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Southwest Airlines At Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport
(Kevin Carter/Getty Images)

Southwest’s first full quarter charging for checked bags drives it to record Q3 revenue

Southwest became the third major airline to report its third-quarter earnings when it dropped its results after the bell Wednesday.

Max Knoblauch

Southwest’s controversial revenue-boosting moves like charging for checked bags appear to be working. Shares of the Dallas-based carrier climbed more than 4% in after-hours trading following the release of its third-quarter earnings on Wednesday.

Southwest reported earnings of $0.11 per share, beating Wall Street estimates of a loss of $0.04 per share. Its operating revenue came in at $6.95 billion, better than analyst estimates of $6.92 billion and up about 1% from last year.

That revenue figure was boosted by Southwest’s bag fees, which the company introduced in the final month of its second quarter. On its second-quarter earnings call in July, Southwest said it expects the new fees to add $350 million in revenue this year, or $1 billion annualized.

According to Southwest, demand improved in July and held strong throughout the quarter. Corporate travel also improved from Q2.

Looking ahead, Southwest said it expects revenue per available seat mile to rise between 1% and 3% in the fourth quarter compared to last year. The carrier said it expects capacity to grow 6% in the current quarter. Last week, airline stocks fell following comments from a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst that certain airlines are growing capacity too fast for the current state of the economy.

Southwest maintained its forecast for full-year earnings before interest and taxes of between $600 million and $800 million. Prior to that forecast, the airline had guided for $1.7 billion.

Southwest isn’t out of revenue-driving moves. Larger rivals Delta Air Lines and United Airlines reported strong growth in premium tickets (extra legroom, priority boarding, etc.) in Q3. Southwest, which has spent much of this year abandoning its successful no-frills strategy, is playing catch-up. Its first plane redesigned for premium travel offerings had its inaugural flight last week. In late January, Southwest will roll out assigned seating and new fare tiers.

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Luke Kawa

Applied Digital, WeRide, and Recursion Pharmaceuticals dip as Nvidia exits positions

Three stocks took a dip in after hours trading on Tuesday after Nvidia’s 13F filing showed the chip designer sold its stake over the final three months of 2025:

  • Applied Digital, a data center operator in which Nvidia was the seventh-largest holder as of the end of Q3.

    • That being said, Nvidia still has some quasi-direct Applied Digital exposure through its still-substantial CoreWeave position. The neocloud acquired warrants in APLD last June.

  • WeRide, the Chinese self-driving firm.

  • Recursion Pharmaceuticals, which engages in AI-driven drug development.

Nvidia also sold its holdings of Arm Holdings, but that was offset by some good news: part of Nvidia’s expanded pact with Meta will see Arm-based CPUs assume a more prominent role in data center environments, which may help boost its volumes and selling prices.

Nvidia added positions in Nokia, Intel, and Synopsys in Q4, all of which had been previously announced via press releases. Its Coreweave and Nebius positions were unchanged relative to Q3.

Luke Kawa
6h
Nvidia enhances partnership with social media giant Meta to deploy “millions” of its GPUs

Winners: Nvidia, ARM. Losers: AMD, Broadcom, Intel, Arista.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang interviews Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the 2024 SIGGRAPH conference in Denver, CO on July 29, 2024.
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Luke Kawa

Sandisk drops after Western Digital confirms plan to unload $3 billion in stock

Western Digital is cashing in more of its Sandisk position.

The hard drive seller is exchanging more than $3 billion in Sandisk shares as part of a debt-for-equity swap.

The two companies were once one, but Western Digital spun off a little more than 80% of its flash drive business in February 2025, and already exchanged the lion’s share of what remained in a separate debt-for-equity swap in June.

This move was very, very well telegraphed by Western Digital, which recently confirmed plans to monetize its Sandisk position before the one-year anniversary of that split (February 21). And Sandisk’s press release makes clear that the company is not the one selling more stock or making any money off of this.

That being said, being a high-flying stock that has a Bloomberg headline with “secondary offering” in it could, in theory, spark some turbulence.

Shares of Sandisk have indeed extended the day’s losses to more than 8% in the after-hours session before paring some of that decline.

Western Digital announces additional $4 billion in share buybacks, with management poised to unload its remaining stake in Sandisk

The two companies were once one, but Western Digital spun off a little more than 80% of its flash drive business in February 2025, and already exchanged the lion’s share of what remained in a separate debt-for-equity swap in June.

This move was very, very well telegraphed by Western Digital, which recently confirmed plans to monetize its Sandisk position before the one-year anniversary of that split (February 21). And Sandisk’s press release makes clear that the company is not the one selling more stock or making any money off of this.

That being said, being a high-flying stock that has a Bloomberg headline with “secondary offering” in it could, in theory, spark some turbulence.

Shares of Sandisk have indeed extended the day’s losses to more than 8% in the after-hours session before paring some of that decline.

markets
Luke Kawa

Cadence Design Systems jumps after Q4 earnings, 2026 profit outlook, and sales backlog exceed estimates

Cadence Design Systems jumped in after-hours trading on Tuesday, briefly erasing the day’s big losses, after posting better-than-expected Q4 earnings, a big pipeline of future business, and a solid profit outlook for 2026.

For Q4, the electronic design automation company reported:

  • Sales of $1.44 billion (estimate: $1.42 billion).

  • Adjusted earnings per share of $1.99 (estimate: $1.91).

  • Remaining performance obligations (RPO) of $7.8 billion (estimate: $7.25 billion).

Management said that 2026 adjusted earnings per share would range between $8.05 and $8.15, above the consensus call for $8.03.

In recent weeks, investors have worried that Cadence’s software business, which is used by chip designers, could suffer competitive pressure from AI tools. At the very least, that RPO figure says there’s billions of dollars standing between Cadence and any more disrupted future.

Luke Kawa
Final Boss
10h
Infleqtion CEO Matt Kinsella on how the newly public quantum computing company is “following in the footsteps of Nvidia”

Infleqtion shares gained double digits in their opening session, while peers sold off.

US-AI-SCIENCE-NVIDIA

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