Palantir slips after Q1 earnings

ASML shares are up over 4% in European trading on Wednesday after the Dutch semiconductor equipment maker reported €5.4 billion ($6.3 billion) in bookings in the third quarter, roughly ~10% ahead of the €4.9 billion expected by analysts (Bloomberg consensus estimates).

After striking a much more cautious tone in July, the company’s strong outlook for the remaining year helped reassure investors, despite realized revenues actually coming in a touch light relative to expectations in the quarter.

In Q3, the company has “seen continued positive momentum around investments in AI, and have also seen this extending to more customers,” said ASML President and CEO Christophe Fouquet in the press release. He added that “We do not expect 2026 total net sales to be below 2025.”

Europe’s largest company now expects fourth-quarter sales between €9.2 billion and €9.8 billion, with a gross margin of 51% to 53%, finishing the full year with 15% growth in total net sales. The lithography systems maker is also now targeting €60 billion of revenue in 2030 from €28.3 billion last year.

The only significant blemish in the report was China. Responsible for ~42% of its net system sales this quarter, revenue from China will “decline significantly compared to our very strong business there in 2024 and 2025,” Fouquet said.

ASML has seen its stock rally nearly 30% this year as the dominant supplier of extreme ultraviolet lithography machines needed to produce sophisticated chips.

Papa John’s is up more than 10% in premarket trading on Wednesday, following reports that Apollo Global Management submitted a renewed bid last week to take the chain private at $64 per share.

Before Apollo’s fresh offer was first reported by StreetInsider on Monday and confirmed by sources cited by Reuters yesterday, the stock was hovering at just under $42 per share.

Still, “The situation is fluid and no deal is guaranteed,” according to people familiar with the matter, Reuters reported.

Apollo’s latest bid is a jump from the joint offer it reportedly made with Irth Capital Management for the pizza chain in June, then said to be worth a little above $60 per share. If a deal materializes, Papa John’s would be the latest restaurant chain to be picked up by a private equity firm, following in the footsteps of Subway, Dave’s Hot Chicken, and Jersey Mike’s.

Multiple other activists are still looking to take over Papa John’s, per Reuters’ sources.

Grindr said its largest shareholders have “engaged financial and legal advisers” to explore the possibility of taking the company private, according to a Tuesday regulatory filing.

The filing confirms a Monday report from Semafor and adds a tiny bit of clarity: the price for a take-private deal hasn’t yet been determined, the filing said, but it would be no less than $15 a share. Shares of the company, which had surged after the Monday report, pulled back some in Tuesday afternoon trading, to around $12.50.

James Lu and Raymond Zage, the shareholders who together own more than 60% of the gay dating app, have received a preliminary and conditional debt financing proposal of as much as $1 billion, per the filing.

While Grindr has generally performed better than its peers, it is still down about 30% for the year.

The move is being discussed, Semafor reported, as Zage and Lu had pledged nearly all of their Grindr stock for personal loans. Their lender seized some shares and sold them last week after the loans became undercollateralized following the stock’s recent slide.