Stock Market Today: S&P 500, Dow Hit Fresh Records as Indexes Extend Rally; SpaceX, AMD Shares Weigh on Nasdaq

Booking Holdings Stock Surges on Better-Than-Expected Results Despite Middle East ‘Volatility’

FROM 1 hr 5 min ago

Booking Holdings overcame what its chief executive called “near-term volatility” in the second quarter.

Shares of Booking Holdings (BKNG) are surging 6% Wednesday after the online travel company’s quarterly profit, revenue, and gross bookings all exceeded analysts’ estimates.

After markets closed Tuesday, Booking Holdings—the Norwalk, Conn.-based parent of travel brands Booking.com, Priceline, and KAYAK, as well as restaurant-booking platform OpenTable—reported adjusted earnings of $2.54 per share on revenue that increased 8% year-over-year to $7.35 billion. Analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha had expected $2.41 per share and $7.19 billion, respectively. Gross bookings were $51.0 billion, while analysts were looking for $49.4 billion.

“The world remains an uncertain place, with the Middle East conflict and related macroeconomic developments continuing to affect travel demand, both directly and indirectly, through the impact on major Middle East transit corridors and higher travel costs. These dynamics create near-term volatility,” Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel said in prepared remarks. “Yet, we know from decades of experience that the underlying desire to explore, connect, and experience the world is remarkably resilient, and travel demand recovers once the underlying disruption subsides.”

Fogel noted that “this resiliency was clearly evident during the second quarter.” He added that “while long-haul international travel remained pressured by elevated airline prices and reduced capacity due to the conflict in the Middle East, domestic and intra-regional travel remained relatively healthy across many parts of the world.”

Despite today’s surge, shares remain down about 3% this year.

Disney Tops Profit Estimates and Unveils TikTok Partnership to Bring More Videos to Disney+

FROM 2 hr 4 min ago

Disney stock is on the rise after the entertainment giant beat profit estimates and announced a new partnership with TikTok.

Shares of The Walt Disney Company (DIS) were up 3% in recent trading, making it one of the leading gainers on the Dow, after the company posted strong quarterly profits. Disney reported adjusted earnings of $2.06 per share for its fiscal third quarter, topping the $1.84 Visible Alpha consensus. Its revenue rose 7% year-over-year to $25.25 billion, slightly below the $25.41 billion analysts had forecast.

Disney credited global growth in its Experiences segment, the successful theatrical and merchandise release of “Toy Story 5,” and strong ESPN viewership numbers during the NBA playoffs as factors that helped expand its reach during the quarter. Revenue grew across all three of Disney’s segments, with 6% growth in Entertainment, a 4% bump in Sports, and a 10% jump in Experiences.

Also on Wednesday, Disney announced a new partnership with TikTok, giving creators on the platform “access to assets related to hundreds of films and series,” with short-form videos from TikTok also living on the Disney+ app. The deal comes after Disney previously had an agreement with OpenAI to bring AI-generated videos from its Sora app to Disney+, only for that deal to fall apart when OpenAI decided to shutter the costly Sora service months later. 

Wednesday’s report was Disney’s second with new CEO Josh D’Amaro leading the company after he succeeded Bob Iger back in March.

–Aaron McDade

SpaceX Stock Is Back to Dropping After Earnings

FROM 2 hr 51 min ago

Investors bought into the SpaceX story ahead of earnings. Now they’re selling it again. 

Shares of SpaceX (SPCX) were recently down 11% in premarket trading, on pace to open below the levels around $114 at which they ended Monday–a day before the stock posted a 9% gain in the session ahead of the company’s first quarterly earnings report as a publicly traded entity. 

There was certainly reason for optimism in last night’s results, which included quarterly revenue and operating profit better than was expected by Wall Street and CEO Elon Musk’s vision of a trillion-dollar revenue year as soon as 2029, substantially earlier than most analysts expect. 

But investors in SpaceX seem largely concerned with the same question that has lately weighed on some of the hottest corners of the AI trade: Even if big spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure leads to big revenue growth, will it be big, or profitable, enough? Several of the Street’s bullish analysts think it will, though investors seem more circumspect today. 

Meanwhile, investors are also eyeing the looming expiration of post-IPO lockups that stand to significantly boost the number of shares on the market and could put more downward pressure on the stock, which remains below its mid-June listing price. 

–David Marino-Nachison

Uber Slips as Lackluster Results Outweigh Robotaxi News

FROM 2 hr 58 min ago

Uber (UBER) stock is falling premarket after the ridesharing and food delivery giant reported lackluster earnings, outweighing the news of a significant step in its robotaxi efforts.

Revenue fell short of Wall Street estimates compiled by Visible Alpha, while adjusted EPS came in just 1 cent higher than expected.

Ahead of the report, Uber announced that one of its autonomous vehicle partners, Wayve, has received approval to operate supervised robotaxi rides in London with its fleet of electric Ford (F) Mustang vehicles.

The company said a few of the 100,000 people who have signed up to be early riders will get to try them later this summer before a full launch is announced.

Uber shares were down 3% recently.

–Aaron McDade

Shopify Stock Soars After ‘Monster Quarter’

FROM 3 hr 42 min ago

Shopify just had what its president called a “monster quarter.” Its outlook for the current quarter doesn’t look too shabby, either.

Shares of Shopify (SHOP) are soaring 23% before the bell Wednesday after the Ottawa-based e-commerce company reported better-than-expected second-quarter results and issued a rosy outlook.

Shopify, which describes itself as providing “essential internet infrastructure for commerce,” posted adjusted earnings of $0.42 on revenue that increased 34% year-over-year to $3.58 billion. Analysts polled by Visible Alpha had expected $0.40 per share and $3.46 billion, respectively. The firm’s Q2 Gross Merchandise Volume came in at $115.57 billion, up 32% and above expectations of $111.98 billion.

“This was a monster quarter: more than 30% growth in GMV AND revenue AND gross profit AND free cash flow,” Shopify President Harley Finkelstein said. “We power every kind of business, and with AI, we’re expanding what’s possible for all of them. No one else comes close.”

For the third quarter, Shopify sees revenue growing “at a low-thirties percentage rate,” while Visible Alpha consensus stands at 26.9%.

Through Tuesday, Shopify shares were down about 23% since the start of the year.

No Job Growth, No Problem? A Fundamental Rule of the Labor Market Is Changing

FROM 4 hr 3 min ago

Whenever the U.S. economy loses jobs in a given month, it’s a red flag for the health of the labor market—but that might not be true for much longer.

That’s according to a recent analysis by economists at Oxford Economics, who found that because of demographic trends, the unemployment rate could stay stable in the coming years even if employers fail to add jobs or even reduce them.

This is possible because the “break-even” rate of job creation—that is, the number of jobs required to keep the unemployment rate stable—has been falling and could go below zero next year for the first time in history.

“The U.S. labor market’s speed limit is low and heading lower,” Matthew Martin, senior U.S. economist at Oxford, wrote in the analysis.

Read the full article here.

–Diccon Hyatt

AMD Reported Record Sales on Growing AI Demand. The Stock Is Falling Anyway

FROM 4 hr 19 min ago

Advanced Micro Devices investors might be getting harder to impress.

Shares of AMD (AMD) were down 8% in premarket trading Wednesday, despite quarterly results that topped Wall Street’s estimates. The stock had climbed 7% yesterday ahead of the release, against a backdrop of broader market gains amid growing optimism about a peace deal between the U.S. and Iran. 

AMD posted adjusted earnings per share of $1.66 on revenue that jumped 50% year-over-year to a record $11.54 billion in the second quarter, above estimates compiled by Visible Alpha, as data center sales more than doubled. Its gross margin came in at 54%, up from 40% a year earlier.

CEO Lisa Su told investors in a release that AI is “driving a significant expansion in demand for compute across all of our markets, and our leadership portfolio and growing customer visibility position us exceptionally well to capture this expanding opportunity and deliver substantial revenue and earnings growth in the years ahead.”

Read the full article here.

–Kara Greenberg

Stock Futures Tick Higher After S&P 500, Dow Set Records

FROM 4 hr 54 min ago

Futures contracts tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3%.

S&P 500 futures pointed up 0.4%.

Nasdaq 100 futures were little changed.