Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading: Walmart — The big-box retailer saw shares jump nearly 5% to hit a record after the retail giant topped fiscal third-quarter earnings and revenue expectations. The retailer also hiked its outlook again as it saw growth in e-commerce and improvements in sales outside of the grocery aisles. Super Micro Computer — The server maker surged 29.2% after announcing BDO as its new auditor to replace Ernst & Young, which stepped down last month. Super Micro also provided a plan to the Nasdaq on how it will comply with the exchange’s rules. Lowe’s — The home improvement retailer dropped more than 3% after saying it expects sales to decline in 2024 . That guidance overshadowed a better-than-expected third-quarter report. Kraft Heinz — The packaged food company dipped about 1% after a Piper Sandler downgrade to neutral from overweight. The investment firm said Kraft Heinz is struggling to turn around a retail sales decline, including in its Lunchables brand, and that the potential role of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the upcoming Trump administration could be a risk. Insmed — Shares rallied more than 8% after the drugmaker terminated a $500 million equity sales agreement with health-care investment bank Leerink Partners. Viking Holdings — Shares declined 1% even after the travel company exceeded Wall Street’s third-quarter estimates. Viking posted adjusted earnings of 89 cents per share on revenue of $1.68 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet forecast earnings of 84 cents per share, excluding items, on revenue of $1.67 billion. The company also reported strong advance bookings for the 2025 season. Symbotic — The automation technology company soared 26.2% after topping revenue estimates in the fiscal fourth quarter. Revenue came in at $576.8 million in the fourth quarter, beating the $470.2 million estimated by analysts, per FactSet. Symbotic also offered strong current-quarter top-line guidance. H & R Block , Intuit — The tax filing companies both fell after The Washington Post reported that President-elect Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency commission is looking toward a new mobile app for filing taxes. Intuit shares pulled back 5.4%, while H & R Block declined 7.4%. — CNBC’s Jesse Pound, Yun Li, Sarah Min, Alex Harring, Sean Conlon and Pia Singh contributed reporting.
The Senate Judiciary Committee convened on Tuesday for a hearing on the alleged Visa–Mastercard “duopoly,” which committee members from both sides of the aisle say has left retailers and other small businesses with no ability to negotiate interchange fees on credit card transactions.
“This is an odd grouping. The most conservative and the most liberal members happen to agree that we have to do something about this situation,” committee chair and Democratic Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin said.
Interchange fees, also known as swipe fees, are paid from a merchant’s bank account to the cardholder’s bank, whenever a customer uses a credit card in a retail purchase. Visa and Mastercard have a combined market cap of more than $1 trillion, and control 80% of the market.
“In 2023 alone, Visa and Mastercard charged merchants more than $100 billion in credit card fees, mostly in the form of interchange fees,” Durbin told the committee.
Durbin, along with Republican Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall, have co-sponsored the bipartisan Credit Card Competition Act, which takes aim at Visa and Mastercard’s market dominance by requiring banks with more than $100 billion in assets to offer at least one other payment network on their cards, besides Visa and Mastercard.
“This way, small businesses would finally have a real choice: they can route credit card transactions on the Visa or Mastercard network and continue to pay interchange fees that often rank as their second or biggest expense, or they could select a lower cost alternative,” Durbin told the committee.
Visa and Mastercard, however, stand by their swipe fees.
“We consider them incentives, some people might consider them penalties. But if you can adopt new technology that reduces the risk and takes fraud out of the system and improves streamlined processing, then you would qualify for lower interchange rates,” said Bill Sheedy, senior advisor to Visa CEO Ryan McInerney. “It’s very expensive to issue a product and to provide payment guarantee and online customer service, zero liability. All of those things, and many more, senator, get factored into interchange [fees].”
The executives also warned against the Credit Card Competition Act, with Sheedy claiming that it “would remove consumer control over their own payment decisions, reduce competition, impose technology sharing mandates and pick winners and losers by favoring certain competitors over others.”
“Why do we know this? Because we’ve seen it before,” Mastercard President of Americas Linda Kirkpatrick said, in reference to the Durbin amendment to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which required the Fed to limit fees on retailers for transactions using debit cards. “Since debit regulation took hold, debit rewards were eliminated, fees went up, access to capital diminished, and competition was stifled.”
But the current high credit card swipe fees for retailers translate to higher prices for consumers, the National Retail Federation told the committee in a letter ahead of the hearing. The Credit Card Competition Act, the retail industry’s largest trade association wrote, will deliver “fairness and transparency to the payment system and relief to American business and consumers.”
“When we think of consumer spending, credit card swipe fees are not the first thing that comes to mind, yet those fees are a surprisingly large part of consumer spending,” Notre Dame University law professor Roger Alford said. “Last year, the average American spent $1,100 in swipe fees, more than they spent on pets, coffee or alcohol.”
Visa and Mastercard agreed to a $30 billion settlement in March meant to reduce their swipe fees by four basis points for three years, but a federal judge rejected the settlement in June, saying they could afford to pay more.
Visa is also battling a Justice Department lawsuit filed in September. The payment network is accused of maintaining an illegal monopoly over debit card payment networks, which has affected “the price of nearly everything,” according to Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Check out the companies making headlines in extended trading. Keysight Technologies — Shares added more than 8%. The electronics test and measurement equipment company’s fiscal fourth-quarter results beat analyst estimates on the top and bottom lines. Keysight also issued a rosy outlook for the current quarter, anticipating adjusted earnings ranging from $1.65 to $1.71 per share, while analysts polled by FactSet called for $1.57 a share. Dolby Laboratories —The audio technology company advanced 10% after its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings of 61 cents per share topped Street estimates of 45 cents per share, per FactSet. Dolby also increased its dividend by 10% to 33 cents a share. Powell Industries — The manufacturer of electrical equipment slipped almost 14%. Net new orders for fiscal 2024 came in at $1.1 billion, compared to $1.4 billion in the year-ago period. The company noted that the decline was largely due to the inclusion of three large megaprojects in Powell’s oil and gas and petrochemical sectors in fiscal 2023. Azek Company — Shares of the residential siding and trim company ticked up 2% after its fiscal fourth-quarter results beat analyst estimates. Azek reported earnings of 29 cents per share on revenue of $348.2 million. Analysts surveyed by FactSet were looking for earnings of 27 cents per share and $339.1 million in revenue. La-Z-Boy — The furniture company gained nearly 3% following fiscal second-quarter results. La-Z-Boy reported earnings of 71 cents per share on revenue of $521 million. That’s an improvement from the year-ago period, in which the company posted earnings of 63 cents per share and revenue of $511.4 million. La-Z-Boy also upped its quarterly dividend by 10% to 22 cents per share.
Check out the companies making headlines in premarket trading. Walmart – The retail giant gained about 4% after posting fiscal third-quarter results that surpassed Wall Street’s estimates. Walmart also boosted its guidance as customers buy more than groceries. Lowe’s — The home improvement retailer’s shares fell 1.7%. Although the company reported a top- and bottom-line beat in the fiscal third quarter, it estimates sales will fall year over year. Lowe’s forecasts comparable sales to drop from 3% to 3.5%, slightly better than the 3.5% to 4% decline it previously anticipated. Super Micro Computer — The server maker soared around 26% after announcing BDO as its new auditor. The news came after Ernst & Young stepped down last month. Super Micro also provided a plan to the Nasdaq on how it will stay in compliance with exchange’s rules. Symbotic — The automation technology company surged 28.5% after beating expectations for revenue in the fourth fiscal quarter. Revenue came in at $576.8 million in the fourth quarter, well above the $470.2 million figure penciled in by Wall Street. Symbotic also offered strong current-quarter top-line guidance. AeroVironment — The stock dropped 5% after the defense contractor announced it was acquiring BlueHalo in an all-stock transaction valued at $4.1 billion. AeroVironment said the deal will “usher in the next ear of defense technology” for the company. BioNTech — Shares gained 1.9% after Evercore ISI upgraded the German biotechnology company to outperform from in line. Evercore ISI said the “chaos” following President-elect Donald Trump’s election of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to the Department of Health and Human Services is a buying opportunity for investors. Nvidia — Stock in the artificial intelligence darling and market bellwether advanced about 1.5% in premarket trading. Nvidia is set to report third-quarter results on Wednesday, and investors will be paying particularly close attention to demand for the company’s Blackwell chip . — CNBC’s Sarah Min, Samantha Subin, Hakyung Kim, Sean Conlon, Brian Evans and Michelle Fox contributed reporting
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