Stocks rally as traders lock in bets on lower rates

November’s reading of the consumer-price index matched Wall Street’s expectations, helping spark a stock-market rally.

The SPDR S&P 500 Trust and Invesco QQQ Trust are on the rise in the premarket, with the iShares Russell 2000 ETF outperforming and gaining almost 1% following this release.

The lack of any upside surprise in inflation was enough to fortify bets that the Federal Reserve will deliver another rate cut at next Wednesday’s meeting. The implied odds of a 25-basis point reduction in its policy rate rose from 86% to over 99% after the data on Tuesday.

Small caps tend to have more floating-rate debt than their larger peers, and so benefit disproportionately from rate cuts.

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J. Edward Moreno11h

Molina implodes after earnings miss, gloomy guidance

Molina Healthcare tanked after it reported earnings results that missed Wall Street expectations and gave disappointing full-year guidance.

For the last three months of 2025, Molina reported:

An adjusted loss per share of $2.75, compared to the $0.34 earnings per share analysts polled by FactSet were expecting. The company said about $2 per share of its earnings miss was due to “retroactive premium adjustments attributable to the Company’s Medicaid business in California and ongoing medical cost pressure in Medicare and Marketplace.”
Revenue of $11.3 billion, compared to the $10.8 billion the Street was penciling in.
A medical cost ratio of 94.6%, higher than the 93.1% analysts expected.

For the full year in 2026, Molina expects:

Adjusted earnings per share of at least $5.00, compared to the $13.66 analysts had forecast. Molina said its guidance takes into account ongoing losses in its traditional Medicare Advantage Part D business, which it now plans to exit in 2027.
Revenues of about $42.2 billion, compared to the $46.6 billion analysts had penciled in.
Its medical cost ratio to sit at 92.6%, while analysts had expected 91.4%.

Health insurers have been under pressure for the past year amid rising health costs. Molina, one of the largest providers of ACA Marketplace plans, has taken a hit as tax credits for the program lapsed in January.

Molina’s report also dragged down competitors, including Centene, which is also a major provider of ACA plans and reports earnings Friday morning.

Bloom Energy surges after topping expectations for sales, EPS

Here’s how the print looked at first glance.

Matt Phillips11h

Max Knoblauch11h

Roblox surges as it guides for stronger-than-expected full-year bookings, touts AI vision

Kid-centric gaming platform Roblox reported its fourth-quarter results after the market closed on Thursday. Its shares surged more than 20% in after-hours trading.

For the full year ahead, Roblox guided for bookings of between $8.28 billion and $8.55 billion, which would represent annual growth of 22% to 26%. That’s well ahead of Wall Street’s estimates: analysts polled by FactSet expected $8.03 billion.

Roblox forecasts Q1 bookings to land between $1.69 billion and $1.74 billion, compared to the $1.7 billion Wall Street consensus estimate.

An average of 144 million daily users logged on to Roblox in its fourth quarter, beating estimates of 138 million and up 69% from last year. The platform paid out $1.5 billion to creators last year, up from $922 million in 2024.

Roblox engagement surged in 2025, a year marred by several legal issues surrounding child safety on the platform. Late last year, analysts began to warn that some of its most popular titles were past their peak.

Recently, shares of the company have dropped on investor fears of Google’s Project Genie AI tool, which generates playable worlds. As of Thursday’s close, Roblox had shed more than $10 billion in market cap since Project Genie launched. On Wednesday, Roblox appeared to answer Genie’s release with the open beta launch of its own “4D” generative-AI tool. Roblox’s tool lets users generate objects made up of multiple working parts (e.g., a drivable car with spinning wheels) as opposed to static 3D objects.

In its letter to shareholders, Roblox said it was “innovating aggressively in AI to accelerate the creation of content, improve the safety of our platform, and fuel ongoing user engagement, discovery and monetization improvements.”

Jon Keegan

12h

Amazon slides as it misses on Q4 earnings, gives downbeat profit guidance

The tech giant also forecast it would spend $200 billion on capex in 2026.

New York Times DealBook Summit Held In New York City

Tasha Matsumoto

12h

Stocks erase 2026 gains as tech and crypto continue to slide; volatility rises

Investors continued to shun risk amid rising volatility.

GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN - DECEMBER 07: Caleb Williams #18 of the Chicago Bears walks off the field after a loss to the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field on December 07, 2025 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. (Photo by John Fisher/Getty Images)

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