By Mackenzie Tatananni, George Glover, and Kit Norton
Stocks moved lower Tuesday after Pakistan's information minister said Iran has not provided a formal confirmation its delegation will attend peace talks with the U.S. in Pakistan.
These stocks were making moves:
UnitedHealth Group rose 7.6%, a top performer in the S&P 500 for the session, as first-quarter earnings handily beat analysts' forecasts and the insurance giant hiked its full-year outlook. Chief Financial Officer Wayne DeVeydt told Barron's the company had made "a lot of progress" amidst a turnaround but was "nowhere near (its) full potential."
GE Aerospace fell 6.1% despite the aircraft company posting better-than-expected earnings in its latest quarter. The company said earnings were trending toward the higher end of its previously provided guidance range.
Northrop Grumman sank 6.5% even as the company announced solid first-quarter earnings, a sign that investors expect more from the defense sector. Northrop Grumman reported first-quarter earnings per share of $6.14 from sales of $9.9 billion, up 5% year over year. Net new awards totaled $9.8 billion, leaving backlog at $96 billion, more than two times annual sales.
D.R. Horton surged 6.9% after the home builder reported better-than-expected fiscal second-quarter earnings, declared a quarterly dividend of 45 cents a share, and said it was on track to deliver results within its original 2026 guidance.
Amazon.com rose 1.7% after the e-commerce and cloud computing giant said it would invest an additional $5 billion in Anthropic, the developer of the Claude artificial-intelligence large-language model. The total investment could be as high as $25 billion if the partnership hits certain milestones.
Shares in chip makers with ties to Amazon headed higher following the announcement. Marvell Technology climbed 2.7% and Astera Labs jumped 9%.
Alaska Air declined 3.6% after the airline suspended its full-year guidance, citing higher fuel costs. Alaska Air also reported a wider-than-expected loss for the first quarter.
Tractor Supply plummeted 9.6%, making it the worst performing S&P 500 component. The farm supplier missed Wall Street's expectations for the first quarter and kept its full-year guidance steady.
Avis Budget Group revved as high as $744.85 early before reversing 3.4% lower to $588 amid a recent short squeeze. Shares in the car rental company have risen more than 400% over the past month. Just two investors effectively own more than 100% of Avis's stock outstanding, by Barron's calculations.
Lucid soared 10%. Uber Technologies late Monday disclosed its stake in the electric-vehicle maker has been raised to 11.5% as part of its expanded agreement for 35,000 robo-taxis, up from 20,000.
AXT declined 1.6% after the semiconductor wafer substrate maker said it intends to sell shares in a public offering. The stock has jumped 5,867% over the past year, surging thanks to the boom in data-center construction driving up demand for its products.
CrowdStrike rose 5% to $454.92. The stock was extending gains from the previous session, when it closed up 2.2%. KeyBanc analyst Eric Health upgraded shares to Overweight from Standard Weight with a $525 price target Monday.
Apple slipped 2.2%. The iPhone maker said late Monday that Tim Cook will be stepping down as CEO, effective Sept. 1. John Ternus, currently Apple's senior vice president of hardware engineering, will replace Cook.
Write to Mackenzie Tatananni at mackenzie.tatananni@barrons.com, George Glover at george.glover@dowjones.com and Kit Norton at kit.norton@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 21, 2026 12:15 ET (16:15 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Comments