Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading: Okta — Shares surged 18% after the cloud software firm posted a fourth-quarter earnings and revenue beat. Okta reported adjusted earnings of 78 cents per share on revenue of $682 million, while analysts polled by LSEG expected 74 cents in earnings per share and $670 million in revenue, according to LSEG. GitLab — Shares gained 5% after the software platform posted a fourth-quarter earnings and revenue beat. On the other hand, GitLab guided for full-year earnings that came in below what analysts polled by FactSet had expected. Target — Worries around weak sales weighed on the retailer’s shares, dragging them down roughly 5%. Though Target posted fiscal fourth-quarter earnings and revenue that topped Wall Street’s expectations, the company flagged “soft” sales in February, along with “declining consumer confidence.” CEO Brian Cornell also told CNBC that President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on Mexican goods could lead to higher prices on imported produce, which the retailer relies on during winter months. Best Buy — The consumer electronics retail stock plunged 14% after CEO Corie Barry warned of higher prices for U.S. consumers on the back of President Trump’s new China and Mexico tariffs. Barry pointed to the two nations as key sources for the company’s supply chain, with Best Buy sourcing around 55% and 20% of products from China and Mexico, respectively. Still, Best Buy reported a fourth-quarter earnings and revenue beat. Tesla — The electric vehicle stock fell 4% after data from the China Passenger Car Association revealed that Tesla’s sales of vehicles made in China dropped nearly 50% in February year over year. Tesla sold just 30,000 of the vehicles, which was its lowest number in more than two years. Walgreens Boots Alliance — The pharmacy retail chain popped 7% after The Wall Street Journal reported that it was nearing a deal to go private, citing people familiar with the matter. Walgreens is aiming to close the roughly $10 billion deal with private equity firm Sycamore Partners as soon as Thursday. Magna International — The Canadian parts manufacturer slipped 3% following a downgrade at Bank of America to a neutral rating from buy. Analyst John Murphy pointed to Canada and Mexico tariffs as posing significant production risks and potentially creating supply chain shocks that could be comparable to those of the Covid-19 pandemic. JetBlue Airways — The airline carrier shed 7% on worries of slowing U.S. economic activity . Additionally, Deutsche Bank downgraded the stock to hold from buy, noting that emerging economic weakening would likely weigh on demand for air travel, particularly domestically. On Holding — Shares gained 5% after the athletic shoe and sportswear firm posted fourth-quarter revenue and profit that beat Wall Street estimates. However, On’s full-year 2025 net sales estimate fell slightly short of what analysts were expecting, on average. Cruise stocks — Royal Caribbean dropped nearly 6% after announcing a three-year performance initiative. By the end of 2027, the ” Perfecta Program ” aims for adjusted earnings per share to hit a compound annual growth rate of 20% versus 2024 and to generate return on invested capital in the high teens. Shares of Carnival and Norwegian Cruise Line slid 6% and 4%, respectively, in sympathy. Auto stocks — Shares of the “Big Three” automakers fell on Tuesday after President Trump enacted 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada . General Motors fell 3%, while Ford and Stellantis dropped more than 2% and more than 4%, respectively. Barclays analyst Dan Levy said that if the companies don’t raise prices in response, the tariffs could wipe out all profits for the three names. Chipotle Mexican Grill — Shares of the fast-casual chain slipped 2.3% on the back of tariff concerns. Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright said the company sources around 50% of its avocados from Mexico , but has diversified supply to come from other South America countries in recent years. Airlines — Shares of major airlines tumbled as economic worries weighed on the names and the rollout of President Trump’s tariffs heightened concerns around consumer spending. Shares of United Airlines and Delta Air Lines fell more than 5%. American Airlines lost 4%. Allegiant Travel dropped 7%, and Frontier Group slid 3%. Starbucks — The coffee chain slipped 1.8% after announcing that Nordstrom Chief Financial Officer Cathy Smith will join Starbucks as its new chief financial officer starting next month. She will replace Rachel Ruggeri, who has served in the role since 2021. Crypto stocks — Stocks closely tied to the crypto industry were under pressure amid a broad risk-off move in markets, including a 1% drop for bitcoin. Shares of trading platform Coinbase fell 0.6%. Brokerage firm Robinhood , which offers stock and crypto trading, sank 5%. — CNBC’s Sean Conlon, Darla Mercado and Jesse Pound contributed reporting.
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!