Consumer expectations for stock gains collapse

Universal Music Group ADRs rose 11% in premarket trading on Tuesday after Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital offered a deal to combine the world's largest music company with Pershing Square SPARC Holdings, with the resulting new company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

The proposed transaction purportedly values UMG at a 78% premium to its last closing price, with shareholders receiving €5.05 per share in cash, plus 0.77 shares of the new company for each share of Universal Music held, per Pershing Square’s statement released on Tuesday. Together, the offer estimates UMG to be worth €30.40 per share, or €50 billion ($64 billion) as a whole.

Proposing a corporate shakeup for the record label, Ackman said, “UMG's stock price has languished due to a combination of issues that are unrelated to the performance of its music business and importantly, all of them can be addressed with this transaction.” According to Pershing Square, those issues include an underutilization of UMG’s balance sheet, uncertainty over what the Bolloré group will do with their 18% stake in the company, and a delay in the US-listing of the business. UMG’s shares have slumped more than 30% in the last six months before this morning’s jump.

Shares of Broadcom rose more than 3% in postmarket trading on Monday after its most important customer doubled down on the custom chip specialist’s ability to produce its most valuable commodity.

In a filing, Broadcom said that it entered into a long-term agreement with Google to supply future generations of TPUs (custom AI accelerator chips) as well as a supply assurance agreement for networking and other equipment “through up to 2031.”

Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon indicated that Broadcom’s investor relations team told him that Google’s long-term agreement “has revenue commitments that go along with it through the timeline.”

Gemini 3 launched to rave reviews in November. The model was trained on TPUs co-developed by Broadcom and Google.

The same Monday filing showed that Broadcom, Google, and Anthropic expanded a partnership that will see the Claude developer access 3.5 gigawatts of AI compute capacity beginning in 2027, powered by the TPUs co-designed by the custom chip specialist and the search giant.

Bernstein’s Rasgon added that Broadcom’s team suggested these 3.5 gigawatts are “only part of a larger partnership over time.” He thinks Broadcom’s fiscal year 2027 guidance for AI revenues of $100 billion “is looking increasingly light” thanks to this news.

For what it’s worth, the enhanced pact with Anthropic hinges upon the firm’s ability to afford AI compute. But based on the insane trajectory of its run-rate revenue that may not be a big hurdle to clear.

“Broadcom’s expanded agreements with Google and Anthropic add rare multi-year visibility, reinforcing a $40-$50 billion AI revenue opportunity tied to Anthropic’s 3.5 gigawatt deployment starting in 2027, while building on the previously disclosed 1GW ($10 billion) starting in 2H,” wrote Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Kunjan Sobhani and Oscar Hernandez Tejada.

Health insurance stocks are surging after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said it plans to boost Medicare Advantage and Part D payments by 2.48% in calendar year 2027.

The likes of CVS, Humana, UnitedHealth, Molina Healthcare, Oscar Health, and Elevance Health are gaining in postmarket trading.

Wall Street analysts had anticipated that rates for 2027 would go up between roughly 1% and 1.5%.

These stocks had gotten crushed in late January when the Trump administration proposed relatively flat federal payment rates.

Insurance companies that provide government-sponsored plans, like Medicare Advantage, faced headwinds from higher-than-expected costs in 2025.