Check out the companies making headlines in after-hours trading: Domino’s Pizza , Ulta Beauty — Shares surged about 8% after Berkshire Hathaway announced a new stake in the pizza chain in a regulatory filing. The Warren Buffett-led firm bought more than 1.2 million shares, making the stake worth around $550 million at the end of September. Elsewhere, Ulta slid roughly 4% as the conglomerate nearly dissolved its position in the beauty retailer. Applied Materials — The semiconductor equipment manufacturer slid 5% after offering a weak revenue outlook for the current quarter. Applied Materials said to anticipate $7.15 billion in the first fiscal quarter, under the estimate of $7.224 billion from analysts polled by LSEG. That overshadowed a better-than-expected fourth fiscal quarter and strong guidance for adjusted earnings per share. Despegar.com — U.S.-listed shares of the Argentina-based online travel company surged 14% following a stronger-than-anticipated earnings report. Despegar.com posted adjusted earnings of 34 cents per share on $193.9 million in revenue, while analysts surveyed by FactSet penciled in 17 cents in earnings per share and $189.9 million in revenue. Palantir Technologies — The defense tech company added nearly 4% after announcing it will transfer its stock exchange listing from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq. Palantir will continue trading under the same ticker and expects to meet requirements to be listed in the Nasdaq 100 . Vaccine makers — Multiple biotechnology stocks continued sliding in after-hours trading after Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic, was announced as President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Moderna and Pfizer were among the names in the red during extended trading.
The Chase Sapphire Lounge at LaGuardia Airport, accessible only to Sapphire Reserve customers.
Benji Stawski / CNBC
JPMorgan Chase is betting that a long list of new perks will keep affluent Americans hooked on its Sapphire Reserve card, despite a hefty bump in its annual fee.
The bank on Tuesday unveiled an update to its premium credit card, which will now carry a $795 annual fee. That is a 45% jump from its previous level and the card issuer’s largest price increase for the Sapphire since its 2016 launch.
But JPMorgan says users will now get more than $2,700 in annual benefits when the updated card launches on June 23. That includes most of its previous benefits, along with new ones tied to how customers earn and spend points on travel and dining.
For instance, the bank is touting a new redemption program that doubles the value of points used for select travel offers and a new $500 annual credit at its collection of hotels and resorts.
There is also a new $300 dining credit at restaurants that are part of the Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables network, a $300 credit for purchases at StubHub or Viagogo and free subscriptions to Apple TV+ and Apple Music, worth $250 per year, JPMorgan said.
Customers who spend at least $75,000 annually on their cards unlock other perks, including top-tier status at Southwest Airlines and IHG Hotels and Resorts.
JPMorgan also introduced a new Sapphire Reserve business card with a $795 annual fee and similar perks as the consumer card, along with credits for ZipRecruiter and Google Workspace. That positions the bank squarely against American Express, which has had a business version of its comparable Platinum card for decades.
Upscale ambitions
JPMorgan, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, shook up the card industry with the launch of the Sapphire Reserve almost a decade ago. The bank cribbed from a playbook established by Amex by bundling perks around travel and dining, and later opened its own network of luxurious airport lounges.
But JPMorgan introduced its premium card with signing bonuses and credits that almost made getting one a financial no-brainer, forcing other issuers to boost their card offers in response.
Now, with JPMorgan heading upmarket with the Sapphire Reserve, the bank is at risk of alienating customers who may opt to downgrade to a Sapphire Preferred card or offerings from Amex or Capital One, said senior Bankrate analyst Ted Rossman.
“When the Sapphire Reserve first came out, it was a solid middle-class play that offered champagne travel on a beer budget,” Rossman said. “These premium cards are going more luxury, and I wonder if the $800 fees are becoming too much for some to stomach.”
That could be by design, according to Rossman. Amex and Capital One have had to rein in access to airport lounges because of overcrowding, and some users have complained that their premium cards no longer feel as special.
Whether cards like the Sapphire Reserve still make sense at $795 in annual fees depends on if customers will take advantage of enough of the new perks, Rossman said.
Chase Sapphire Reserve cards.
Courtesy: JP Morgan Chase
Later this year, Amex will introduce updates to its Platinum cards, which currently have a $695 annual fee. Amex will likely also raise its annual fee while adding more perks, Rossman said.
“These high-rate cards are not for everyone, that’s for sure,” said KBW analyst Sanjay Sakhrani.
But Amex and JPMorgan have pursued a subscription-type business model where an ever-rising level of perks make a compelling value proposition for certain customers, he said.
“They feel that it creates a flywheel around keeping people engaged and spending in the system,” Sakhrani said. “Even at $800 in annual fees, I don’t think just anyone can provide the breadth of perks that you get on those cards.”
Billionaire Ken Griffin , founder and CEO of Citadel, said playing defense is not the best strategy in times of turmoil and volatility, and it almost always backfires on investors. “In finance, when you’re playing defense, you’re almost certainly losing,” Griffin said to Citadel’s new class of summer interns Thursday evening. “There’s no other way to put it. Every time a portfolio manager tells me ‘I’m going on defense,’ I’m waiting to watch the red, because that tends to be what happens next.” Griffin, whose hedge fund oversees $66 billion in assets as of June 1, thinks cash would be a better place to hide out than what are often considered “safe trades” in a risk-off environment. “If you are going on defense, just go to cash. Otherwise, you’re just in the ‘safe trades,’ where everyone else has already gone – and the safe trades are often where the losses are,” he said. Investors have been grappling with an extremely turbulent market this year as President Donald Trump’s policies on trade, foreign relations and taxes continue to be unpredictable. Global geopolitical risks have also intensified after Israel’s airstrikes on Iran last week. Conflict between the two nations has stretched into a fourth day . The volatility in oil prices raised new concerns about price pressures , which had just shown signs of easing. The list of worries continue to complicate the Federal Reserve’s direction for interest rates. “We’ve been extraordinarily good over the years at coaching people to be more risk neutral in their behavior. Most humans are risk averse,” Griffin said. “In finance, the closer you are to risk neutral, the more optimal your decision-making is from a profitability perspective.” Citadel’s internship program is highly selective and competitive. More than 108,000 students applied for over 300 positions this year. The firm’s acceptance rate is lower than those of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Citadel has been “incredibly successful” at “creating a culture of real risk takers, people who are willing to step up and to occasionally have a bad day, because unless you’re willing to have a bad day, you’re not going to have a great day,” Griffin said.