Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading.
GameStop – Shares of the video game retailer jumped about 4% after news that the company is planning to create a marketplace for nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. At its session high, the speculative name jumped more than 20% on the day.
T-Mobile – The company’s stock shares fell more than 5% after it reported postpaid net customer additions of 844,000 in the fourth quarter and about 2.9 million total in 2021. That came in lower than the StreetAccount consensus expectations of 867,900 in the fourth quarter.
DraftKings – Shares of the sports betting company added 3.8% ahead of the launch of legal mobile sports betting in New York state on Saturday.
Discovery – The media stock soared 16.5% after Bank of America upgraded Discovery to buy. The pending merger with Warner Media could create a true rival to Netflix and Disney+ in the streaming space, Bank of America said.
The New York Times – Shares tumbled roughly 8% after the newspaper publisher announced a deal to buy sports news site The Athletic for $550 million. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022.
Delta Air Lines – Shares gained more than 4% after Bank of America upgraded Delta to a buy rating. The firm cited a recovery in business travel as underlying its bull thesis on the stock. “We expect each successive variant to have less of an impact on consumers’ willingness to travel and return to office plans, which could result in a faster recovery in corporate demand than initially expected in 1H22,” the firm said.
Texas Instruments – The stock fell 3.4% after Citi downgraded the company to a buy rating from neutral. “We believe its margins will decline due to increasing depreciation and the acquisition of a fab,” Citi said.
Kohl’s – Shares of the retailer fell 1.9% after UBS downgraded Kohl’s to sell from neutral. The bank said that inflation and less government stimulus could cause Kohl’s to miss earnings expectations in 2022.
Abercrombie & Fitch – Abercrombie shares dropped 4.6% after UBS downgraded the retail stock to a neutral rating from buy. “We think macro forces result in slowing growth, making it hard for the stock to re-rate,” the firm said.
Chewy — Shares of the pet supply retailer dropped 4.6% in midday trading after Piper Sandler downgraded Chewy to neutral from overweight. The Wall Street firm said in its downgrade that it sees sales and margin headwinds for Chewy.
Clover Health — Shares fell 5.7% after Credit Suisse downgraded the stock to underperform from neutral. “Our view is predicated on the company continuing to need to raise capital moving forward, a lack of clarity on significantly improving their medical loss ratio (MLR) to reduce cash burn, and an overall re-rating across the tech-enabled MCO sector,” the firm said.
Starbucks — The worldwide coffee chain ticked 3% lower in midday trading following a downgrade to sector perform from outperform at RBC Capital Markets. The Wall Street firm said in its downgrade of Starbucks that it sees more compelling risk/reward.
— CNBC’s Yun Li, Maggie Fitzgerald, Pippa Stevens and Jesse Pound contributed reporting
