Stocks making the biggest moves midday: Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Lyft and more
Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading. Citigroup — Shares slid more than 2% after a warning from the bank on Wednesday night of a likely loss in the fourth quarter, due to the decline of the Argentine peso and restructuring charges, compared to what CFO Mark Mason had previously disclosed to investors. Citigroup is scheduled to release its fourth-quarter results Friday morning. Lyft — Lyft shares fell 3% after Goldman Sachs downgraded the ridesharing company to neutral from buy, citing a more balanced risk-reward. Occidental Petroleum — Shares of the energy producer rose about 1% a day after the company said its strong operational performance helped it overcome a third-party outage and its total production in the fourth quarter is expected to remain within the guidance range. Separately, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway revealed in a filing that its stake in Occidental has been increased to 34%. Salesforce — Shares of the cloud computing company added 1.3% after Baird upgraded the stock to outperform from neutral. “We underestimated the company’s willingness to deliver margins, which drove strong performance last year,” wrote analyst Rob Oliver. Crypto stocks — Bitcoin miners gave back earlier gains as the price of the cryptocurrency retreated in volatile trading, after the Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval of the first U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs, which hit the market Thursday. Iris Energy and CleanSpark were each down 10% midday. Marathon Digital lost 18%, and Riot Platforms tumbled 16%. Crypto exchange Coinbase fell 7% and MicroStrategy declined by almost 6%. Yum Brands — The KFC and Pizza Hut parent slipped 1% following a downgrade by Wells Fargo to equal weight from overweight. Yum Brands will likely face slowing traffic and moderating price gains this year, the bank said. KB Home — Shares slid 2% a day after the homebuilder reported that its average home selling prices had declined by 4.5% in the fourth quarter. Despite this, KB Home’s earnings and revenue for the quarter still surpassed analyst expectations. Albemarle — The chemicals manufacturer dropped 3% following a downgrade from Deutsche Bank to a hold rating. Analyst Corinne Blanchard cited the need to take a more cautious view of the lithium industry in the near-to-medium term due to price volatility. T. Rowe Price — Shares of the investment management company added 2.5% after it announced preliminary assets under management of $1.45 trillion as of Dec. 31, 2023. This was higher than its $1.394 trillion figure for Nov. 30. Paramount , Warner Bros. Discovery — The entertainment companies respectively lost 5.5% and 4.2% following downgrades from Redburn Atlantic . Analyst Hamilton Faber downgraded Paramount to a sell rating, citing “material downside,” while he justified his downgrade of Warner Bros. Discovery to neutral with a “negative tipping point” in advertising. Seagate Technology — Seagate shares shed 3.5% after BNP Paribas downgraded the data storage company to an underperform rating from neutral. Analyst Karl Ackerman cited the stock’s valuation as a reason for the downgrade. Alliant Energy — The utility stock dropped 3% following a BMO Capital Markets downgrade to market perform from outperform. While the firm likes the long-term story and fundamentals, it said there are better risk-adjusted opportunities elsewhere. — CNBC’s Michelle Fox, Alexander Harring, Hakyung Kim, Yun Li, Tanaya Macheel and Samantha Subin contributed reporting.
