People shopping at one of the Target stores

Target store located in south San Francisco Bay Area

Target drops after trimming its profit outlook as demand softens

The company reported earnings on Wednesday.

Target fell in premarket trading after it reported earnings results on Wednesday: headline numbers beat Wall Street expectations, but the company slashed its full-year guidance ahead of the crucial holiday shopping season.

The retailer reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.78, beating the $1.71 analysts polled by FactSet were expecting. But it also cut its full-year guidance, now predicting full-year adjusted earnings per share to hit $8 at most, down from the $9 ceiling it had previously set.

Target reported $25.3 billion in sales, higher than the $23.3 billion the Street was penciling in. But it also reported that comparable-store sales declined by 2.7%, compared to the 2.1% decline analysts were predicting for that closely watched metric.

“Target’s digital sales are growing, but brick-and-mortar revenue accounts for about 80% of the total, making it crucial to get shoppers back into stores, where discovery and impulse purchases are key,” wrote Bloomberg Intelligence senior industry analyst Jennifer Bartashus. “Traffic declines and the loss of sales momentum in 3Q during the back-to-school season — often considered a preview for holiday demand — mean Target will need to execute well to achieve its 4Q forecast for a low-single-digit decline in sales.”

Target has been struggling to dig out of a sales slump and has been lowering prices to win shoppers back. Meanwhile, souring consumer sentiment and tariffs have been a headwind for retail as a whole. The retailer told reporters on Wednesday that it plans to spend $1 billion more next year to improve stores.

Luke Kawa1h

Brookfield launches $100 billion AI infrastructure program with Nvidia and Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund as investors and founding partners

Brookfield is launching an Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Fund with a goal of buying up to $100 billion in (as the name suggests) AI infrastructure assets “across every stage of the value chain — from energy and land to data centers and compute.”

The fund hopes to raise $10 billion in equity, and has already received $5 billion in capital commitments from the parent company, Nvidia, and the Kuwait Investment Authority (the nation’s sovereign wealth fund).

“BAIIF will prioritize investments backed by highly creditworthy counterparties and contracted cash flows,” per the press release.

The four areas of physical infrastructure the fund will focus on are:

AI Factories primarily built on NVIDIA’s DSX Vera Rubin-ready reference design,
Dedicated behind-the-meter power solutions (that is, power generation installed on-site rather than drawing from the grid),
Compute infrastructure including integrated solutions tailored for governments and leading global enterprises (read: Nvidia GPUs as part of a bundled full-stack offering provided by Brookfield), and
Strategic adjacencies and capital partnerships across the entire AI value chain (or, anything else in the AI supply chain worth being a part of).

Again, like in Tuesday’s partnership between Anthropic, Microsoft, and Nvidia, there’s a bit of circularity in the deal: Nvidia invests money that will be used to invest in projects that utilize its GPUs.

Brookfield pointed to its recent $5 billion pact with Bloom Energy, which sees the fuel cell company become the preferred onsite power provider for Brookfield’s global AI factories, as an example of a project this fund would look to back.

Tom Jones & David Crowther3h

Plug Power’s stock sinks on refinancing as company announces $375 million convertible senior notes offering

Plug Power, the hydrogen fuel supply company and part-time meme stock, was sent plummeting after-hours last night on news of a private convertible notes offering and refinancing, with the stock still down more than 15% as of 5:25 a.m. ET.

The offering comes with a provision to be upsized, and the company expects the initial sale of the notes to close on November 21, raising ~$347 million after expenses and discounts (or approximately $399 million if the initial purchasers exercise their option to purchase additional notes in full). The new notes will accrue interest at a rate of 6.75% per year and will mature in 2033, unless repurchased, redeemed, or converted earlier.

The offering will be used to clear older debts.

Per the press release, some $245.6 million of net proceeds will go toward paying off its 15% secured debentures, while the remaining $101.6 million will be combined with cash on hand to repurchase approximately $138 million worth of Plug Power’s 7.00% convertible senior notes due 2026.

The refinancing essentially swaps some debt paying 15% (and other debt paying 7% due in 2026), for some debt due 2033 with a lower interest rate. However, the deal naturally comes with the possibility of more dilution for shareholders, with the new notes convertible to equity at an initial conversion price of approximately $3.00 per share.

Plug Power Inc. Announces Private Offering of $375 Million of Convertible Senior Notes

The offering will be used to clear older debts.

Matt Phillips16h

Constellation rises on federal loan for Three Mile Island restart

Constellation Energy got a boost after the federal government said it will extend $1 billion in financing to the effort to restart the mothballed Three Mile Island nuclear plant, with shares in the company up 3% as of 4:45 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

Constellation Energy, which owns the largest fleet of nuclear power plants in the US, announced in September 2024 that it planned to restart a reactor at the site as part of a 20-year deal to supply power to Microsoft’s AI data center division.

The loan will go to help cover some $1.6 billion in costs associated with restarting a reactor that closed in 2019 after being deemed too costly to run.

In March 1979, Three Mile Island was the site of the nation’s worst-ever commercial nuclear accident when its Unit 2 reactor — separate from the unit Constellation plans to restart — suffered a partial core meltdown.

U.S. Backs $1 Billion Loan to Restart the Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant

The loan will go to help cover some $1.6 billion in costs associated with restarting a reactor that closed in 2019 after being deemed too costly to run.

Tasha Matsumoto

17h

Stocks slide as investors await Nvidia earnings to assess the AI trade

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 both fell as tech lagged.