Stocks Up Midday, Dow on Course for 8-Day Winning Streak

Midday Market Movers

1 hr 1 min ago

AT&T (T): Shares were up 8% in intraday trading Wednesday just two days after falling 7% to a three-decade low. The company has been embroiled in controversy after a Wall Street Journal report last week accusing the telecom giant of laying cables it knew contained dangerous amounts of lead.

Northern Trust (NTRS): Shares jumped 14% after the financial services firm reported results. Earnings per share fell 16% from a year ago to $1.56, while revenue declined 1% year-over-year.

Elevance Health (ELV): Shares of the health insurer gained 6% after the company beat earnings expectations and raised its full-year guidance.

Joby Aviation (JOBY): Shares of the electric aircraft maker fell 18% after JPMorgan downgraded the stock to underweight.

Toast, Inc. (TOST): Shares of the payment technology company plummeted 16% after complaints from restaurants caused it to scrap a 99-cent processing fee.

Carvana Reworks Debt, Posts Q2 Records, and Announces $1 Billion Stock Sale

1 hr 40 min ago

Shares of Carvana (CVNA) skyrocketed over 36% on Wednesday after the online used car dealer reworked its debt obligations, reducing them by $1.2 billion.

Carvana indicated it struck an agreement with a group of noteholders representing in excess of 90% of its existing unsecured notes. The company explained that the deal would eliminate more than 83% of those note maturities due in 2025 and 2027, lowering its interest expenses by more than $430 million a year for the next two years.

That came as the company reported its second quarter results, which showed Carvana had its best quarter ever for adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) and total gross profit per unit. While the company lost $0.55 per share in the period, that was less than half of analysts’ estimates.

-Bill McColl

Goldman Profit Down 58% On GreenSky Goodwill Write-Down, Real Estate Investments

2 hr 28 min ago

Net earnings at Goldman Sachs (GS) plunged 58% in the second quarter as it wrote off goodwill for its GreenSky consumer lending platform and marked down real estate investments all while investment bank dealmaking—a big source of revenue—slowed down.

Goldman’s profits slumped to near three-year lows on the heels of a $504 million write-down of goodwill related to GreenSky, a platform for home improvement consumer loans that Goldman acquired in 2021 for $2.24 billion.

The acquisition was part of a push into retail banking that hasn’t quite worked out for Goldman. The bank completed the sale of its unsecured loan portfolio at Marcus—its retail-focused bank—for a gain of about $100 million.

The GreenSky write-down, real estate losses, and Marcus sale together brought down Goldman’s net earnings by $1.4 billion, its earnings per share by $3.95, and its return on equity (ROE)—a key metric of a bank’s profitability—by 5.2 percentage points.

Meanwhile, investment banking fees fell 20% compared to the second quarter of last year due to a slowdown in the number of deals.

Shares were up 1.6% midday.

-Fatima Attarwala

Tesla Requests to Expand Berlin Factory To Be Germany’s Largest

3 hr 3 min ago

Tesla’s (TSLA) Berlin-area factory could become the largest car manufacturing facility in Germany if authorities will let it. 

The electric car maker filed a request with German authorities to double the capacity of its Berlin plant, Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg, allowing it to produce up to one million cars a year, according to documents published Wednesday by the local environmental ministry. The expanded plant could also produce 100 gigawatt hours of battery capacity annually.

Regulators have already approved some additions to the plant, but full approval of Tesla’s three-phase plan is pending an environmental impact review. 

The company could face pushback from local residents, whose concerns over its impact on the local water supply slowed construction of the plant, which opened in March 2022 after nearly two years of construction.

Tesla stock was up 1.6% Wednesday morning ahead of its second-quarter earnings, to be released after markets close.

Microsoft-Activision Deal Deadline Extended to Oct. 18

4 hr 10 min ago

Microsoft (MSFT) has reached an agreement with Activision Blizzard (ATVI) to extend the deadline for its $69 billion acquisition of the video game developer to Oct. 18.

The original deadline was July 18, but Microsoft’s acquisition has been delayed by investigations and lawsuits by U.S. and European regulators.

The terms of the deadline extension entitle Activision shareholders to a one-time $0.99 dividend and raise the penalty Microsoft will pay Activision if it fails to close the deal on time.

U.S. regulators were dealt a blow last week when a federal court denied the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) injunction request, saying the agency failed to prove the merger would stymy competition in cloud gaming. The FTC has said it will appeal the decision.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is negotiating with U.K.’s Competition and Market Authority (CMA), which sued in April to block the deal.

“As we near the finish line, today’s extension with @activision enables us to focus on addressing comprehensively and properly the UK’s statutory requirements while sustaining fully our obligations across the EU,” tweeted Microsoft President Brad Smith.

Microsoft shares fell 0.3% Wednesday morning. Shares of Activision Blizzard were down 0.8%.

Stocks Making the Biggest Moves Pre-Market

4 hr 55 min ago

Gainers:

• Carvana (CVNA): Shares of the online used car retailer jumped nearly 25% in pre-market trading after the company reached a deal with debtors to trim $1.2 billion off its $8.5 billion debt load.
• VMWare (VMW): Shares climbed almost 8% after Broadcom’s (AVGO) proposed $69 billion acquisition of the cloud-computing company gained provisional approval from UK regulators. 
• Elevance Health (ELV): Shares of the health insurer gained 6% after the company beat earnings expectations and raised its full-year guidance. 

Losers:

• Omnicom Group (OMC): Shares of the advertising and marketing firm sank more than 7% after reporting lower-than-expected revenue for the second quarter.
• Interactive Brokers (IBKR): The broker’s shares were down 5% in pre-market trading after missing earnings estimates. The company reported earnings of $1.32 per share, against estimates of $1.40.

5 Things to Know Before Markets Open Wednesday

5 hr 35 min ago

Goldman Sachs leads another day of bank earnings and housing starts are expected to have pulled back in June after a jump in May. Here’s what investors need to know today.

1. Buffalo-based M&T Bank (MTB) blew past analysts’ estimates with its quarterly earnings. Goldman Sachs (GS) also reports before the bell.
2. Housing starts are expected to have dropped in June after surging in May.
3. Carvana (CVNA) shares jumped after announcing a debt deal.
4. AT&T (T) shares popped after the company paused plans to remove lead-sheathed cables in Lake Tahoe.
5. UK inflation cooled faster than expected in June.

Stock Futures Mixed After Yesterday’s Gains

5 hr 35 min ago

Stock futures were mixed Wednesday morning, with the Nasdaq, up 0.11%, the only index firmly in the green.

Futures contracts connected to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were little changed, up 0.02%.

S&P 500 futures were down 0.03% before markets opened.