Umphrey's McGee In Concert At Red Rocks Amphitheatre

Fans watch the band Umphrey’s McGee perform at Red Rocks (Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)

Live Nation reports earnings, sales miss

No one was clapping for these results.

11/4/25 4:42PM

Live Nation slipped in after-hours trading as it reported earnings results that missed Wall Street expectations.

The company reported earnings per share of $0.73, significantly less than the $1.32 analysts polled by FactSet were expecting. Its profits were dented by significantly higher income tax expenses in the latest quarter, which were more than triple from the quarter a year earlier.

It also reported $8.5 billion in revenue, slightly lower than the $8.6 billion the Street was pricing in. The company’s third quarter reflects the summer concert season.

Live Nation fell by more than 4% in after-hours trading. It’s up more than 16% since the start of the year, despite an at times concerning picture of consumer sentiment.

Tasha Matsumoto

Stocks rise for the third-consecutive session, erasing December losses

Santa baby, just slip a rally under the tree...

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - DECEMBER 23: Benny the Bull, the Chicago Bulls mascot, dresses as Santa Claus in the game against the Milwaukee Bucks during the second half at the United Center on December 23, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois.

Matt Phillips8h

‘Golden age of profit margins’ seen in 2026

Wall Street tends to be a pretty optimistic place. But on one measure, market watchers are the most optimistic on record.

FactSet data shows the consensus estimate for S&P 500 net profit margins in calendar year 2026 calls for the gauge to climb to 13.9% in 2026.

But if borne out by events next year “it will mark the highest (annual) net profit margin reported by the index since FactSet began tracking this metric in 2008,” wrote John Butters, senior earnings analyst at the financial data company.

A recent story from Barron’s also commented on the expectations for especially fat profit margins embedded into forecasts for next year.

“We are in the golden age of margins,” RBC’s Capital Markets’ head of US equity strategy, Lori Calvasina, told the magazine.

That’s good news for investors looking forward to next year. But the follow up question, of course, is where the growth in profitability is expected to come from. The answer, as you might have guessed, is tech. Though the precise mechanisms by which those profits land in the coffers of the giant tech firms remains something of a mystery. Barron’s doesn’t get into the details, saying “call it benefits from AI, pricing power, or whatever.”

That doesn’t exactly sound like money in the bank. But even die-hard haters of AI have to acknowledge that betting against the ability of giant tech companies to generate massive profit growth has been a bad trade for the last couple decades.

The Stock Market Needs to Focus on Lucky 13

A recent story from Barron’s also commented on the expectations for especially fat profit margins embedded into forecasts for next year.

“We are in the golden age of margins,” RBC’s Capital Markets’ head of US equity strategy, Lori Calvasina, told the magazine.

Luke Kawa9h

Opendoor rises after CEO Kaz Nejatian touts an explosion in its home-buying footprint

Opendoor Technologies gained in early trading after CEO Kaz Nejatian touted an explosion in the company’s home-buying footprint.

In a message on X, the former Shopify COO posted two maps: one of which depicts a fairly limited area in which the online real estate company would buy or sell homes, and the second of which suggests that has now expanded to include the entire lower 48:

Big launch week at @Opendoor.

ZIP codes where @Opendoor buys homes. pic.twitter.com/UplMd4sXJE
— Kaz Nejatian (@CanadaKaz) December 22, 2025

In a follow-up tweet, Nejatian attributed the gains to AI, writing, “First pic took 10 *years* of work without AI. Second pic took 10 *weeks* of work with AI.”

On his first earnings call as CEO, Nejatian said the company had adopted a “default to AI approach.”

One of his first pledges was to launch Opendoor everywhere in the lower 48.

Max Knoblauch9h

Hertz surges on bullish options activity

As millions begrudgingly make their way to the rental car counter amid the winter holidays, investors are pouring into calls and sending Hertz stock soaring.

As of 10:51 a.m. eastern, Hertz had seen 17,861 calls traded. That’s already significantly ahead of the 20-day average volume of 12,956. Hertz shares are up more than 12%.

Seemingly juicing the rally was a post on X that read “car rental companies could end up being the picks and shovels of autonomy” that was reposted by billionaire Bill Ackman, whose hedge fund is one of Hertz’s largest shareholders.

If Hertz’s price action holds, the move will mark its ninth-best trading day of 2025.

Luke Kawa10h

POET Technologies jumps on elevated call activity

Optical communications company POET Technologies is up double digits in early trading on Monday as this potential supporting player in the AI boom gets a bid from the options market.

Just an hour after the opening bell sounded, call volumes are already running well above their five-session average for a full day.

The stock became a retail favorite in early Q4 right before many speculative trades began to retreat, with record call volumes of nearly 600,000 on October 7. The last big bump in options activity came on December 3, the session after Marvell’s acquisition of Celestial AI, a customer of POET, offered some validation for its technology as a data center solution.