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Claire Yubin Oh & J. Edward Moreno

Novo Nordisk’s slide continues after CEO warns of “unprecedented pricing pressure” as outlook overshadows Q4 results

Novo Nordisk’s shares are tumbling further in premarket trading on Wednesday after CEO Mike Doustdar warned that the Danish pharma giant will face “unprecedented” price pressures in 2026, addressing the company’s annual sales forecast, which showed a decline in revenue.

“Our 2026 guidance reflects a year of unprecedented pricing pressure,” Doustdar said on a call with journalists, adding in an interview with CNBC that people should expect that US pricing “goes down before it comes back up,” as headwinds from lower US Wegovy pricing remain.

On Tuesday, NVO shares fell double digits after it forecast that sales and operating profit for 2026 will both decline by between 5% and 13% — analysts were expecting very modest growth in each.

In its 2025 annual report, released on Wednesday morning, the company detailed the disappointing guidance, citing “lower realised prices, including the MFN (‘Most Favoured Nations’) agreement in the US and the loss of exclusivity for the semaglutide molecule in certain markets in International Operations.” Novo also added that “positive impacts related to US gross-to-net sales adjustments during 2025 are not anticipated to reoccur.”

Across its actual Q4 results, things were a little rosier: sales and diluted EPS figures for Q4 2025 came in at $12.3 billion and $0.94, respectively, slightly beating analyst consensus estimates in both cases by 0.9% and 1.4% (forecasts compiled by Bloomberg).

Meanwhile, Eli Lilly reported quarterly earnings results and posted 2026 guidance on Wednesday that crushed Wall Street estimates. Indeed, though Novo was first to the GLP-1 market, Lilly is proving fierce competition, having surpassed the Danish giant’s sales by Q2 of last year. The Mounjaro maker’s earnings on Wednesday showed that the gap is only getting wider.

Just as Novo launched a new oral GLP-1 for weight loss in January — and early signs show uptake is strong — Lilly also has a weight-loss pill expected to come to market later this year. Novo is facing patent expiry for semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, starting this year in major markets like Canada, India, and China.

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Luke Kawa

Poet Technologies surges on explosion of call demand

POET Technologies is mooning amid intense options activity and little news.

Call volumes of roughly 220,000 are running well above the 20-day average of 132,000 with the stock up more than 30% at its highs of the day.

Shares of the optical communications company cratered last week after announcing that Marvell Technology canceled a purchase order citing a breach of confidentiality. That breach was most likely from a media appearance by CFO Thomas Mika the week prior.

The most active call traded is the July 17 expiry with a strike price of $9 — a contract that’s now in the money with today's advance, and expires two days after POET is expected to release its Q1 results.

The stock is among the top 15 most-discussed tickers on the r/wallstreetbets subreddit over the past 12 hours, per SwaggyStocks.

Another, more established firm in the same industry, Lumentum, is slated to report earnings after the close on Tuesday.

Matt Phillips
3h
Palantir is a cash-spewing monster, but traders seem bored by it

Cash flow for days. Fast-growing profits. An increasingly rational valuation. Where’s the fun in that?

Palantir Plunges Despite Strong Earnings Alex Karp sad face
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Max Knoblauch

Hertz climbs on announcement it’s expanding its car sales to eBay

Rental car giant Hertz is up more than 4% on Tuesday morning, following an announcement that it will list more than 8,000 vehicles for sale on eBay (soon, possibly, to be Ryan Cohen’s GameStop’s eBay).

Hertz, which operates dozens of physical car sales locations across the US, partnered with Amazon last year to sell its used vehicles on the Amazon Autos platform.

Hertz Car Sales Continues Retail Expansion with Digital Showroom on eBay

Hertz, which operates dozens of physical car sales locations across the US, partnered with Amazon last year to sell its used vehicles on the Amazon Autos platform.

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Luke Kawa

Sterling Infrastructure spikes as management hikes profit guidance by 42% on data center building boom

Sterling Infrastructure is going parabolic on Tuesday after delivering blowout Q1 results that prompted management to significantly revise up its full-year view.

Q1 sales beat estimates by nearly 40%, with adjusted EBITDA exceeding the consensus call by almost 50%.

As such, the firm boosted the midpoint of its full-year guidance for sales by 20% and its adjusted EBITDA by 42%.

The construction company’s E-Infrastructure Solutions business is on fire thanks to the data center boom, posting revenue growth of 174% with its signed backlog also up 123% versus the same quarter a year ago.

“We’re in the early innings, but the projects are extremely big, they’re coming out extremely quickly,” CEO Joseph Cutillo said on the conference call. “And we see not only this year, next year, but what our core customers and key customers are talking about starting ’28, ’29.”

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Helena Cheng

PayPal tumbles as management warns of weak 2026 trends, says turnaround plan will take “a few months” to define

PayPal reported Q1 results that were modestly ahead of analyst estimates, but shares sank after management warned of seeing trends at the “low end” of its full-year guidance.

Key numbers:

  • Adjusted earnings per share of $1.34 (compared to analyst estimates of $1.27).

  • Revenue of $8.4 billion (estimate: $8.1 billion).

Management plans to cut costs and jobs, with new CEO Enrique Lores aiming to engineer a turnaround for the payments company, whose stock was down double digits this year heading into the report.

PayPal is seeking to accelerate its adoption of AI to cut costs and generate at least $1.5 billion in savings over the next two to three years, according to a statement on Tuesday. Per Bloomberg, PayPal is targeting a workforce reduction of about 20%.

“We need to recommit to the fundamentals. That includes becoming a technology company again,” Lores said during the conference call, adding that it “will take a few months to completely define our new plan.”

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