Sweetgreen falls on weak profits

53 minutes ago

Sweetgreen shares (SG) fell Friday after the salad restaurant chain reported a larger-than-expected loss due to rising costs.

Sweetgreen reported a loss of 18 cents per share in the third quarter, while analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha expected a loss of 15 cents per share. Revenue rose 13% year over year to $173.4 million, although that figure also fell short of estimates.

The company said it was facing “higher protein costs and higher payroll expenses associated with increases in prevailing wage rates in many of our markets.” Sweetgreen also said it spent more money to increase its number of locations.

Co-founder and CEO Jonathan Neman said the company believes its expanded menu, performance of restaurants opening this year and growth in emerging markets, among other things, will drive “the re-acceleration of our unit growth in 2025 “.

Sweetgreen raised the lower end of its full-year sales outlook, now anticipating a range of $675 million to $680 million, up from $670 million to $680 million previously.

Sweetgreen shares fell more than 7% in afternoon trading, although despite Friday’s loss their value has more than tripled since the start of the year.

–Bill McColl

Chinese stocks fall after latest disappointing stimulus measures

1 hour 35 minutes ago

Focused on China exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and shares of Chinese companies listed on US exchanges fell on Friday, after Beijing’s latest stimulus package aimed at boosting the country’s economy. sluggish economy disappointed investors.

China reportedly announced on Friday a five-year plan totaling 10 trillion yuan ($1.4 trillion) to combat the growing debt of its local governments. Beijing approved a plan allowing local governments to sell bonds to swap their debt, The Wall Street Journal reported, but without achieving broader budgetary support. The report said investors were looking forward to more stimulus from Beijing after Donald Trump, who announced he would impose higher tariffs on Chinese imports, was elected U.S. president this week.

“This is not at all the stimulus that the markets were looking for,” Shehzad Qazi, managing director of the China Beige Book, a U.S.-based research firm, said in an interview on CNBC. “It’s not a stimulus to start with. What they are doing is recycling debt. I don’t think it stimulates growth.”

The iShares MSCI China ETF (MCHI) and the iShares China Large-Cap ETF (FXI) both fell about 6% on Friday.

The United States traded shares of Chinese conglomerate Alibaba Group Holding (BABA), online marketplace JD.com (J.D.), Temu’s parent company, PDD Holdings (PDD) and electric vehicle makers Nio (NIO) and Li Auto (LI) all fell between 5 and 8%.

–Nisha Gopalan

Pinterest slips as third-quarter profit falls short of expectations

2 hours 14 minutes ago

Pinterest (PIN) shares fell Friday morning after the social media company’s third-quarter net profit fell short of estimates despite slightly beating revenue.

The company reported $898.37 million in income18% higher than last year’s third quarter revenue, Pinterest reported $30.56 million in net incomeup from the same period last year, but lower than the $49.43 million analysts expected.

For the fourth quarter, Pinterest project revenue between $1.125 billion and $1.145 billion, just below analysts’ consensus of $1.148 billion heading into Thursday’s results.

JPMorgan analysts said after the earnings release that the expected revenue weakness was due to “pressure” from advertising in the food and beverage sector, which has remained weak in recent quarters. Analysts, lowering their price target from $35 to $35, said they expect Pinterest’s AI-powered advertising features to take several quarters to develop and become widely used by advertising partners of the platform.

Pinterest shares fell 16% to $28.50 in recent trading and have now lost 23% year to date.

–Aaron McDade

Nvidia replaces Intel in the Dow on Friday

3 hours 59 minutes ago

NVIDIA (NVDA) joined THE Dow Jones Industrial Average Friday, replacing the famous chip manufacturer Intel (INTC) like the artificial intelligence (AI) darling cements her position as the most valuable in the world business.

The change took effect before trading began, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices, which manages the blue-chip index, in an announcement earlier this month.

Nvidia shares have nearly tripled since the start of the year, driven by insatiable demand for the company’s family of AI chips, including its next-generation Blackwell. graphics processing units (GPUs). The AI ​​boom helped the chip designer overtake Microsoft (MSFT) and Apple (AAPL) to become the the most precious publicly traded company worldwide.

In contrast, Intel shares have fallen nearly 50% this year as fights with a costly turnaround under CEO Pat Gelsinger.

Paint manufacturer Sherwin-Williams (SHW) also became a member of the star stock index on Friday, supplanting chemical giant Dow (DOW).

–Nisha Gopalan

Bitcoin Near Record Levels: Key Levels to Watch

4 hours 59 minutes ago

Bitcoin (BTCUSD) was down slightly on Friday after hitting a record high of nearly $77,000 yesterday, amid optimism about how the cryptocurrency could benefit from Donald Trump’s presidency.

Investors view the incoming Trump administration as a positive development for Bitcoin And cryptocurrency more broadly, particularly regarding regulation and the possibility of creating a federal strategic reserve of Bitcoin, two areas addressed by the president-elect during his speech at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in July.

The Trump-fueled momentum comes at a welcome time for the legacy cryptocurrency, which trades primarily aside over the past seven months, as exuberance waned following the launch of Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in January and the assets halving event in April. Since the start of the year, Bitcoin has gained around 80%, adding the lion’s share of these gains in the first quarter.

Bitcoin has broken above the upper trendline of a cup-and-handle pattern, potentially marking the start of a near-term rally.

A measured move, which calculates the depth of the “cut” portion of the pattern and adds that amount to the upper trendline of the formation, projects a price target of $126,000. Investors should watch for key support levels on the Bitcoin chart, around $70,000 and $53,000.

Read the full technical analysis piece here.

–Timothy Smith

Stock futures on major mixed indices

5 hours 35 minutes ago

Futures contracts tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.1%.

S&P 500 futures were down slightly.

Nasdaq 100 futures were down 0.2%.