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Stock futures are holding steady near the flatline in premarket trading on Wednesday, with investors eagerly anticipating the Federal Reserve’s meeting, where the focus is expected to be on rate-cut projections.
Here are some of Wednesday’s biggest stock movers:
Biggest stock gainers
- Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE:CMG) shares rose more than 5% after its board approved a 50-for-one split of its common stock. The company plans to seek shareholder approval at its annual meeting on June 6, 2024. Shareholders of record will receive 49 additional shares for each share, with distribution scheduled after the market closes on June 25, 2024. Trading of the company’s shares will begin at the market open on June 26, 2024. CMG also announced plans for a special one-time equity grant for restaurant general managers and crew members over 20 years.
- Shares of PDD Holdings (NASDAQ:PDD) increased by 4% ahead of its Q4 earnings results. Analysts are expecting a consensus EPS estimate of $1.54, reflecting a 27.3% Y/Y increase, and a consensus revenue estimate of $10.85B, indicating 88.0% Y/Y growth. Pinduoduo has a strong track record of beating EPS estimates, outperforming them 88% of the time over the last 2 years, and beating revenue estimates 75% of the time during the same period. In the last 3 months, there have been 4 upward revisions and 1 downward revision to EPS estimates, while revenue estimates have seen 6 upward revisions and 0 downward revisions.
- Intel’s (NASDAQ:INTC) stock rose about 3% following the announcement from the White House that Intel has been awarded up to $8.5B in CHIPS Act funding. This is part of the Biden administration’s push to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States. Additionally, Intel could receive an additional $11B in loans from the CHIPS and Science Act, passed in 2022. President Joe Biden is expected to announce these awards in Arizona on Wednesday.
Biggest stock losers
- Aquestive Therapeutics (NASDAQ:AQST) shares plunged over 14% after pricing a public offering of approximately 16.67M shares at $4.50 per share, below the current trading price of $5.30. The offering is expected to raise approximately $75M. AQST intends to use the net proceeds, along with existing cash, to advance its product pipeline, including Anaphylm (epinephrine) Sublingual Film for severe allergic reactions and Libervant (diazepam) Buccal Film for seizure clusters in epilepsy patients aged two to five, as well as for general corporate purposes. The offering is slated to close around March 22, 2024.
- After a 35% drop in value at Tuesday’s close, NuScale Power (NYSE:SMR) continued its decline with a 5% loss in Wednesday morning trading. This came after Wells Fargo downgraded the shares to Underweight from Equal Weight and set a price target of $4.50, down from $7.50, citing misguided investor enthusiasm. Wells Fargo’s Neil Kalton pointed out that NuScale (SMR) has not yet secured any customers for its VOYGR product, is in a precarious financial position with only a year of cash runway, faces challenges in attracting new customers, and its VOYGR technology is currently not cost-competitive with other generation sources. This decline offsets a 29% gain on Monday, which was driven by expectations that the company would be able to raise capital by issuing fewer shares than previously anticipated.
