See the companies making headlines in midday trading. Duolingo — Shares of the online language app company rose 7.5% after JPMorgan reiterated its “outperform” rating on the stock, saying the company has an attractive risk/reward profile and potential upside to the outlook. for the first quarter and forecast for 2024. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing – Shares of the Taiwanese chipmaker’s U.S.-traded shares fell 3.6% after the company noted that while it did not suffer structural damage, some wafers “had to be scrapped” after Taiwan’s earthquake in early April. Management believes most of the lost production will be recovered in the second quarter. The company continued to beat revenue and profit expectations in the first quarter and forecast healthy growth in 2024. JetBlue Airways shares jumped 6.6% after JPMorgan upgraded the airline to neutral from underperform, saying it likes its turnaround potential. Bitcoin miners. Shares of Bitcoin mining companies have risen ahead of a widely expected “halving,” which cuts miners’ main income stream in half as required by the Bitcoin code. Marathon Digital shares rose more than 6%, Riot Platforms rose nearly 5% and Iris Energy shares rose 8%. Shares of CleanSpark, one of the few miners still operating this year, rose 13%. Estee Lauder – Deutsche Bank raised its short-term buy rating on the cosmetics giant’s shares, sending shares up 4.7%. The firm views this setup favorably for Estee Lauder’s earnings, which are due to be reported on May 1. Meta Platforms. The tech giant advanced more than 3% after partnering with Google to include search results in its new AI assistant Meta Llama 3. Tesla – Shares of the electric vehicle maker fell 2%, hitting a 52-week low, after Deutsche Bank analyst Emmanuel Rosner downgraded Tesla shares to “hold” from “buy.” Rosner pointed to a Reuters report that said Tesla had canceled plans to produce the low-cost Model 2, which he said poses the risk of no new vehicles in Tesla’s consumer lineup for the foreseeable future and will put continued downward pressure on the company’s sales volumes. . pricing for many more years, reducing revenues. Barnes Group – Global industrial and aerospace stocks jumped 9.3% after D.A. Davidson upgraded the company to neutral, saying the shares are attractive. Alaska Air Group — Shares of the airline jumped 5.8% on better-than-expected first-quarter results. Alaska Air’s loss per share of 92 cents per share was below LSEG’s estimate of $1.05 per share. Revenue was $2.23 billion, beating analysts’ estimates of $2.19 billion. Blackstone – The asset manager’s shares fell 2.5% after cutting its dividend to 83 cents per share from 94 cents per share. First-quarter earnings were 98 cents per share, slightly above the LSEG consensus estimate of 96 cents per share. BJ’s Wholesale Club – Loop Capital downgraded BJ’s, sending shares down 4.4%. The firm lowered its estimates for the warehouse company’s sales and same-store gross margin. DR Horton – Shares rose 2.3% after DR Horton beat expectations in its fiscal second quarter, posting earnings of $3.52 per share on revenue of $9.11 billion. Analysts surveyed by LSEG, meanwhile, expected that the homebuilder will report earnings of $3.06 per share on revenue of $8.27 billion. eBay – E-commerce shares rose 2% after Morgan Stanley doubled its rating on the stock from underweight to overweight. The firm said eBay appears undervalued compared to rival Etsy. Elevance Health — Shares jumped 3.8% after the health insurer reported record earnings and raised its full-year guidance. However, Elevance’s revenue was slightly below expectations. Zoom Video Communications – Rosenblatt Securities upgraded shares of the video conferencing company to neutral, saying it is optimistic about Zoom’s “refocused” channel strategy and its healthy balance sheet. Thanks to the new rating, shares rose 2.1%. Trump Media & Technology Group — Shares of former President Donald Trump’s media company and parent company Truth Social rose more than 14%, upping gains from a day earlier. Earlier this week, the company announced plans to launch a TV streaming division, Truth Social, sending shares lower. — CNBC’s Samantha Soobin, Brian Evans, Hakyung Kim and Lisa Kailai Han contributed reporting.
