Notes
MORNING BID
🔸 Apple ( $AAPL) plans to invest $500B in the U.S. over 4 years, boosting AI, silicon engineering, and skills development, including a new Houston facility for Apple Intelligence servers and 20,000 R&D jobs.
🔸 Disney’s ( $DIS) “Captain America: Brave New World” topped box office in week 2 with $28.2M, down from $100M debut over 4 days in week 1.
🔸 Microsoft ( $MSFT) is canceling U.S. datacenter leases, possibly signaling excess AI capacity, per TD Cowen; also claims a quantum computing breakthrough, but physicists doubt it, per WSJ.
🔸 Twilio ( $TWLO) upgraded to overweight from equal-weight by Morgan Stanley, citing strong execution for growth and margins.
🔸 Alibaba ( $BABA) plans to invest $52B in AI and cloud infrastructure over 3 years, surpassing its last decade’s spending.
🔸 Domino’s ( $DPZ) Q4: EPS $4.89 (est. $4.90), revenue $1.44B (est. $1.47B), comp store sales up 0.4% (est. 1.63%), international comps up 2.7%; dividend raised 15% to $1.74/share, gross margin steady at 39.2%.
🔸 Nike ( $NKE) upgraded to Buy from Hold by Jefferies, citing a strong recovery in the next 2 years.
🔸 Target Hospitality ( $TH) notified that the U.S. government will end its Pecos Children’s Center agreement, effective around Feb 21, 2025.
🔸 Wingstop ( $WING) upgraded to Buy from Neutral by Guggenheim.
🔸 CF Industries ( $CF) upgraded to Neutral from Underperform by Bank America, PT $84, seen as fairly priced with balanced risk/reward after selloff.
🔸 Newmont ( $NEM) downgraded to Neutral from Overweight by JPMorgan.
🔸 Westlake Chemical ( $WLK) Q4: EPS $0.06 (est. $1.08), sales $2.84B (est. $2.97B), operating income $66M (-9.6% y/y), EBITDA $416M (+6.7% y/y, est. $524.5M).
🔸 Berkshire Hathaway ( $BRK.B) Q4 EPS $13,695 (vs. $26,043 last year); 2024 investment gains: $3.1B after-tax in Q4, $79.6B full year; 2023: $330M Q4 loss, $3.6B full-year gain; no stock buybacks in Q4.
Equitable Holdings ( $EQH) offers to buy up to 46M AllianceBernstein ($AB) units at $38.50 each, totaling $1.8B, a 7.8% premium over Feb 21 closing price.
🔸 NMI Holdings ( $NMIH) upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform by Keefe Bruyette.
🔸 BioCryst ( $BCRX): ORLADEYO trial shows positive results for kids aged 2-12 with hereditary angioedema; real-world studies confirm significant attack rate drops in patients with C1-INH deficiency and normal C1-INH.
🔸 Summit Therapeutics ($SMMT) teams up with Pfizer ($PFE) to test ivonescimab with Pfizer’s cancer therapies ( ADCs) across tumor types; Summit supplies the drug, Pfizer runs the studies.
