Check out the companies making headlines before the market open. Carvana – Shares surged more than 19% on the heels of a third-quarter earnings and revenue beat . For the period, Carvana earned 64 cents per share on $3.65 billion in revenue, above the 25 cents per share and $3.45 billion that analysts surveyed by LSEG were expecting. The online used car dealer also raised its full-year outlook and said that results would be “significantly above the high end” of its prior range. Roku – The streaming stock shed 14% after guiding for fourth-quarter adjusted EBITDA of $30 million, while the FactSet consensus had called for $34.4 million. The company said its fourth-quarter revenue will come in higher than expected. Roku’s third-quarter adjusted EBITDA and revenue beat also topped analyst estimates. eBay – The stock lost about 9% after the online marketplace’s fourth-quarter forecast missed Wall Street’s expectations . Ebay forecasts that revenue for the current quarter will total between $2.53 billion and $2.59 billion, below the average analyst estimate of $2.65 billion, according to StreetAccount. For the quarter just ended, eBay reported better-than-expected earnings. Peloton – Shares gained more than 8% following the announcement that Ford executive Peter Stern will serve as the company’s next CEO . The exercise equipment and media company also posted better-than-expected results in its fiscal first quarter and raised its profit forecast for the full year. Microsoft – The Xbox and Windows parent fell nearly 4% after its forecast for the current quarter came in weaker than expected . Microsoft sees revenue coming in between $68.1 billion and $69.1 billion, while analysts were estimating $69.8 billion, according to LSEG. On the other hand, Microsoft’s results in its fiscal first quarter topped analysts’ estimates. Booking Holdings – The online travel stock popped 6.1% on the heels of a better-than-expected earnings report for the third quarter. The Booking.com parent earned an adjusted $83.39 per share on $7.99 billion in revenue, while analysts polled by LSEG had estimated $77.52 per share and $7.63 billion, respectively. Robinhood – Shares of the brokerage firm dropped 11% after third-quarter results lagged expectations. Robinhood earned 17 cents per share on $637 million in revenue. Analysts surveyed by LSEG were looking for 18 cents and $658 million. Robinhood’s chief financial officer said on the earnings call that revenue was hurt by marketing promotions used to attract new customers. Uber Technologies – Shares lost more than 6% after the ride-hailing company missed third-quarter expectations for gross bookings . Uber’s gross bookings of $40.97 billion were below the consensus estimate of $41.25 billion, according to StreetAccount. Revenue, however, topped Street expectations. Comcast – Shares climbed nearly 6% after the theme park and media company’s third quarter earnings and revenue beat analyst estimates. Earnings totaled $1.12 per share, topping the $1.06 per share seen by analysts polled by LSEG. Revenue of $32.07 billion topped the $31.66 billion consensus estimate. Super Micro Computer – The maker of high-efficiency servers fell around 5%, extending Wednesday’s 32% slump when its auditor resigned after raising concerns over the board’s independence and accounting practices. Meta Platforms – Shares of the Facebook and Instagram parent dipped 3%. Meta surpassed Wall Street estimates , but user numbers were below the 3.31 billion expected by analysts. Meta also lifted its capital spending estimate for the year and said it sees continued growth in 2025 due to AI investments. Cigna – Shares advanced more than 2% after the insurer’s third-quarter earnings and revenue beat analysts’ expectations. Cigna earned $7.51 per share, excluding one-time items, on adjusted revenue of $63.70 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet were looking for $7.23 per share and $59.58 billion in adjusted revenue. Etsy – The handmade or vintage online e-commerce platform surged 4% after posting third-quarter results that surpassed analysts’ expectations. Etsy reported adjusted EBITDA of $183.6 million, more than the FactSet consensus estimate of $177.4 million. Revenue of $662.4 million also surpassed the forecast $652.5 million. Coinbase – The cryptocurrency exchange platform fell more than 2% after third-quarter earnings and revenue missed Street estimates . Coinbase earned 28 cents on $1.21 billion in revenue for the period, below the consensus estimate of 41 cents and $1.26 billion, according to LSEG. — CNBC’s Alex Harring, Samantha Subin, Jesse Pound, Lisa Kailai Han, Sarah Min and Michelle Fox Theobald contributed reporting. Comcast is the parent of NBCUniversal, the owner of CNBC.
In a year that hasn’t been kind to many big-name stocks, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is standing near the top. Berkshire shares have posted a 17% return year-to-date, while the S&P 500 index is down 6%.
That performance places Berkshire among the top 10% of the U.S. market’s large-cap leaders, and the run has been getting Buffett more attention ahead of next weekend’s annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. It’s also good timing for the recently launched VistaShares Target 15 Berkshire Select Income ETF(OMAH), which holds the top 20 most heavily weighted stocks in Berkshire Hathaway, as well as shares of Berkshire Hathaway.
“It’s a really well-balanced portfolio chosen by the most successful investor the world has ever seen,” Adam Patti, CEO of VistaShares, said in an appearance this week on CNBC’s “ETF Edge.”
Berkshire’s outperformance of the S&P 500 isn’t limited to 2025. Buffett’s stock has tripled the performance of the market over the past year, and its 185% return over the past five years is more than double the performance of the S&P 500.
Berkshire Hathaway is one of 2025’s top performing stocks.
In addition to this long-term track record of success in the market, Berkshire Hathaway is getting a lot of attention right now for the record amount of cash Buffett is holding as he trimmed stakes in big stocks including Apple, which has proven to be a great strategy. The S&P 500 has experienced extreme short-term volatility since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20. Even after a recent recovery, the S&P is still down 8% since the start of Trump’s second term.
“The market has been momentum driven for many years, the switch has flipped and we’re looking at quality in terms of exposure, and Berkshire Hathaway has performed incredibly well this year, handily outperforming the S&P 500,” said Patti.
Berkshire Hathaway famously doesn’t pay a dividend, with Buffett holding firm over many decades in the belief that he can re-invest cash to create more value for shareholders. In a letter to shareholders in February, Buffett wrote that Berkshire shareholders “can rest assured that we will forever deploy a substantial majority of their money in equities — mostly American equities.”
The lack of a dividend payment has been an issue over the years for some shareholders at Berkshire who do want income from the market, according to Patti, who added that his firm conducted research among investors in designing the ETF. “Who doesn’t want to invest like Buffett, but with income?” he said.
So, in addition to being tied to the performance of Berkshire and the stock picks of Buffett, the VistaShares Target 15 Berkshire Select Income ETF is designed to produce income of 15% annually through a strategy of selling call options and distributing monthly payments of 1.25% to shareholders. This income strategy has become more popular in the ETF space, with more asset managers launching funds to capture income opportunities and more investors adopting the approach amid market volatility.
People shop for produce at a Walmart in Rosemead, California, on April 11, 2025.
Frederic J. Brown | Afp | Getty Images
A growing number of Americans are using buy now, pay later loans to buy groceries, and more people are paying those bills late, according to new Lending Tree data released Friday.
The figures are the latest indicator that some consumers are cracking under the pressure of an uncertain economy and are having trouble affording essentials such as groceries as they contend with persistent inflation, high interest rates and concerns around tariffs.
In a survey conducted April 2-3 of 2,000 U.S. consumers ages 18 to 79, around half reported having used buy now, pay later services. Of those consumers, 25% of respondents said they were using BNPL loans to buy groceries, up from 14% in 2024 and 21% in 2023, the firm said.
Meanwhile, 41% of respondents said they made a late payment on a BNPL loan in the past year, up from 34% in the year prior, the survey found.
Lending Tree’s chief consumer finance analyst, Matt Schulz, said that of those respondents who said they paid a BNPL bill late, most said it was by no more than a week or so.
“A lot of people are struggling and looking for ways to extend their budget,” Schulz said. “Inflation is still a problem. Interest rates are still really high. There’s a lot of uncertainty around tariffs and other economic issues, and it’s all going to add up to a lot of people looking for ways to extend their budget however they can.”
“For an awful lot of people, that’s going to mean leaning on buy now, pay later loans, for better or for worse,” he said.
He stopped short of calling the results a recession indicator but said conditions are expected to decline further before they get better.
“I do think it’s going to get worse, at least in the short term,” said Schulz. “I don’t know that there’s a whole lot of reason to expect these numbers to get better in the near term.”
The loans, which allow consumers to split up purchases into several smaller payments, are a popular alternative to credit cards because they often don’t charge interest. But consumers can see high fees if they pay late, and they can run into problems if they stack up multiple loans. In Lending Tree’s survey, 60% of BNPL users said they’ve had multiple loans at once, with nearly a fourth saying they have held three or more at once.
“It’s just really important for people to be cautious when they use these things, because even though they can be a really good interest-free tool to help you kind of make it from one paycheck to the next, there’s also a lot of risk in mismanaging it,” said Schulz. “So people should tread lightly.”
Lending Tree’s findings come after Billboard revealed that about 60% of general admission Coachella attendees funded their concert tickets with buy now, pay later loans, sparking a debate on the state of the economy and how consumers are using debt to keep up their lifestyles. A recent announcement from DoorDash that it would begin accepting BNPL financing from Klarna for food deliveries led to widespread mockery and jokes that Americans were struggling so much that they were now being forced to finance cheeseburgers and burritos.
Over the last few years, consumers have held up relatively well, even in the face of persistent inflation and high interest rates, because the job market was strong and wage growth had kept up with inflation — at least for some workers.
Earlier this year, however, large companies including Walmart and Delta Airlines began warning that the dynamic had begun to shift and they were seeing cracks in demand, which was leading to worse-than-expected sales forecasts.
Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading: T-Mobile — Shares pulled back 11% after the company’s wireless subscribers for the first quarter missed Wall Street estimates. T-Mobile reported 495,000 postpaid phone additions in the first-quarter, while analysts polled by StreetAccount were looking for 504,000. Alphabet — The Google parent company gained about 2% on the heels of better-than-expected first-quarter results . Alphabet reported $2.81 per share on revenue of $90.23 billion, while analysts polled by LSEG forecast $2.01 in earnings per share and $89.12 billion in revenue. Skechers — Shares fell 4.8% after the footwear maker posted weaker-than-expected revenue for the first quarter and withdrew its 2025 guidance due to ” macroeconomic uncertainty stemming from global trade policies .” The company’s earnings for the quarter came in above analysts’ estimates, however. Gilead Sciences — The biopharmaceutical stock fell 2.5% after first-quarter revenue came in at $6.67 billion, missing the consensus forecast of $6.81 billion from analysts polled by LSEG. However, the company earned $1.81 per share, excluding items, in the quarter, beating Wall Street’s estimate of $1.79 a share. Saia — Shares of the shipping company fell 31% after first-quarter results missed estimates and showed a slowdown in March. Saia reported $1.86 in earnings per share on $787.6 million in revenue. Analysts surveyed by FactSet were expecting $2.76 in earnings per share on $812.8 million in revenue. BMO Capital Markets downgraded the stock to market perform from outperform and said the issues were “company specific.” Intel — The chipmaker declined 7% after Intel’s current quarter missed investors’ expectations. Intel forecast revenue in the June quarter of $11.8 billion at the midpoint, while consensus forecasts called for $12.82 billion, per LSEG. Management anticipates earnings will break even. Intel also announced plans to reduce both its operational and capital expenses. Boston Beer — Shares of the Samuel Adams brewer were more than 1% higher after better-than-expected first-quarter results. Boston Beer notched earnings per share of $2.16 on revenue of $453.9 million, while analysts polled by FactSet were looking for 56 cents per share on revenue of $435.6 million. Boston Beer cautioned that tariffs could hurt full-year earnings. Tesla — The Elon Musk-helmed electric vehicle company surged 10%. Shares have advanced more than 17% this week as the broader market tries to recover from a steep sell-off for much of April. — CNBC’s Jesse Pound, Alex Harring and Sean Conlon contributed reporting. Get Your Ticket to Pro LIVE Join us at the New York Stock Exchange! Uncertain markets? Gain an edge with CNBC Pro LIVE , an exclusive, inaugural event at the historic New York Stock Exchange. In today’s dynamic financial landscape, access to expert insights is paramount. As a CNBC Pro subscriber, we invite you to join us for our first exclusive, in-person CNBC Pro LIVE event at the iconic NYSE on Thursday, June 12. Join interactive Pro clinics led by our Pros Carter Worth, Dan Niles and Dan Ives, with a special edition of Pro Talks with Tom Lee. You’ll also get the opportunity to network with CNBC experts, talent and other Pro subscribers during an exciting cocktail hour on the legendary trading floor. Tickets are limited!