The Nasdaq Composite locked in its first record close since 2021 after the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, the core personal consumption expenditures price index, showed prices in January rose 0.4% from December, in line with economists’ expectations.
These stocks were making moves Thursday:
Snowflake
tumbled 18% after the company’s revenue outlook for the fiscal first quarter and year came up short of expectations, and the cloud-data company announced that Frank Slootman was stepping down as chief executive “effective immediately.” He will be replaced by Sridhar Ramaswamy, senior vice president of AI at
Snowflake.
Ramaswamy told Barron’s in an interview that Snowflake provides guidance based on historical consumption patterns. He noted that unlike companies that sign long-term contracts, Snowflake starts every quarter with zero revenue. He said the forecast was conservative.
Okta,
the identity-management company, said it expects fiscal first-quarter revenue of $603 million to $605 million and adjusted earnings of 54 cents to 55 cents a share. Analysts had been calling for revenue of $584 million and earnings of 41 cents. Revenue in the fourth quarter climbed to $605 million from $510 million and topped expectations of $587.2 million. The stock surged 23%.
Shares of
C3.ai
rose 25% after the maker of enterprise artificial-intelligence software posted a fiscal third-quarter adjusted loss of 13 cents a share, narrower than analysts’ expectations that called for a loss of 28 cents. Revenue at the company in the period was $78.4 million, up from $66.7 million a year earlier and better than analysts’ estimates of $76.1 million. Subscription revenue jumped 23% to $70.4 million.
Duolingo
rose 22% after the language learning company posted fourth-quarter earnings and sales that beat analysts’ forecasts and guided for revenue in the fiscal first quarter and year ahead of estimates. The company said daily active users rose 65% from a year earlier and monthly active users rose 46%.
Chemours
slid 32% after it placed three executives, including President and Chief Executive Mark Newman, on administrative leave as the chemicals company undergoes an internal review of its accounting practices.
Hormel Foods
closed 15% higher after the owner of brands Skippy, Spam, and Planters posted fiscal first-quarter earnings that topped expectations. “We are especially encouraged by broad-based volume growth across our businesses, reflecting the strength of our leading brands, robust demand for our foodservice products and momentum in our Planters snack nuts business,” said CEO Jim Snee.
Fourth-quarter revenue at
AMC Entertainment
rose nearly 12% to $1.1 billion and topped expectations of $1.06 billion. CEO Adam Aron said the company benefited from deals to distribute the concert movies of Taylor Swift and Beyoncé despite a “diminished box office overall.”
AMC
shares fell 13%.
Marathon Digital,
the crypto miner, earned 66 cents a share in the fourth quarter, a swing from a year-earlier loss of $3.13. Revenue rose to $156.8 million from $28.4 million a year earlier and topped analysts’ forecasts. The stock fell nearly 17%.
Shoals Technologies
fell about 17% after the solar company reported fourth-quarter adjusted earnings of 12 cent a share, missing Wall Street estimates of 17 cents. Revenue in the period rose 38% to $130.4 million, below estimates of $132 million. The company said it expects a “softer first half of 2024 as sustained higher interest rates are resulting in project delays.”
Pure Storage,
which provides systems based on flash memory technology to enterprise customers, posted better-than-expected adjusted profit and revenue in the fourth quarter and issued an upbeat outlook for fiscal 2025. Shares rose 25%.
Best Buy
rose 1.5%. The electronics retailer reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings and revenue that beat Wall Street estimates.
Monster Beverage
closed up 5.8% after the maker of energy drinks said fourth-quarter revenue rose 14% to $1.73 billion as it saw “sound growth in the energy drink market globally.” The company said sales to customers outside the U.S. jumped 17%.
Earnings reports slated for after the market close Thursday included
Dell Technologies,
Autodesk,
Zscaler,
Hewlett Packard Enterprise,
NetApp
and
Elastic.
Write to Joe Woelfel at joseph.woelfel@barrons.com
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