload power over the next 10 years which should support significant rev growth and stronger margins (we estimate gas service margins over 30%).

However, the first major service cycle typically occurs ~3-4 years after installation so the benefit of service price increases and new LTSAs are unlikely to begin to benefit the income statement until later in the decade and will be a gradual increase.”

Earlier in the year, GE Vernova was a top performer as the AI data center trade boomed. It was up roughly 100% for the year in late July, making it the third-best gainer in the S&P 500 for the year.

It has stalled since then, though it remains up more than 80% in 2025.

markets

GEO Group rises on ICE contract announcement

Federal immigration and prison operator GEO Group popped after announcing late Tuesday that it has won a new contract from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to continue in its role as a vendor of electronic monitoring, case management, and supervision services under the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program.

(That’s a program that keeps track of people as they undergo the immigration review process.)

Since the election, GEO Group has been one of a number of stocks whose business — or leadership — is seen as closely tied to the Trump administration, or set to benefit from White House policy changes.

GEO Group is up 150% since President Trump was elected last November.

markets

Tempus AI shares rise following executive order promoting AI to produce solutions for pediatric cancer

Shares of AI medical diagnostics company Tempus AI have shot up over 5% today. The stock is up over 150% for the year.

Yesterday, President Trump signed an executive order to boost the use of AI to “produce meaningful solutions to pediatric, adolescent, and young adulthood cancer,” which may be fueling the stock’s rise.

Last week, the company announced FDA approval of its Tempus xR IVD device, an RNA sequencing tool that allows doctors to tailor therapies for cancer patients.

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