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Frozen french fries taste test for feature in Food.
Frozen french fries photographed for Food in Washington, DC.

Lamb Weston soars on big earnings beat and cost-cutting plans

The french fry maker said its turnaround plan will cook up hundreds of millions of savings in the coming years.

Nia Warfield

Lamb Weston shares jumped 17% Wednesday after the frozen potato producer topped Q4 expectations and doubled down on its cost-cutting plan.

Diluted earnings per share came in at $0.85. Excluding one-time items, adjusted EPS were $0.87, well above the $0.63 analysts expected. Meanwhile, revenue hit $1.68 billion, beating Wall Street’s forecast of $1.59 billion.

Lamb Weston is one of the world’s largest frozen potato processors. The quarter got a boost from an 8% jump in volume thanks to new contract wins, though that was partly weighed down by slower global restaurant traffic.

As the company faces some operational pressure, it’s working to reset costs and streamline the business. Lamb Weston also outlined additional cost cutting, expecting to rack up at least $250 million of savings by the end of fiscal 2028.

In a note Wednesday, Barclays analysts said the company’s better-than-expected volume growth helps restore credibility, while its clearer cost-cutting targets offer “incremental visibility” into a turnaround. The firm has an overweight or “buy” rating on the stock with a $61 price target, about 5% above current trading levels.

Looking ahead, Lamb Weston expects a stronger second half of the year, with full-year net sales projected between $6.35 billion and $6.55 billion — largely in line with consensus estimates of $6.40 billion.

Lamb Weston shares are still down about 13% year to date.

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Tech drags down stocks; gold and silver plummet

Gold and silver sank amid Trump’s plans to nominate reputed inflation hawk Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair.

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Gold and silver plunge, suffering their worst losses since the 1980s

Gold and silver suffered their worst losses in decades on Friday, with the iShares Silver Trust falling more than 30% at one point during afternoon trading before recovering slightly.

After recently crossing $5,000 per ounce for the first time, gold’s dip was relatively muted compared to silver’s rout, but nevertheless eye-watering for a traditional safe haven asset. At one point, gold’s intraday dip exceeded 10%, its worst intraday drop since the 1980s and surpassing its declines seen during the 2008 financial crisis, per Bloomberg.

Silver’s drop was its worst in percentage terms since 1980.

Gold, and particularly silver, have been pushed higher recently by a storm of retail trader enthusiasm for the metals, as well as more traditional drivers of precious metals such as geopolitical risks and concerns over a fall in the dollar’s value due to trade wars and possibly waning central bank independence.

Leveraged ETFs that hold gold and silver futures have become increasingly popular trading vehicles amid the parabolic moves in precious metals prices, and likely contributed to the magnitude of the unwind today.

Case in point: look at silver futures for delivery in March. That’s the dominant contract held by the ProShares Ultra Silver ETF, which offers exposure to 2x the daily move in the shiny metal. Volumes exploded (and the contract rebounded modestly) right around 1:25 p.m. ET, which is when silver futures settled and around the time the ETF performed its daily rebalancing (which in this case, involved massive selling).

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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%.

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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.

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