Stocks closed higher Tuesday after hopes for an interest-rate cut in March were all but dashed Federal Reserve officials.
These stocks made moves Tuesday:
Palantir Technologies
rose 31% after the software company posted better-than-expected revenue growth in the fourth quarter. Strong demand from its commercial customers offset lighter-than-expected government revenue. In an interview with Barron’s, CEO Alex Karp said the commercial business in the quarter was “bombastic, baller, incomprehensibly good.”
GE HealthCare Technologies
rose 12% after the company posted better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings and revenue.
GE HealthCare
said it expects adjusted earnings in 2024 of $4.20 to $4.35 a share.
Spotify Technology
was up 3.9% after the streaming audio service reported a narrower-than-expected fourth-quarter loss as revenue jumped 16%. Spotify said subscription revenue jumped 17% to €3.17 billion. Monthly active users rose 5% from the previous quarter to 602 million, above analysts’ expectations of less than 601 million.
DuPont
rose 7.4% after the industrial company topped earnings estimates, boosted its quarterly dividend, and said it was launching a new buyback program of $1 billion.
Eli Lilly
reported fourth-quarter adjusted earnings of $2.49 a share, beating analysts’ estimates of $2.30. Revenue of $9.35 billion jumped 28% and topped forecasts. The drug company said sales of Zepbound, its new obesity medicine, were $175.8 million. The stock was down 0.2%.
BP
reported higher-than-expected annual profit and said it would be buying back $1.75 billion of stock in the first quarter, adding that it was committed to a total of $3.5 billion of buybacks in the first half of the year. U.S.-listed shares of the British energy company rose 6.3%.
United Parcel Service
was up 4.9% after shares of the shipping company were upgraded to Buy from Neutral at
UBS
and the price target was raised to $175 from $160.
Coherent
reported adjusted earnings in its fiscal second quarter that beat analysts’ estimates, with the optical materials and semiconductor company saying it saw “signs of improving demand trends” during the period and that it expects “ongoing sequential improvement in revenue growth throughout the remainder of fiscal 2024.” Shares rose 17%.
DocuSign
fell 2% after the e-signature company said it was laying off 6% of its workforce. The company said the layoffs would help it “provide the foundation to realize its multiyear growth aspirations as an independent public company.” The Wall Street Journal reported in December that DocuSign had hired outside advisors to explore a potential sale.
Symbotic
was down 24%. The robotics warehouse automation company reported a first-quarter loss of 2 cents a share, narrower than a year-earlier loss of 12 cents, and revenue of $368.5 million, up from $206.3 million.
Symbotic
said it expects second-quarter revenue of $400 million to $420 million.
Rambus
fell 19% after the chip maker posted fourth-quarter revenue of $122.2 million, down from $122.4 million a year earlier.
FMC
declined 12% after fourth-quarter revenue fell more than expected and the crop-protection company issued a weak outlook for 2024.
FMC
said it expects earnings this year of between $3.23 and $4.41 a share on revenue of $4.5 billion to $4.7 billion. Analysts had expected earnings of $4.33 a share on revenue of $4.66 billion. “During the fourth quarter we observed continued channel destocking in all regions, while drought in Brazil also amplified challenges in Latin America,” said Mark Douglas, FMC president and CEO.
U.S.-listed shares of Chinese electric-vehicle maker
Li Auto
rose 11% after analysts at Deutsche Bank raised their recommendation on the stock to Buy from Hold.
Write to Joe Woelfel at [email protected]
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