Check out the companies making headlines before the bell. Tesla – Shares of the electric vehicle maker soared nearly 13% thanks to the company’s better-than-expected profit for the third quarter. The company also expects to see vehicle growth of 20% to 30% next year, according to CEO Elon Musk. United Parcel Service – The parcel delivery stock rose more than 7% on the heels of the company’s third-quarter earnings and revenue beat. For the period, UPS earned $1.76 per share on $22.25 billion in revenue, above the LSEG consensus estimates of $1.63 per share and $22.14 billion. Lam Research – The stock rose more than 6% after the semiconductor equipment maker’s fiscal first-quarter figures beat Wall Street expectations. The company posted earnings of 86 cents per share on revenue of $4.16 billion, above the consensus estimate of 80 cents per share and revenue of $4.05 billion, per LSEG. Seadrill – Shares rose more than 9% after Bloomberg News, citing people familiar with the matter, reported the company is in merger talks with rival Transocean. A deal has not been finalized and the companies could choose to stay independent, according to Bloomberg News sources. Newmont – The stock fell more than 4% after the company posted weaker-than-expected earnings for the third quarter. Newmont posted earnings of 81 cents per share, excluding items, on revenue of $4.61 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting 86 cents per share on $4.67 billion in revenue. QuantumScape – Shares surged more than 17% after the company’s third-quarter results were in line with expectations. The lithium batter manufacturer lost 23 cents per share. T-Mobile – The stock rose more than 2% following the company’s better-than-expected third-quarter results. T-Mobile earned $2.61 per share on revenue of $20.16 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet anticipated earnings of $2.43 per share and $20.01 billion in revenue Boeing – Shares fell 3.7% after Boeing machinists rejected a new labor deal , extending a five-week strike. Mattel – The toymaker gained 2.1% even after posting mixed third-quarter results. Mattel earned $1.14 per share, excluding items, beating the LSEG consensus forecast of 95 cents per share. However, the company posted $1.84 billion in revenue for the quarter, which was modestly under the $1.86 billion figure anticipated by Wall Street. Honeywell – The stock fell about 2% after the company missed revenue estimates for the third quarter. Honeywell posted $9.73 billion, below the consensus estimate of $9.91 billion, per FactSet. Earnings, however, came in better than expected. Northrop Grumman – Shares advanced 1% after the defense company posted $7 in earnings per share for the third quarter, exceeding the consensus estimate of $6.07 a share from analysts polled by LSEG. On the other hand, revenue came in at $10 billion for the quarter, despite analysts penciling in $10.18 billion. Southwest Airlines – The stock added 1% following the airline’s third-quarter earnings report . Adjusted earnings totaled 15 cents per share, while analysts polled by FactSet expected the company to break even. Revenue was $6.87 billion, above the $6.47 billion expected. Southwest also said it is expecting higher revenue in the fourth quarter. Molina Healthcare – Shares surged 10% after the managed care company beat analysts’ expectations in its latest quarter. Molina Healthcare posted adjusted earnings of $6.01 per share, better than the LSEG consensus estimate of $5.81 in earnings per share. Revenue of $10.34 billion exceeded the forecast $9.91 billion. IBM – The stock fell more than 3% after the company missed revenue expectations for the third quarter. IBM posted $14.97 billion, below the FactSet estimate of $15.06 billion. Whirlpool – Shares popped 4% after the home appliance company topped third-quarter expectations. Whirlpool posted earnings of $3.43 per share, more than the $3.20 per share expected by analysts polled by FactSet. American Airlines – The stock fell more than 3% despite the airline topping the Street’s estimates for the third quarter . American Airlines also raised its outlook for the full year in the aftermath of its sales strategy shift. “We have taken aggressive action to reset our sales and distribution strategy and reengage the business travel community, which we’re confident will improve our revenue performance over time,” CEO Robert Isom said in an earnings release. — CNBC’s Alex Harring, Sarah Min and Michelle Fox Theobald contributed reporting.
Leading analyst Craig Moffett suggests any plans to move U.S. iPhone assembly to India is unrealistic.
Moffett, ranked as a top analyst multiple times by Institutional Investor, sent a memo to clients on Friday after the Financial Times reported Apple was aiming to shift production toward India from China by the end of next year.
He’s questioning how a move could bring down costs tied to tariffs because the iPhone components would still be made in China.
“You have a tremendous menu of problems created by tariffs, and moving to India doesn’t solve all the problems. Now granted, it helps to some degree,” the MoffettNathanson partner and senior managing director told CNBC’s “Fast Money” on Friday. “I would question how that’s going to work.”
Moffett contends it’s not so easy to diversify to India — telling clients Apple’s supply chain would still be anchored in China and would likely face resistance.
“The bottom line is a global trade war is a two-front battle, impacting costs and sales. Moving assembly to India might (and we emphasize might) help with the former. The latter may ultimately be the bigger issue,” he wrote to clients.
Moffett cut his Apple price target on Monday to $141 from $184 a share. It implies a 33% drop from Friday’s close. The price target is also the Street low, according to FactSet.
“I don’t think of myself as the biggest Apple bear,” he said. “I think quite highly of Apple. My concern about Apple has been the valuation more than the company.”
Moffett has had a “sell” rating on Apple since Jan. 7. Since then, the company’s shares are down about 14%.
“None of this is because Apple is a bad company. They still have a great balance sheet [and] a great consumer franchise,” he said. “It’s just the reality of there are no good answers when you are a product company, and your products are going to be significantly tariffed, and you’re heading into a market that is likely to have at least some deceleration in consumer demand because of the macro economy.”
Moffett notes Apple also isn’t getting help from its carriers to cushion the blow of tariffs.
“You also have the demand destruction that’s created by potentially higher prices. Remember, you had AT&T, Verizon and T. Mobile all this week come out and say we’re not going to underwrite the additional cost of tariff [on] handsets,” he added. “The consumer is going to have to pay for that. So, you’re going to have some demand destruction that’s going to show up in even longer holding periods and slower upgrade rates — all of which probably trims estimates next year’s consensus.”
According to Moffett, the backlash against Apple in China over U.S. tariffs will also hurt iPhone sales.
“It’s a very real problem,” Moffett said. “Volumes are really going to the Huaweis and the Vivos and the local competitors in China rather than to Apple.”
Apple stock is coming off a winning week — up more than 6%. It comes ahead of the iPhone maker’s quarterly earnings report due next Thursday after the market close.
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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.