Check out the companies making headlines in after-hours trading. Nucor — Shares slid 6.3% after the steelmaker’s first-quarter results fell short of estimates and it issued a lackluster second-quarter outlook. First-quarter earnings of $3.46 per share fell below the FactSet consensus estimate of $3.67 in earnings per share. Revenue of $8.14 billion was weaker than the estimated $8.26 billion. Nucor expects lower second-quarter earnings, citing “decreased earnings of the steel mills segment, primarily due to lower average selling prices partially offset by modestly increased volumes.” Cleveland-Cliffs — The steel producer lost nearly 3%. Cleveland-Cliffs’ first-quarter results fell short of analysts’ expectations, with adjusted earnings of 18 cents per share on revenue of $5.2 billion. Analysts surveyed by LSEG estimated earnings of 22 cents per share and revenue of $5.35 billion. Cadence Design Systems — Shares dropped 8.9% after the software company issued poor second-quarter guidance. Cadence Design Systems forecast second-quarter earnings per share of $1.20 to $1.24, lower than the $1.43 per share expected by analysts polled by FactSet. Revenue guidance between $1.03 billion and $1.05 billion also missed a FactSet consensus estimate of $1.11 billion. Globe Life — Shares added 1.8% after the life insurer raised its full-year earnings guidance. For the full year 2024, Globe Life sees earnings per share between $11.50 and $12.00, up from a prior range between $11.30 and $11.80. Otherwise, the firm posted first-quarter operating earnings and revenue that matched FactSet consensus estimates. Crane Company — Shares gained 3.7% after the industrial products company posted first-quarter earnings and revenue that topped analysts’ estimates. Crane saw adjusted earnings of $1.22 per share versus a FactSet consensus estimate of $1.13. Revenue of $565.3 million topped the expected $546.4 million. Alexandria Real Estate Equities — The stock advanced 1.2% after Alexandria surpassed first-quarter revenue expectations. The life sciences REIT posted revenue of $769.1 million, above the FactSet consensus estimate of $764.4 million. Packaging Corporation of America — The stock fell 1.8% in extended trading even as the maker of containerboard posted first-quarter earnings that topped estimates. Packaging Corp. earned an adjusted $1.72 per share, more than the $1.68 in earnings per share anticipated by analysts polled by FactSet. Revenue of $2.0 billion also exceeded the consensus estimate of $1.91 billion. Calix — The cloud and software provider tumbled nearly 15% after it issued weak second-quarter guidance. Calix anticipates earnings between 3 cents and 9 cents per share on revenue of $197 million to $203 million. Analysts polled by FactSet called for earnings of 24 cents a share on revenue of $232.8 million. Simpson Manufacturing — Shares slid nearly 11% after the manufacturer of structural solutions reported a decline in revenue and profit for its first quarter. Simpson earned $1.77 per share, 14.3% down from a year ago. Revenue of $530.6 million was off almost 1% from the previous year. Medpace — Shares dropped 4.3% after Medpace’s first-quarter revenue missed estimates. The clinical research organization posted $511.0 million in revenue, lower than the $512.4 million anticipated by analysts polled by FactSet. TrustCo Bank Corp. NY — The regional bank gained 3.7% after TrustCo earned 64 cents per share in the first quarter, topping a FactSet consensus estimate of 60 cents. — CNBC’s Darla Mercado contributed to this report.
French accounting software firm Pennylane has doubled its valuation to 2 billion euros ($2.16 billion) in a new 75 million euro funding round.
Pennylane told CNBC that it raised the fresh funds from a host of venture funds, with Sequoia Capital leading the round and Alphabet’s CapitalG, Meritech and DST Global also participating.
Founded in 2020, Pennylane sells what it calls an “all-in-one” accounting platform that’s used by accountants and other financial professionals.
The platform is primarily targeted toward small to medium-sized firms, offering tools for functions spanning expensing, invoicing, cash flow management and financial forecasting.
“We came in tailoring a product that looks a bit like [Intuit’s] QuickBooks or Xero but adapting it to the needs of continental accountants, starting with France,” Pennylane’s CEO and co-founder Arthur Waller told CNBC.
Pennylane currently serves around 4,500 accounting firms and more than 350,000 small and medium-sized enterprises. The startup was previously valued at 1 billion euros in a 2024 investment round.
European expansion
For now, Pennylane only operates in France. However, after the new fundraise, the startup now plans to expand its services across Europe — starting with Germany in the summer.
“It’s going to be a lot of work. It took us approximately five years to have a product mature in France,” Waller said, adding that he hopes to reach product maturity in Germany in a shorter time period of two years.
Pennylane plans to end the year on about 100 million euros of annual recurring revenue — a measure of annual revenue generated from subscriptions that renew each year.
“We are going to get breakeven by end of the year,” Waller said, adding that Pennylane runs on lower customer acquisition costs than other fintechs. “75% of our costs are R&D [research and development],” he added.
Pennylane also plans to boost hiring after the new funding round. It is looking to grow to 800 employees by the end of 2025, up from 550 currently.
‘Co-pilot’ for accountants
Like many other fintechs, Pennylane is embracing artificial intelligence. Waller said the startup is using the technology to help clients automate bookkeeping and free up time for other things like advisory services.
“Because we have a modern tech stack, we’re able to embed all kinds of AI, but also GenAI, into the product,” Waller told CNBC. “We’re really trying to build a ‘co-pilot’ for the accountant.”
He added that new electronic invoicing regulations coming into force across Europe are pushing more and more firms to consider new digital products to serve their accounting needs.
“Every business in France within a year from now will have to chose a product operator to issue and receive invoices,” Waller said, calling e-invoicing a “huge market.”
Luciana Lixandru, a partner at Sequoia who sits on the board of Pennylane, said the reforms represent a “massive market opportunity” as the accounting industry is still catching up in terms of digitization.
“The reality is the market is very fragmented,” Lixandru told CNBC via email. “In each country there are one or two decades-old incumbents, and few options that serve both SMBs and their accountants.”
Bitcoin fell below the $79,000 level as investors braced for more financial market volatility after U.S. equites suffered their worst decline since 2020 on the rollout of President Donald Trump’s restrictive global tariffs.
The price of bitcoin was last lower by 4% at $78,835.07, according to Coin Metrics, after trading above the $80,000 for most of this year — barring a couple brief blips below it amid recent volatility. It’s off its January all-time high by about 34%.
Although the flagship cryptocurrency usually trades like a big tech stock and is often viewed by traders as a leading indicator of market sentiment, it bucked the broader market meltdown last week – holding in the $80,000 to $90,000 range and rising to end the week as stocks tumbled and even gold fell.
Other cryptocurrencies suffered bigger losses overnight. Ether and the token tied to Solana tumbled 9% each.
Bitcoin’s down move triggered a wave of long liquidations, as traders betting on an increase in its price were forced to sell their assets to cover their losses. In the past 24 hours, bitcoin has seen more than $181 million in long liquidations, according to CoinGlass. Ether saw $188 million in long liquidations in the same period.
Bitcoin has traded mostly above $80,000 in 2025
Rattled investors dumped their holdings of cryptocurrencies, which trade 24 hours, over the weekend as they anticipated further carnage, after Trump’s retaliatory tariffs raised global recession fears and caused investors to sell all risk.
The duties on all imports, in addition to custom tariffs for major trading partners, have sparked worries of a global trade war that could lead the U.S. into a recession. Growing concerns about the far-reaching impact of the tariffs sent markets reeling worldwide.
In the two sessions following the tariff announcement, global stocks wiped out $7.46 trillion in market value based on the market cap of the S&P Global Broad Market Index, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.
That figure includes $5.87 trillion lost in the U.S. stock market over those two sessions and another $1.59 trillion loss in market value in other major global markets.
Bitcoin is down 15% in 2025 and, absent a crypto-specific catalyst, is expected to continue moving in tandem with equities as global recession fears overshadow any regulatory tailwinds crypto was expected to benefit from this year.
Worries about tariffs may have rattled global investors, but analysts still expect China’s technology sector to keep riding this year’s wave of interest in homegrown generative artificial intelligence. The latest salvo of U.S. tariffs on China and its Southeast Asia trading partners sent Chinese stocks tumbling at the open Thursday, but they closed well off their lows. Local markets were closed Friday for a holiday. “Many of the larger tech names (and most of the consumer names) have limited exposure to the U.S. market despite some overreaction at first,” Kai Wang, Asia equity strategist at Morningstar, said in a statement Thursday. “We are expecting some fiscal policy intervention,” he said, “should there be incremental macro weakness.” China’s finance ministry indicated last month it was holding onto some dry powder given domestic and overseas uncertainties. Chinese policymakers are expected to hold a regular meeting later this month. Chinese tech stock valuations still look inexpensive relative to those in the U.S., Citi China equity strategist Pierre Lau and a team said in a report Thursday. They pointed out that average price-to-earnings ratio of seven leading tech-related Chinese stocks is 52% below that of U.S “Magnificent Seven” — not yet recovered to the historical average of 33% in the past five years. “We prefer domestic over export plays amid uncertainties stemming from higher tariffs,” the Citi strategists said. They also prefer services over goods sectors, and also like growth more than value. The firm is overweight on China internet, technology and transportation stock sectors. Citi’s top China stock buys include social media and gaming company Tencent , electric car giant BYD and home appliance company Haier , all listed in Hong Kong. Growing investor interest In a sign of how much investor interest has grown, nearly one-quarter of international investors have turned more positive on Chinese tech, the Citi strategists said, citing the firm’s U.S. marketing work last month. Global emerging markets equity funds’ allocation to China hit a 16-month high in late March , according to EPFR. Chinese startup DeepSeek released an AI model in late January that claimed to outperform OpenAI’s ChatGPT, despite U.S. restrictions on Chinese access to advanced chips for AI training. AI adoption is also expected to help Chinese companies cut costs , while policy aims to support consumer growth. Initial upgrades to Chinese companies’ earnings expectations are being driven by high-tech sectors and selected consumer companies, HSBC analysts pointed out Thursday. An index of 10 major Chinese tech companies traded in Hong Kong closed 1.2% lower Thursday, slightly better than the overall Hang Seng index’s 1.5% drop. The tech index remains more than 20% higher year to date, versus gains of just under 14% for the Hang Seng index. Another sector investment analysts say is relatively sheltered from the new tariffs is Chinese health care as pharmaceuticals were excluded from Trump’s latest round of tariffs. “Even if Trump imposed any tariffs in the future, most Chinese biotechs have U.S. partners and are not considered exporters, and tariffs on bulk drug makers could easily be transferred to downstream U.S. pharma,” Jefferies equity analyst Cui Cui and a team said in a note Wednesday. They also don’t expect reviving targeted legislation, such as the expired Biosecure Act , to become a U.S. priority soon. The Biosecure Act sought to restrict Chinese drug companies such as Wuxi Biologics from federal contracts. “Given that lowering drug prices in the U.S. is supported by both Republicans and Democrats, giving U.S. pharma companies the flexibility to operate efficiently and maintain an optimal cost structure is essential,” the Jefferies analysts said, highlighting expectations that Wuxi Biologics can operate at least twice as efficiently than competitors Samsung Bio and Lonza. Hong Kong-listed Wuxi Biologics said in late March that it expected ” accelerated and profitable growth in 2025 .” Jefferies rates the stock a buy. However, the extent of new U.S. tariffs and impact on China’s economy remains unclear. Morningstar’s Wang cautioned that tariffs would indirectly affect the tech sector given the likely negative impact on China’s gross domestic product, while market volatility may increase.