Markets
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Nia Warfield

Walmart falls after missing quarterly earnings, raising full-year sales guidance

Walmart shares fell in early Thursday trading after the retail giant missed quarterly earnings expectations for the first time in three years.

The company reported second-quarter adjusted earnings per share of $0.68, below analysts’ predicted $0.73. Sales came in above expectations at $177.4 billion, topping analyst forecasts of $175.9 billion, per FactSet.

Walmart raised its full-year sales growth guidance to a range of 3.75% to 4.75%, up from its previous range of 3.0% to 4.0% growth. Management also nudged the outlook for full-year adjusted earnings per share up by 2 cents at each end to a range of $2.52 to $2.62. The company has said that it intends to use its massive supply chain, dominant market position, and logistical expertise to keep prices low despite newly added tariffs putting upward pressure on costs.

Walmart’s stock was up 14% year to date prior to the earnings release.

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Tasha Matsumoto
2h
Stocks rise for the fourth-consecutive session as tech rally leads gains

While tech was the best-performing sector ETF, the rally was broad-based, with all sector ETFs rising higher except for health care.

This picture shows a turkey standing next to cows in a field in Douville-en-Auge, northwestern France, on December 29, 2018.
markets
Luke Kawa

Beyond Meat jumps amid spike in call activity

Shares of Beyond Meat are soaring on Wednesday amid heavy call activity and little news.

Over 200,000 call options have changed hands as of 11 a.m. ET, already above the 20-day average of 194,098 for a full session. Its put/call ratio of close to 0.1 is the lowest in months.

The three most traded options contracts are calls that expire this Friday with strike prices of $1 and $1.50, as well as calls that expire next Friday with a strike price of $1.

Those remain out-of-the-money call options: after its meme moment drove shares to $7.69 on October 22, the stock has given all that back and then some as the air came out of many speculative pockets of the market.

Because of how much call demand spiked during the boom times, today’s pickup registers as more of a blip on the chart:

Beyond Meat’s recent refinancing efforts, which were cited as a supposed fundamental catalyst for the explosion of retail interest, started when the stock was trading at $2.85.

Based on today’s activity, the dust hasn’t fully settled on this story, but so far: management has eliminated about $800 million in debt and all it got in exchange so far is a near 70% decline in its stock price and a longer runway to make processed peas into faux meat.

markets
Luke Kawa

AI stocks linked to OpenAI are rallying in a reversal of recent trends

The AI pendulum appears to be swinging back in the other direction, at least for one day.

The TL;DR trade within AI has recently been “long Google and its supply chain partners, short anything closely affiliated with OpenAI.”

As we discussed yesterday, the Google ecosystem has been booming, while key OpenAI suppliers and investors have been languishing.

Today, we’re seeing a bit of a reversal in that seeming pair trade — and, in what’s very positive for markets on the whole, this is being driven by the outperformance of the OpenAI-linked cohort rather than intense pain for the Google group.

Nvidia, CoreWeave, Oracle, and Advanced Micro Devices are all trading well to the upside in early trading. Meanwhile, Google is modestly lower, and Broadcom and Lumentum are in the green, though not by as much as most of the OpenAI-linked suite of stocks.

“With the trillions set to be spent over the coming years many Big Tech players will benefit besides Nvidia on the chip front... that should not be mistaken for Nvidia being the indisputable Rocky Balboa champion of the AI Revolution and that is not changing any time soon on the chip front,” wrote Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives.

markets
Max Knoblauch

Deere drops as tariffs and a weak profit forecast weigh down a Q4 sales beat

A sales and profit beat weren’t enough to stem Deere investors’ tariff unease on Wednesday, when the company dropped its fourth-quarter earnings report. Deere shares slipped about 4% in premarket trading.

Deere posted adjusted earnings of $3.93 per share, beating the $3.84 estimate from Wall Street analysts polled by FactSet. The company also said it expects full-year 2026 profit to land between $4 billion and $4.75 billion. Wall Street expected more than $5 billion.

According to CEO John May, “ongoing margin pressures from tariffs and persistent challenges in the large ag sector remain” and 2026 will “mark the bottom of the large ag cycle.” May said he believes the company’s cost-control efforts will allow it to seize opportunities as the market recovers.

In its fourth quarter, Deere also:

  • Booked $12.4 billion in total revenue, beating expectations by more than 5%.

  • Logged a 27% net sales jump in its construction and forestry division. However, the company said tariffs were a headwind for the division's operating profits.

markets
Luke Kawa

Robinhood jumps after forming joint venture to enhance its prediction markets business

Shares of Robinhood Markets are on the rise in premarket trading after the brokerage announced after the close on Tuesday a joint venture with Susquehanna to enhance its prediction market business.

The pair is launching an independent futures and derivatives exchange and clearinghouse, with Robinhood as the controlling partner and Susquehanna serving as the liquidity provider, and is expected to begin operations next year. In a related move, the joint venture is acquiring 90% of MIAXdx, a derivatives exchange that was once a part of FTX.

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)

Currently, Robinhood offers access to contracts with probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC. The joint venture would have the tools needed to operate an event contracts business independently and the potential to gain a bigger share of the revenues associated with this fast-growing product line thanks to the brokerage’s ample distribution network.

Per the press release:

“Prediction Markets have quickly become Robinhood’s fastest-growing product line by revenue. Just one year since launch, 9 billion contracts have been traded by more than 1 million Robinhood customers. By introducing a robust, institutional-grade exchange to the market, we’ll add more choices for consumers. We’ll also gain the flexibility to build faster and deliver more contracts and services to traders.”

Bank of America analysts recently warned that the boom in prediction markets and online gambling was creating “emerging credit risks” for some lenders.

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