Check out the companies making headlines in premarket trading. Crocs — The footwear stock ticked up more than 1% after an upgrade to buy from hold at Williams Trading. The investment firm said Crocs’ move to sign actress Sydney Sweeney as a spokesperson for its Heydude brand could help reverse negative sales trends. Agilent Technologies — Shares of the laboratory supply company advanced more than 2% after fiscal third-quarter results surpassed Wall Street estimates on the top and bottom line. The firm reported earnings of $1.32 per share, excluding items, on revenue of $1.58 billion. Analysts polled by LSEG forecast $1.26 and $1.56 billion in earnings per share and revenue, respectively. Nordson — Shares climbed more than 3% after the adhesives company reported better-than-expected fiscal third-quarter results. Nordson notched earnings of $2.41 per share, excluding items, on revenue of $661.6 million. Analysts polled by FactSet expected $2.33 and $656.5 million. Synopsys — Shares gained more than 2% after the software stock reported a a fiscal third-quarter earnings beat on both the top and bottom lines. Synopsys’ earnings came in at $3.43 per share, while analysts polled by LSEG had expected $3.28 per share. Similarly, the company’s revenue of $1.53 billion was higher than the $1.52 billion analyst consensus had estimated. Deutsche Bank — U.S.-listed shares popped 2.4% after the bank announced a settlement with many plaintiffs in a long-running case tied to its acquisition of Postbank. The German bank said it had come to agreements with more than 80 plaintiffs, which equates to almost 60%, for a settlement of 31 euros per share. Wolfspeed — The semiconductor company surged more than 8% after forecasting revenue in the range of $50 million to $60 million from its Mohawk Valley facility, a larger-than-expected contribution that softened an earnings miss. Snowflake – Shares dropped more than 9% even after the software company topped Wall Street’s earnings and revenue expectations for the recent quarter and boosted its full-year product revenue guidance. Analysts cited a deceleration in growth among the reasons for the lackluster stock move. Urban Outfitters — The clothing retailer fell more than 10% on mixed quarterly results. Same-store sales for the Urban Outfitters brand that were open for at least a year fell 9.3% in the second quarter, compared to analysts’ forecasts of an 8.3% decline, according to LSEG. Meanwhile, the company posted a beat on both top and bottom lines. Peloton — Shares jumped 9% after the connected fitness company reported a sales increase for the first time in nine quarters . Peloton’s revenue for the fiscal fourth quarter was $644 million, topping the $631 million consensus estimate, per LSEG. It also reported a loss of 8 cents a share, better than the 17 cent loss expected from analysts. Advance Auto Parts — Shares fell 11% after the aftermarket parts provider posted disappointing second-quarter earnings , and lowered its full-year guidance. Advance Auto Parts reported earnings of 75 cents per share, below the FactSet consensus estimate of 93 cents earnings per share. On the other hand, revenue of $2.68 billion was higher than the anticipated $2.67 billion. Paramount Global — The media conglomerate ticked up more than 2% after The Wall Street Journal reported that Edgar Bronfman upped his bid for National Amusements and a stake in Paramount to $6 billion. — CNBC’s Samantha Subin, Hakyung Kim, Michelle Fox, Lisa Kailai Han, Sarah Min, Jesse Pound and Alex Harring contributed reporting
Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading: Tesla — The electric vehicle maker slipped 5% after reporting its first ever annual vehicle deliveries decline . Tesla delivered 1.79 million vehicles in 2024, a drop from 1.81 million in 2023. Constellation Energy — Shares jumped 7% after the company secured a record-setting $1 billion in combined contracts to supply nuclear energy to the U.S. federal government. Unity Software — The video game stock surged 9% after online personality Keith Gill, also known by his online moniker Roaring Kitty, posted a gif on social media site X of a “Chappelle’s Show” sketch in which comedian Dave Chappelle plays late musician Rick James. One of James’ songs is titled “Unity.” Gill famously drove the GameStop investing short squeeze in 2021. Spotify Technology — The music streaming platform added 3% after announcing the Spotify Partner Program , which offers creators from the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia new ways to monetize their content. SoFi Technologies — The fintech stock tumbled 7% following a downgrade from KBW to underperform. The investment firm cited an overstretched valuation as a reason for the change. Synaptics — The semiconductor company jumped 7.1% after announcing a partnership with Google on Edge AI. Through the agreement, Google’s machine learning core will be integrated into Synaptics’ Astra hardware. Shares of Google parent Alphabet rose 0.5%. Nvidia — The chipmaker stock and artificial intelligence trade poster child popped 3% after Loop Capital said Nvidia is in a “nirvana” moment and can sustain its ongoing rally. Crypto stocks — Crypto stocks rose as bitcoin climbed back above the $96,000 mark on Thursday. Coinbase and MicroStrategy both gained around 5%, while miners Mara Holdings , Riot Platforms and Bitdeer respectively added 5%, 3% and 9%. Uber , Norwegian Cruise Line — Shares of both companies moved higher after Goldman Sachs added the names to its “Conviction List” for January. Uber shares gained around 4%, while Norwegian rose more than 1%. Topgolf Callaway Brands — Shares popped nearly 13% following an upgrade to buy from hold at Jefferies. The firm thinks the golf company offers strong value as it prepares to spin off its Topgolf business. Jefferies also raised its price target to $13 from $11, suggesting 65% upside ahead. Cloudflare — Shares of the cloud cybersecurity stock moved 5.7% higher on the back of a double upgrade from Goldman Sachs to buy from sell. The firm also nearly doubled its price target and cited “several positive catalysts” for the stock in 2025, including in Cloudflare’s sales and marketing productivity improvements and edge compute solutions. — CNBC’s Sean Conlon, Michelle Fox, Alex Harring and Pia Singh contributed reporting.
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway outperformed the S & P 500 in 2024 and pulled off its best year since 2021. Class A shares of the Omaha-based conglomerate rallied 25.5% last year, beating the S & P 500’s 23.3% return. Berkshire shares topped $700,000 during the year and posted their ninth positive year in a row. BRK.A 1Y mountain Berkshire Hathaway The strong performance came even as the “Oracle of Omaha” halted Berkshire’s stock buyback program as the share price with the stock getting pricier and pricier. Instead, the conglomerate relied on solid operating earnings this year, supported by strong investment income and underwriting earnings within auto insurer Geico. $325 Billion Cash Interest and other investment income reached $8 billion in the first three quarters of 2024, compared to the prior year’s $4.2 billion. A big factor was Berkshire’s gigantic war chest — some $325 billion as of the end of September, nearly double the $168 billion level at the end of 2023. Higher interest rates, albeit off their peak, still enabled the conglomerate to earn a competitive return on the cash hoard. The legendary, 94-year-old investor amassed such a jaw-dropping amount of cash in 2024 by selling down his two largest holdings, Apple and Bank of America , a move that surprised many. He was in a selling mood for most of 2024, offloading $133 billion worth of stock in the first three quarters of the year. Winning Geico Geico, Berkshire’s insurance crown jewel and what Buffett his called his “favorite child,” continued its turnaround story in 2024. The insurer recorded an underwriting profit of $5.7 billion in the first three quarters of 2024, more than doubling the $2.3 billion total in the same period of 2023. As recently as 2022, Geico suffered a $1.9 billion pretax underwriting loss as it sacrificed market share to competitor Progressive due to the slow adoption of telematics . Telematics software programs allow insurers to collect clients’ driving data, including their mileage and speed, to help price policies. Geico helped offset the weakness in Berkshire’s other insurance operations, including Berkshire Hathaway Primary Group and Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group, which both experienced an underwriting loss in the third quarter of 2024. ‘Wishful Thinking’ While Berkshire outpaced the S & P 500 last year, Buffett has tempered expectations for future outperformance citing its enormous size. He noted that it’s very difficult for any investments to move the needle because of the sheer amount of cash Berkshire is working with. Buffett said Berkshire’s group of diversified, quality businesses — from BNSF Railway to See’s Candy —should provide “slightly better” performance than the average U.S. company, but anything more than that is unlikely. ‘With our present mix of businesses, Berkshire should do a bit better than the average American corporation and, more important, should also operate with materially less risk of permanent loss of capital,” Buffett said in his 2023 annual letter. “Anything beyond ‘slightly better,’ though, is wishful thinking.” Still, Buffett’s long-term track record is unparalleled. Berkshire, which cuts across 40 industries and 60 companies, has doubled the average annual return of the S & P 500 since Buffett first took control back in the 1960s.
Traders work at the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 31, 2024.
NYSE
Crypto trades jumping. Roaring Kitty boosting meme stocks. Broader market ripping on no apparent catalysts.
Animal spirits are on the run at the dawn of 2025 trading.
Many speculative pockets of the stock market surged in early trading Thursday, the first session of the new year, right after the S&P 500 closed out the best two-year run since 1998.
Stocks tied to the price of bitcoin jumped as the cryptocurrency climbed back over $96,000. Microstrategy added 4% premarket after climbing more than 360% in 2024. Crypto-related companies Coinbase, Robinhood, Mara Holdings and Riot Platforms also traded higher after a big 2024.
Elsewhere, retail traders active on social media were busy playing a guessing game after online personality Roaring Kitty posted another cryptic message on X of a short clip of the late musician Rick James. Some believe the meme stock leader, AKA Keith Gill, was referring to Unity Software, whose stock soared 10% in premarket, while others think he’s back touting his original favorite GameStop, whose shares also caught a bid in premarket.
Meanwhile, semiconductor stocks — 2024’s big winners — helped lead the market again after the artificial intelligence trade lost some steam at the end of last year. Broadcom jumped 2% Thursday, while Nvidia gained 1.6%.
What’s more, golf stock Topgolf Callaway Brands jumped 8.5% on the back of an upgrade at Jefferies to buy from hold. The investment bank said shares of the golf equipment maker looked oversold and raised its price target to 65% above where the stock closed the year.
With a pickup in market speculation, broad stock futures were on the rise to kick off 2025. Dow futures advanced as much as 300 points. S&P 500 futures added 0.8%, and Nasdaq-100 futures rose 1%.
Thursday’s dramatic moves resembled the initial rallies on the back of Donald Trump’s election victory in November, as investors bet his pro-business policies would drive companies and the economy to strong growth. Those gains slowed toward the end of 2024 as concern grew that the president-elect’s protectionist policies could stir inflation or disrupt chains, and as the Federal Reserve signaled fewer interest rate cuts in 2025.
“Many investors assume that the incoming administration’s push for deregulation will unleash ‘animal spirits,'” Lisa Shalett, chief investment officer of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, said in a recent note to clients. “But what if it only accelerates the concentration of monopoly power in the hands of a few, diluting the efficacy of broad economic measures and leaving behind even larger swaths of the populace?”