Olive Garden parent company Darden rises on cheery earnings report

Darden Restaurants, the parent company of Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse, rose 5% in premarket trading after it reported sales and profit that beat Wall Street estimates.

The company reported adjusted earnings per share of $2.98, topping the $2.95 analysts polled by FactSet expected. It also reported sales of $3.27 billion, compared to the $3.26 billion analysts were penciling in.

Darden has been able to grow its sales even amid fears of consumer pullback. It also revamped its portfolio in recent years, selling Red Lobster and acquiring Chuy’s Tex Mex restaurants.

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Helena Cheng3h

SoftBank rallies on OpenAI and SB Energy IPO plans; its Japanese-traded stock notches best day since 2000

SoftBank shares skyrocketed in Tokyo trading, notching their biggest daily gain since 2000, boosted by news about planned IPOs at OpenAI, in which SoftBank has a sizable stake, and SoftBank’s own SB Energy unit. ADRs of SoftBank traded in the US rallied, too.

OpenAI is accelerating the timeline to its public debut, preparing to confidentially file its IPO prospectus with regulators as early as Friday, according to The Wall Street Journal. That could set the stage for a highly anticipated public listing as early as September.

SoftBank has systematically expanded its financial exposure to OpenAI, securing a highly valuable stake in the company. As of the fiscal year-end, SoftBank’s cumulative investment in OpenAI totaled $34.6 billion, with a fair value of $79.6 billion, and cumulative investment gains totaled $45 billion, according to a SoftBank filing.

For SoftBank, a successful public debut is critical to demonstrating that OpenAI can protect its market position amid intense industry pressure. Investors have grown increasingly anxious that OpenAI is losing ground to competitors like Anthropic, which is currently in talks for a funding round that could push its own valuation past that of OpenAI.

Adding to the upward momentum, SB Energy, the digital infrastructure and clean energy development firm co-owned by SoftBank and Ares Management, confirmed its own confidential draft registration filing for a major US public listing.

This multipronged IPO pipeline has boosted investors’ confidence in billionaire founder Masayoshi Son’s high-conviction AI thesis, showcasing a road map for SoftBank to transition its paper gains into potential liquidity. SoftBank’s stock is up 37% so far this year.

Luke Kawa

Maybe we should all agree to not talk about Nvidia’s stock after earnings

It’s probably making people dumber.

Max Knoblauch5h

Nio posts better-than-expected first-quarter earnings and forecasts strong Q2 sales

Chinese EV maker Nio posted Q1 results before markets opened on Thursday, reporting earnings that beat expectations and strong sales guidance for the second quarter. Shares of the company climbed more than 4% in premarket trading.

For the first quarter, Nio reported:

Adjusted earnings of $0.00 per share, compared to the $0.05 loss per share that Wall Street analysts polled by FactSet had expected.
$3.7 billion in revenue, compared to the $3.74 billion consensus estimate.
83,465 vehicle deliveries, slightly exceeding its own forecast of between 80,000 and 83,000.

For Q2, Nio guided for deliveries of between 110,000 and 115,000, compared to estimates of 113,807. The company expects second-quarter revenues to come in between $4.75 billion and $4.99 billion, while analysts are forecasting $4.6 billion.

The Chinese auto industry has seen a surge in exports so far this year, as companies make efforts to combat declining domestic sales. Nio, which is still relatively new to overseas operations, has plans to ship “several thousand” EVs overseas this year.

J. Edward Moreno

Walmart gives disappointing Q2 guidance, warns about stress among low-income consumers

The retailer reported earnings before the bell on Thursday.

Claire Yubin Oh & David Crowther & Luke Kawa5h

Quantum stocks soar after Trump administration awards $2 billion in grants, in deals that include government equity stakes

Quantum computing stocks are soaring in early trading on Thursday after the Trump administration signed a number of letters of intent (LOIs) to award a total of $2 billion in grants to nine quantum companies, in deals that also include equity stakes. In press releases published by IBM, GlobalFoundries, D-Wave Quantum, Infleqtion, and Rigetti, LOIs have been signed with the US Department of Commerce’s CHIPS Research and Development Office.

First reported by The Wall Street Journal, the following companies are part of the overall package, with respective amounts of funding reported:

IBM, receiving $1 billion of the reported grant.
GlobalFoundries, $375 million.
D-Wave Quantum, Rigetti Computing, Infleqtion, Atom Computing, PsiQuantum, and Quantiniuum, all winning $100 million each.
Diraq, $38 million.

For IBM, the largest recipient, the funds will be used to “build an American quantum chip foundry,” supporting the research and development efforts of a new IBM company: Anderon, set to be “America’s first pure-play quantum foundry,” according to IBM, which will match the federal funding dollar for dollar, plowing $1 billion into Anderon.

The agreements, which will be funded under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, will be made in exchange for the government taking an unspecified minority equity stake in each of the quantum companies — an unusual federal move that has become common under President Trump, with investments in the rare earth space and chips (most notably Intel).

The process of reaching these deals with the government included “a very rigorous technical evaluation over many, many months,” Infleqtion CEO Matthew Kinsella told Sherwood News. “Every quantum company I have spoken with throughout the supply chain applied and put in a proposal for this CHIPS Act money. So I view this as the US government having done a very, very broad overview of the quantum industry and selected the partners that they believe can execute.”

Rumors and reports of potential government support buoyed quantum computing stocks during September and October of last year, contributing to frenzied, options-fueled gains for many of its most well-known constituents.

Other quantum names not booking government deals today are also ticking up in sympathy, including pure-play IonQ, Quantum Computing, Arqit Quantum, and Honeywell (which backs Quantinuum), following the administration’s show of confidence in the nascent technology. The government is also reportedly working on an executive order focused on the quantum industry, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

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