U.S. stocks eked out modest gains on Friday and all three indexes posted another weekly advance as investors parsed comments from Federal Reserve officials and looked ahead to crucial inflation data next week.
Market Snapshot
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 125.08 points, or 0.32%, to 39,512.84, the S&P 500 gained 8.6 points, or 0.16%, to 5,222.68 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 5.40 points, or 0.03%, to 16,340.87.
Market Movers
Novavax surged 99% after signing a co-exclusive licensing agreement with French drugmaker Sanofi for its Covid vaccine starting in 2025. The deal also will include developing treatments that combine Novavax’s Covid vaccine with Sanofi’s flu vaccines. Novavax will receive about $1.2 billion under the deal: $500 million upfront and up to $700 million in additional milestone payments. Sanofi also will take a minority stake of about 5% in Novavax.
Akamai Technologies posted first-quarter adjusted profit that beat analysts’ estimates but said it expects second-quarter adjusted earnings of $1.51 to $1.56 a share, below estimates of $1.63, on revenue of $967 million to $986 million, below consensus of $1 billion. Akamai told Barron’s it continues to see strong performance in both its security- software and cloud-computing arms, offset by weakness in its legacy content-delivery network segment. The stock fell 11%.
U.S.-listed shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing gained 4.5% after the major supplier to Nvidia and Apple said revenue in April rose 21% from March and nearly 60% from a year earlier to NT$236.02 billion. Nvidia rose 1.3% and Apple was down 0.7%.
Moderna dipped 4.4% after the company said the Food and Drug Administration pushed back a review of its respiratory syncytial virus. Moderna said the FDA informed the company it was working to conclude the review by the end of May; the original review deadline was May 12. The delay was over “administrative constraints,” Moderna said.
Sweetgreen gained 34% after the fast-casual restaurant chain raised its full-year revenue guidance to $660 million to $675 million from prior guidance $655 million to $670 million. First-quarter revenue of $158 million beat analysts’ expectations.
JFrog‘s first-quarter earnings and revenue topped analysts’ forecasts. The software-development platform company said it expects second-quarter revenue of $103 million to $104 million and adjusted profit of 13 cents to 15 cents a share. Analysts had been expecting revenue in the period of $103.1 million and earnings of 14 cents. JFrog stock fell 19%.
SoundHound, which makes technology for conversational artificial intelligence, reported first-quarter revenue of $11.6 million, up 73% from a year earlier and higher than analysts’ forecasts of $10.1 million. SoundHound said it expects full-year revenue of $65 million to $77 million. Shares jumped 7.2%.
Gen Digital climbed15% higher after the provider of consumer-focused security software reported fiscal fourth-quarter adjusted earnings and revenue that topped analysts’ estimates. Gen Digital’s brands include Norton cybersecurity software, LifeLock identity-theft protection services, and Avast antivirus software. The company also was authorized by its board to boost its stock buyback program to $3 billion.
Natera rose 10% after the genetic testing services company achieved positive cash flow earlier than expected and boosted its financial outlook.
Unity Software, the seller of tools used to make videogames, reported a first-quarter loss of 75 cents a share, wider than the GAAP loss of 64 cents anticipated by Wall Street. Revenue fell 8% to $460 million but beat forecasts. Unity shares declined 10%.
Market News
After Layoffs, Musk Says Tesla to Spend $500 Mln on Charging Network
Tesla will spend more than $500 million this year to expand its fast-charging network, CEO Elon Musk said on Friday, days after abruptly laying off employees who were running the business.
"Just to reiterate: Tesla will spend well over $500M expanding our Supercharger network to create thousands of NEW chargers this year," Musk said in a post on his social media platform X.
"That's just on new sites and expansions, not counting operations costs, which are much higher," he said.
After the layoffs last week, Musk said Tesla planned to expand the Supercharger network but at a slower pace for new locations.
OpenAI to Announce ChatGPT Updates Via Livestream Monday
Artificial intelligence company OpenAI will announce product updates via livestream on Monday, the company said in a post, stoking speculation about the AI giant’s next major release.
OpenAI said that it will not be launching a search product at the event. The startup has been working on a feature to rival Alphabet Inc.’s Google and AI search startup Perplexity. Alphabet’s stock pared earlier losses on the news that OpenAI’s search announcement wasn’t imminent, reaching a session high.
Instead, the OpenAI announcement will center around an update to its popular chatbot, ChatGPT, and its GPT-4 AI model. It’s been over a year since the company released GPT-4, its last flagship model, and a new version has been widely anticipated in the tech world. However, the company said that it will not be launching GPT-5 — a sequel that’s expected to be significantly more powerful.
China EV Maker Zeekr Shares Climb 35% After Expanded US IPO
Shares of Zeekr Intelligent Technology Holding Ltd., the high-end electric car brand under Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., rose 35% after an expanded initial public offering that’s the biggest US listing by a China-based company since 2021.
Zeekr’s American depositary shares closed at $28.26 apiece on Friday in New York, giving the company a value of about $6.9 billion. The company on Thursday raised $441 million from the sale of 21 million ADS priced at the top of a marketed range of $18 to $21.
Underwriters have an option to purchase as many as 3.15 million more ADSs in an over-allotment option, which if exercised in full will lift the offering to 24.15 million ADSs, representing about 9.1% of Zeekr’s issued share capital, according to an earlier statement.