Stock Indexes Build Off Yesterday’s Sharp Gains; Dow Surges 650 Points; Nvidia, AMD Shares Drop

Your Next Trip to Shop at Ikea Might Take You to a Best Buy. Here’s Why

10 minutes ago

Are you overwhelmed by Ikea’s mazy showrooms? Help is on the way—from a home-electronics chain.

Best Buy (BBY) added 1,000-square-foot Ikea showrooms in 10 of its stores earlier this month, according to CEO Corie Barry. Ikea workers help staff the areas, which display Ikea kitchen and laundry room merchandise, as well as Best Buy appliances. The pilot program, which the companies said marked the first time another U.S. retailer has offered Ikea products, is one way Best Buy is trying to make use of its excess retail space, Barry said on a conference call Tuesday.

The pact creates “innovative ways for both of us to meet customer needs in a changing environment,” said Barry, according to a transcript made available by AlphaSense. “A multitude of partners” might be interested in a similar arrangement, Barry said.

The stores—which the home furnishings and meatballs company called a “cross-brand retail experience”—are planned for 10 Texas and Florida markets, Ikea said earlier this month.

The home-electronics and appliance retailer has been working on a range of ideas for building its business, including smaller store formats. “We like what we’re seeing in those small format stores,” Barry said, according to the transcript. “I would expect us to lean into those a bit as we head into next year.”

Read the full article here.

–Sarina Trangle

Is the Real ‘Poverty Line’ $140,000 a Year?

38 minutes ago

One analysis contends that a family of four is below a meaningful “poverty line” if they earn less than $140,000 per year, far more than the official federal threshold of $32,150.

Michael Green, chief strategist and portfolio manager at Simplify Asset Management, wrote this week about how household finances have changed since 1963, when the Census Bureau established the formula used to measure the poverty line—the amount of income below which a family cannot afford the necessities of life.

Then and now, the government considers a family below the poverty line if its income is less than three times the minimum amount of money needed to buy food. That figure is adjusted for inflation every year. The formula is based on surveys from the 1950s that showed approximately one-third of a family’s budget was devoted to food.

But other expenses, such as housing, health care and child care, now take up much larger portions of the family budget, crowding out food. Food spending made up 12.9% of a typical household’s expenditures in 2023, according to the most recent data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Using the logic of the original formula but changing the amounts to reflect modern household budgets, Green calculated that the real poverty line is actually 16 times the amount needed to buy food, or somewhere between $130,000 and $150,000.

Read the full article here.

–Diccon Hyatt

Bitcoin Has Regained Some Ground. Strategy’s Michael Saylor ‘Won’t Back Down’

58 minutes ago

Bitcoin isn’t back—but it’s bouncing a bit.

The leading cryptocurrency recently changed hands at around $88,000, recovering from recent lows near $82,000 but a touch below 24-hour highs near $90,000. That recovery is welcome to backers of the coin, though it still marks a steep decline from October’s record highs above $124,000.

The price of bitcoin has recovered as investors have broadly been willing to take on more risk in recent sessions. Stocks climbed Monday as some high-flying shares associated with the AI trade powered higher following a downbeat post-Nvidia-earnings week. The rally extended into Tuesday, with major indexes rising amid increasing investor optimism, as measured by futures markets, that the Fed will cut rates at its December meeting.

The latest measure of buoyancy has reinvigorated some bitcoin backers. “I Won’t ₿ack Down,” Strategy (MSTR) Chairman Michael Saylor wrote Sunday on X, where he has lately shared portraits of himself in a variety of heroic and dramatic settings. (Today’s depiction had him as a fighter pilot, with the caption “Turn and ₿urn.”)

Still, Deutsche Bank analysts on Monday acknowledged the effect that concerns about hawkish Fed policy and risk-off sentiment have likely had on bitcoin’s price—but also wondered whether other factors, including profit taking, outflows from institutional investors, and concerns about stalled regulatory progress have been headwinds.

Read the full article here.

–David Marino-Nachison

Nvidia’s Business Is Booming. Its Stock Is Falling. What Gives?

1 hr 33 min ago

Nvidia blew past high expectations when it reported quarterly results last week. Its stock is getting hit anyway. 

Shares of the chip giant are down more than 8% since it reported record quarterly revenue and earnings and offered up an outlook that easily exceeded Wall Street’s expectations. As of Tuesday, the stock is trading about 17% below its record high from late October, when optimism about the AI boom helped make Nvidia the world’s first $5 trillion company last month.

Since then, it’s been among the stocks hit hardest by concerns about an AI bubble.

Some investors are worried that hyperscalers like Microsoft (MSFT) and Oracle (ORCL) will be left with a glut of data center capacity—and, potentially, piles of debt—if AI demand falls short of expectations. Others argue that, even if demand is as strong as Silicon Valley expects, the tech giants are still likely spending money inefficiently in their haste.

Nvidia has added to bubble fears by investing in several customers, including ChatGPT maker OpenAI and cloud provider CoreWeave (CRWV). Those deals have drawn comparisons to the vendor financing that helped to inflate the Dotcom Bubble of the late 1990s.

Read the full article here.

–Colin Laidley

After Merger, Dick’s Sporting Goods Says It Will Close Some Foot Locker Locations

1 hr 56 min ago

Foot Locker’s new owner is doing some straightening up in the sneaker aisle.

Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS) announced plans to buy Foot Locker in May, and the deal closed in September. Analysts said that Foot Locker would likely benefit from being owned by a “highly capable and efficient operator” like Dick’s, singling out brands that collaborate heavily with Dick’s and Foot Locker already—like Nike (NKE),—as potential winners in the deal.

Dick’s Executive Chairman Ed Stack on Tuesday said the company is working with new Foot Locker management to take “decisive actions to ‘clean out the garage’ by clearing unproductive inventory, closing underperforming stores and laying the foundation for a fresh start in 2026.”

The sporting-goods-and-apparel retailer also reported third-quarter revenue that fell short of estimates. Dick’s said it had $4.17 billion in revenue in the third quarter, up 36% year-over-year, but nearly half a billion dollars below the analyst consensus compiled by Visible Alpha.

Adjusted earnings per share for just the Dick’s business were $2.78, roughly in line with estimates, but including the impact of expenses related to the Foot Locker acquisition dragged standard EPS down to $2.07. Comparable store sales for Dick’s grew 5.7% from the same time last year, better than analysts had expected.

Shares of Dick’s were down nearly 3% in recent trading. They have lost about 12% of their value since the start of the year.

Read the full article here.

–Aaron McDade

Does September Sales Data Boost the Chances of a Fed Interest Rate Cut?

2 hr 9 min ago

Consumers lost some of their heat as summertime faded, which could help pave the way for another interest rate cut.

Federal Reserve officials likely gained a clearer view of the economy in September after the release of data on Tuesday that had been delayed by the government shutdown. Retail sales came in slower than expected, and inflation at the wholesale level remained tame. Economists suggested the data put the Fed on track to cut interest rates again when it next meets in a few weeks.

“Softer retail sales and producer price figures could nudge the Fed toward another rate cut in December,” wrote Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Economics.1

The data comes as Federal Reserve officials have indicated a divergence in opinions over whether the central bank should cut rates when it issues its next decision on Dec. 10. Persistently high inflation has some officials believing the Fed should hold rates where they are, while a softening job market has others thinking that more cuts are needed to boost the economy.

Read the full article here.

–Terry Lane

Abercrombie & Fitch Stock Surges as Hollister Brand Powers Strong Results

2 hr 42 min ago

Hollister results are giving Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) shares a shot in the arm.

Abercrombie & Fitch stock soared 34% in recent trading after the retailer reported better-than-expected third-quarter results.

The New Albany, Ohio-based company posted adjusted earnings of $2.36 per share on sales that increased 7% year-over-year to $1.29 billion. Analysts polled by Visible Alpha had expected $2.17 and $1.28 billion, respectively.

Hollister sales increased 16% to $673.3 million “on a strong finish to back-to-school and fall seasonal transition,” while those at the namesake brand decreased 2% to $617.3 million.

Abercrombie & Fitch also raised the low end of its full-year profit and net sales ranges, now expecting EPS of $10.20 to $10.50 and sales of 6% to 7%.

Even with today’s robust gains, Abercrombie & Fitch shares remain down more than 40% this year.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Bet on This Big Tech Stock. Should You?

3 hr 36 min ago

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has placed a big bet on one of the tech’s hottest stocks.

Berkshire (BRK.A)(BRK.B) purchased 17.8 million shares of Alphabet’s Class A stock (GOOGL) in the third quarter, according to a regulatory filing made public earlier this month. A stake of that size in the Google parent would be worth nearly $5.7 billion as of Monday’s close.

Alphabet is an unusual purchase for Berkshire, which tends to buy unloved stocks with the intention of holding them long term. 

Alphabet, meanwhile, is far from unloved. The stock soared more than 6% Monday after Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff praised its Gemini 3 AI model, saying he was “never going back” to using rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Later Monday, news reports—first published by The Information—indicated that it might sell AI chips to Meta Platforms (META), further strengthening investors’ sense of the company’s position.

Read the full article here.

–Colin Laidley

Zoom Communications Stock Pops on Strong Results, Raised Full-Year Outlook

3 hr 58 min ago

Zoom Communications (ZM) stock finished trading yesterday in negative territory for the year. No longer.

Shares of the video-conferencing firm soared 13% Tuesday, a day after it reported better-than-expected fiscal 2026 third-quarter results and lifted its full-year outlook.

Zoom posted adjusted earnings of $1.52 per share on revenue that increased 4.4% year-over-year to $1.23 billion. Analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha expected $1.44 and $1.21 billion, respectively.

The San Jose, Calif.-based company now sees full-year adjusted EPS of $5.95 to $5.97, up from $5.81 to $5.84, and revenue of $4.852 billion to $4.857 billion, up from $4.825 billion to $4.835 billion. Both surpassed estimates.

With today’s gains, Zoom shares are up more than 8% in 2025.

Trump Could Name a New Fed Chair by Christmas, Treasury Secretary Bessent Says

5 hr 21 min ago

It won’t be long before we know who is on deck to replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

There is a “very good chance” President Donald Trump will name Powell’s replacement before Christmas, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday on CNBC. Powell’s four-year term as Fed chair expires in May.

Trump is considering five candidates to be the next top banker: Fed Governors Michelle Bowman and Christoper Waller, former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, and BlackRock director Rick Rieder, Bessent told reporters last month.

Trump has frequently criticized Powell for keeping interest rates too high and has threatened to fire him on multiple occasions. Earlier this month, Trump threatened to fire Bessent as well if he could not get Powell to cut rates. Trump was joking in those comments, Bessent said on CNBC.

Read the full article here.

–Diccon Hyatt

This Memory Stock’s Red-Hot Run Has It Joining the S&P 500 Index

5 hr 34 min ago

Another deal has created space for a shake-up in the S&P 500, which is now set to welcome one of the year’s hottest stocks.

S&P Dow Jones Indices late Monday announced that data storage company Sandisk (SNDK) would join the benchmark index before the start of trading Friday.

The company, which was spun off from Western Digital (WDC) in February, is set to take the space vacated by Interpublic Group (IPG), which is due to be acquired by Omnicom Group (OMC). That deal, the two marketing firms said Monday, is expected to be completed by the close of business Wednesday.

Sandisk stock has been a huge gainer this year, climbing as its business has benefited from demand for memory driven by the AI buildout; its stock, up more than 500% in 2025, has substantially outperformed the best-performing stocks in the S&P 500. Shares were down about 3% in early trading Tuesday, tracking a broader downturn in tech stocks this morning, after soaring 13% yesterday.

The company had a market capitalization above $33 billion as of Monday’s close, according to Visible Alpha data. It’s moving up from the S&P 600 index of small-cap companies, to be replaced by PTC Therapeutics (PTCT). The run higher for Sandisk stock this year already has it valued higher than several dozen S&P 500 components.

The last two companies to join the S&P 500—Solstice Advance Materials (SOLS) and Qnity (Q)—were also created by deals: Both were the result of spinoffs.

–David Marino-Nachison

Burlington Stores Stock Drops on Weak Comparable Sales

7 hr 5 min ago

Burlington Stores (BURL) reported higher net income than analysts had expected, and lifted its full-year profit forecast. Shares fell sharply anyway in premarket trading.

Shares of the Burlington, N.J.-based off-price retailer fell 5.5% after the company posted softer-than-expected third-quarter comparable sales.

Burlington Stores reported comparable sales growth of 1% year-over-year, well below the roughly 2.5% Visible Alpha consensus. Total sales of $2.71 billion came in a tick below estimates as well.

The firm’s adjusted earnings of $1.80 per share topped estimates of $1.62 per share, and it raised its full-year adjusted EPS guidance to $9.69 to $9.89 per share, also above expectation.

Entering Tuesday’s session, Burlington Stores stock was slightly negative for the year.

A Lot of Americans Will Hit the Road—and Sky—This Week. Here’s What to Expect

7 hr 36 min ago

If you’re traveling this week, you’ll be in good company.

A record 81.8 million Americans are expected to travel 50 miles or more for Thanksgiving, according to the American Automobile Association, likely leading to crowded roads, airports and airplanes from Tuesday onward. About 1.6 million more people are expected to travel this year than did in 2024, with nearly 90% driving to their destination, AAA said.

Some families may have decided driving was a better option, given that the Department of Transportation ordered flight traffic reduced during the government shutdown. Flight delay and cancellation rates are back to normal now that Washington, D.C., is back in business, said Ben Mutzabaugh, senior aviation editor at The Points Guy, a travel-focused website.

“I don’t think we’re going to see any lingering effects or hangover from the shutdown,” Mutzabaugh said. “Instead what travelers should really be worried about is weather. Fortunately, the forecast for this week looks relatively good.”

Storms could affect travel in the northeast and some northern states, according to AccuWeather, with the possibility of thunderstorms and snow. The areas that may see snow are adept at operating during winter weather, Mutzabaugh said, though thunderstorms in Texas and Georgia could cause issues over the next two days if they hit major hubs at inopportune times, Mutzabaugh said.

Read the full article here.

–Sarina Trangle

Stock Futures Tick Lower After Major Indexes Soar

8 hr 25 min ago

Futures contracts tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 0.2%.

S&P 500 futures also were 0.2% lower.

Nasdaq 100 futures pointed down 0.4%.