Investopedia Markets News (all except PF)

• Kalshi's latest deal follows other partnerships including with Google Finance, the National Hockey League, and Robinhood.
• Other prediction markets, and those interested in developing them have inked deals to make their data more ubiquitous.

Prediction markets are getting more more visible to the masses by the day.

Kalshi recently announced a partnership with CNN that would include integrating its prediction markets data across the national media network's programming. Certain segments are already showing a scrolling banner detailing the odds of events contracts on the exchange, and the announcement indicates the possibility of many more uses.

Prediction markets have become a hot commodity after the 2024 U.S. presidential election, when Polymarket bettors more accurately predicted the outcome than did many traditional polls. That has beckoned a raft of new players into the mix—including Robinhood (HOOD), Coinbase (COIN) and Trump Media (DJT)—as well as a wave of investment dollars.

Betting has moved from the realm of casinos and sports to public spaces, where anyone can put their money on anything—whether it's about U.S. central bank policy to how many times Elon Musk will tweet. Prediction markets' mass appeal is slowly redefining what it means to "trade."

Competition in prediction markets is heating up. Kalshi has inked deals with Google Finance, the National Hockey League and Robinhood, the latter which is planning to roll out its own exchange. Polymarket is due to return to the U.S. and has drawn an investment from New York Stock Exchange parent company Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). FanDuel has a pact with CME Group (CME) to launch a platform this month.

Lots of money is at stake. "The time has finally come for prediction markets to achieve their full potential and we are intent on making that happen," Kalshi cofounder and CEO Tarek Mansour said in a social media post on Tuesday. Mansour's post followed an announcement that the company raised $1 billion in fresh fundraising that set its valuation at $11 billion.

Events contracts would appear to have resonated with the masses, with low buy-ins, simple terms, easy-to-use platforms, and bets on future events people are more familiar with than say, how a public company is doing, or how much gold is worth. (Though Polymarket did, for the record, roll out earnings contracts earlier this year.)

Relaxed regulation on the federal level has helped pave the way, though multiple states and Native American tribes are looking to stem the tide. Some liken events contracts-betting as trading—prediction markets enable participants to bet on future events using derivatives contracts—though others call it illegal gambling. Some analysts believe the matter raises legal questions that could end up with the Supreme Court.

• Dollar Tree posted quarterly earnings that exceeded analysts' estimates and lifted its outlook.
• Shares of the dollar store chain climbed Wednesday following the results.

Dollar Tree just became the latest discount retailer to report a boost from bargain-hunting shoppers.

Shares of the dollar store chain climbed close to 4% Wednesday after the retailer posted earnings that topped estimates and raised its outlook.

Dollar Tree (DLTR) reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.21 on revenue that surged 9.4% year-over-year to $4.75 billion in the third quarter. Both figures exceeded analysts' estimates compiled by Visible Alpha.

CEO Michael Creedon Jr. pointed to the company's strong value proposition and "value-seeking behavior" by consumers for the results, telling investors Dollar Tree's offerings are resonating with shoppers "by helping them meet their needs and desires in the budget-constrained environment," according to a transcript provided by AlphaSense.

The strong results from Dollar Tree and other discount retailers such as TJ Maxx parent TJX and Ross Stores highlight how a focus on value is shaping consumer behavior this holiday season.

Same-store sales jumped 4.2%, and the average shopper spent 4.5% more per ticket. Creedon said 3 million more households shopped at Dollar Tree in the third quarter compared to last year, and that more than half of those incremental shoppers came from higher-income households earning over $100,000 a year.

Looking ahead, Dollar Tree said it now sees full-year adjusted EPS of $5.60 to $5.80, compared to its earlier outlook of $5.32 to $5.72. It narrowed its forecast for sales to $19.35 billion to $19.45 billion from $19.30 billion and $19.50 billion, and same-store sales growth to 5% to 5.5% from 4% to 6%.

With Wednesday's gains, shares of Dollar Tree have added half their value in 2025.

• Global smartphone shipments are expected to be 1.5% higher in 2025, up from the previous prediction of a 1% gain, thanks to demand for Apple's iPhone 17, according to tech information provider International Data Corporation.
• IDC said Apple will post a record number of shipments this year because of the success of the iPhone 17, led by demand in China.
• Apple shares hit a new all-time high Wednesday morning.

A new report predicts worldwide smartphone shipments for 2025 will be up 1.5% from 2024, driven by a record-setting performance by Apple (AAPL).

The Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker from tech information provider International Data Corporation raised its previous outlook of a 1% gain, primarily on the expected soaring demand for Apple’s new iPhone 17 this holiday season.

Nabila Popal, senior research director with the study, said that it’s anticipated that Apple will ship more than 247 million iPhones in 2025, a 6.1% jump and an all-time high, “thanks to the phenomenal success of its latest iPhone 17 series.” She pointed to “massive demand” in China that has “significantly accelerated Apple’s performance."

Apple has been one of the few consistent bright spots in the smartphone market, especially in China. IDC’s forecasts are a benchmark for device makers and investors to assess industry momentum, and revisions can shift expectations for companies whose performance is tied to smartphone sales.

Apple shares hit a fresh record high Wednesday morning, trading at nearly $289, before falling slightly this afternoon. The stock has gained about 14% since the start of 2025, slightly lagging the performance of the benchmark S&P 500 index.

Before the company launched the iPhone 17 in September, sentiment around the stock had deteriorated amid concerns that Apple was trailing its competitors in the race to develop artificial intelligence. At the time, Apple stock was in negative territory for the year—the only member of the Magnificent Seven that was down—but the strong sales of the new iPhone have brought investors back on board.

While IDC's guidance for overall smartphone shipments in 2025 is better than the forecast earlier this year, the study noted that the near-term strength won't carry over to next year. It lowered its growth estimate for 2026 to 0.9% from 1.2% because of a shortage of memory chips and product cycle adjustments.

• American Eagle Outfitters shares popped Wednesday after the retailer posted better-than-expected earnings and boosted its outlook.
• The retailer said it benefited from the success of ad campaigns with actress Sydney Sweeney and NFL star Travis Kelce.

American Eagle Outfitters stock is getting a big lift from celebrity buzz.

Shares of the clothing retailer were up about 15% in recent trading, after the company posted stronger-than-expected earnings, with a bit of help from ads featuring actress Sydney Sweeney and NFL star and Taylor Swift fiance Travis Kelce.

American Eagle (AEO) posted earnings per share of $0.53 on revenue that jumped 5.7% year-over-year to $1.36 billion in the third quarter. Both figures topped analysts' estimates compiled by Visible Alpha.

CEO Jay Schottenstein told investors on the company's earnings call that its results benefited “from the success of our recent marketing campaigns, which have driven engagement, attracting new customers.” American Eagle was “encouraged by the impact of the campaigns and collaborations with Sydney Sweeney and Travis Kelce, and now holiday gifting with Martha Stewart,” Schottenstein said, according to a transcript provided by AlphaSense.

After spending most of the year in negative territory, enthusiasm for American Eagle's celebrity campaigns have helped inject some enthusiasm back into the stock, bringing it back into positive territory for the year, though some on Wall Street have raised concerns about whether the company can sustain that momentum.

American Eagle had a record-setting Thanksgiving weekend, Schottenstein said, and "the fourth quarter is off to an excellent start." The company now sees full-year adjusted operating income of $303 million to $308 million, up from the previous outlook of $255 million to $265 million, and comparable store sales growth in the low-single digits, compared to a flat forecast earlier.

With Wednesday's gains, shares of American Eagle are up nearly 45% for 2025.

• Anthropic's IPO could set the benchmark for other AI companies that follow it.
• The startup's public debut would test investor appetite for AI amid concerns about bloated valuations. And its filing would offer a look under the financial hood of a well-known chatbot company.

Here come the big AI IPOs. (Maybe.)

Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot, is preparing for an initial public offering that could come next year, according to the Financial Times. The company is also said to be in talks to raise funding that would push its valuation over $300 billion. The report followed others saying OpenAI, the company behind rival ChatGPT, is also getting ready for an IPO that could drive its valuation to $1 trillion. Spokespeople for both Anthropic and OpenAI denied having set plans for an IPO in those reports.

The first of these companies to reach public markets will set the bar for the rest—and open up the AI-investment landscape beyond the biggest publicly traded tech companies like Nvidia (NVDA), Oracle (ORCL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Meta Platforms (META), whose stock valuations have lately stoked concerns of bubble-ish excesses.

It would also give the masses a good look at the economics of AI language-model developers. Elon Musk's xAI, the company behind the Grok chatbot, in late November was said to be preparing to close a $15 billion fundraising round in December, pushing its pre-money valuation to $230 billion.

The most well-known AI frontier startups—companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, Databricks, Perplexity and xAI—are private. One going public could prompt others to follow, which would open up the AI investment landscape beyond the chipmakers and Big Tech companies that investors have poured dollars into.

IPO documents, particularly those called S-1 filings, are rich sources of information, because companies are legally bound to give public-market investors a thorough look at the business before they raise funds from them.

The big reveal is in the financials—what revenue growth looks like, profit margins, and how much cash companies are burning to develop new products, the latter of which has been a source of AI investor angst. They'll also show companies' cap tables, detailing their ownership structure. Filings from Anthropic or OpenAI would adress a lot of investor questions about the state of frontier AI development.

Meanwhile, private markets are flush with AI startups. The sector has drawn roughly 65% of venture capital investments in 2025 through the third quarter, according a PitchBook's report published this week. Though that figure is skewed by the multibillion-dollar fundraising rounds of a few big startups, it also shows how ubiquitous such startups have become.

"No other emerging technology has accounted for a larger share of total deal activity," PitchBook director of research Kyle Stanford and his team wrote in the report. The old high-water mark was in early 2013, when mobile accounted for roughly 20% of deal counts; AI accounts for 35% currently.

That could make for an exciting pipeline of coming IPOs if one AI startup unlocks the floodgates to public markets. But it could also fuel Dotcom bubble comparisons.

• Salesforce is set to post its latest quarterly earnings report after the closing bell today, with analysts expecting rising revenue and profits.
• Options pricing suggests traders expect Salesforce's stock could move up to 7% in either direction by the end of the week.

Salesforce is scheduled to report earnings after the market closes later today, with traders anticipating a big move in the software giant's stock.

Options pricing suggests traders expect Salesforce (CRM) stock could move up to 7% in either direction by the end of this week. A move of that size from the stock's recent level around $235 could push shares up to $251 at the high end, or drag them down to $218 at the low end, which would be Salesforce's lowest level in over a year.

The software maker is projected to post adjusted earnings per share of $2.86 on a 9% year-over-year jump in revenue to $10.28 billion in the third quarter, according to estimates compiled by Visible Alpha. Salesforce's earnings topped expectations last quarter, but shares fell in the wake of the results amid worries about a conservative outlook.

Salesforce is a leading provider of customer relationship management software and an important company in the AI ecosystem. Strong results and a positive market reception could help boost confidence in the AI trade, which has flagged lately amid worries about a bubble.

Ahead of the results, Deutsche Bank analysts said they expect Salesforce to top estimates and raise its outlook, and suggested its stock is undervalued, with "excessive negative sentiment" in recent quarters.

The shares have lost nearly 30% of their value in 2025 so far, though analysts are overwhelmingly bullish on the stock. Among the 18 analysts with current ratings compiled by Visible Alpha, 14 call Salesforce a "buy," compared to four neutral ratings. Their mean target near $310 would suggest roughly 32% upside from Tuesday's close.

• Walmart may open "dark format" stores in urban areas as a way to fulfill e-commerce orders closer to high-income customers, CFO John David Rainey said.
• Meanwhile, one of the company's best-selling Black Friday items was Apple AirPods.

The wealthy have migrated to Walmart. Now the retailer wants to reciprocate.

Walmart (WMT) would like to build a presence in urban areas that's closer to parts of the well-off population that has started shopping with it in recent years. The traditional store format developed by the company has historically not translated well to cities, CFO John David Rainey said at a conference Tuesday, so Walmart is weighing "measured and responsible" ways to make the move.

"Certainly with a more affluent customer base that's coming to Walmart now, there's an opportunity to serve [them] in maybe more of a dark store format, where you don't have customers going into stores, but we can serve them through eCommerce," Rainey said, according to a transcript made available by AlphaSense. "We're experimenting with that, and the early returns are encouraging."

Walmart didn't respond to questions from Investopedia in time for publication. A summer report form USA Today discussed how the "dark stores," which aren't open to tye public, can speed delivery of some online orders.

Walmarts aren't fixtures in many dense urban environments, but as the company's customer base has grown wealthier it sees opportunity in trying to better serve its urban clientele.

Consumers with six-figure salaries began shopping with Walmart en masse as the company built up a delivery operation. Company executives have credited this population with driving much of Walmart's recent growth.

On Black Friday "one of the top selling items was AirPods, which ... maybe is more attractive to the more affluent customer," Rainey said, according to the transcript. "It's indicative of how Walmart is changing, and how our customer base is changing."

Walmart's highest-profile attempt at urban expansion was arguably in 2012, when it sought to open in a Brooklyn real estate development, a space that ultimately went to ShopRite, The Wall Street Journal reported. Walmart then scaled back its expansion plans as mayoral candidates took issue with Walmart's wages, non-unionized workforce and potential to squeeze supermarkets, The New York Times said.

Ordering groceries online has since become common thanks to companies like FreshDirect, Instacart (CART) and—outside of New York City—Walmart. Amazon (AMZN) trucks and delivery teams have become a common sight on city streets. And Target (TGT)—another brand with roots in suburban big-box stores—has several shops in New York City. Some even include escalators, a feature Walmart veterans once considered fatal, Rainey said.

"If a store has an escalator in it, it's probably not a really good store," Rainey said, according to the transcript. "There's a certain format that works for Walmart that lends itself to more rural areas."

• Private employers lost 32,000 jobs in November, the third month of job losses in the last four.
• Job growth has been eroding for months, with tariffs playing a significant role in the slowdown.
• Weak job growth could push officials at the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates at the Fed's policy meeting next week.

Yet another red flag is waving about the health of the labor market.

Private employers shed 32,000 jobs in November, payroll provider ADP said Wednesday. The job losses came as a surprise to forecasters, who had expected a gain of 40,000 jobs according to a survey of economists by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. Private employers have lost jobs in three out of the last four months for a total loss of 16,000 jobs, the worst four-month stretch since the pandemic.

The data from ADP was the latest in a series of reports showing the job market is slowing down. Economists generally consider ADP data to be less comprehensive and less reliable than official government reports. However, data from statistical government agencies has been hard to come by because of the recent shutdown, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics is still playing catch-up. The ADP data suggested the job market, which has been in a low-hiring, low-firing limbo, could be taking a turn for the worse.

The scarcity of jobs is a major drag on the economy, hurting consumer spending, especially for people with lower incomes.

“This is no longer a low-hiring job market; it’s a start-to-fire job market," Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, wrote in a commentary.

Not only did the private sector lose jobs overall, but the losses were widespread across industries, with education, health services, and leisure and hospitality providing the only bright spots, adding a combined 46,000 jobs.

"The only industries still hiring are hospitality and health care," Long wrote. "If you don’t want to work at a bar or in health care, you’re out of luck."

The job losses could pressure officials at the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates at the Fed's next policy meeting next week in an effort to encourage spending and prevent unemployment from rising severely.

Fed officials have been divided about whether to cut rates to rescue the job market or keep them higher for longer to fight inflation. The recent job market data gives ammunition to the "cut" side of the debate, and financial markets were pricing in an 88% chance of a rate cut as of Wednesday, according to the CME Group's FedWatch tool, which forecasts rate movements based on fed funds futures trading data.

Tariffs, and especially the uncertainty about them, are a leading cause of the job market slowdown, according to many economists, and the tariff impact was evident in the ADP report. Businesses with fewer than 50 employees have been the most vulnerable to tariff impacts, resulting in job losses for the fourth consecutive month.

"This might reflect smaller firms struggling more to adapt to tariff-related supply disruptions," Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, wrote in a commentary.

Major U.S. equities indexes were mixed Wednesday afternoon as the tech sector pulled back. The Dow climbed 0.4%, and the S&P 500 edged 0.1% higher, but the tech-heavy Nasdaq slid 0.2%.

Microchip Technology (MCHP) was the best-performing stock in the S&P 500 as shares climbed nearly 10% after the chipmaker boosted its guidance on strong bookings and an improved backlog.

Shares of American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) popped 15% after the clothing retailer posted better-than-expected earnings, citing a boost from its ad campaigns with actress Sydney Sweeney and NFL star and Taylor Swift fiance Travis Kelce.

Dollar Tree (DLTR) shares climbed around 3% as the dollar store posted quarterly profits that topped analysts' estimates and boosted its outlook. The discount retailer said it benefited from bargain-hunting consumers searching for value.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities (ARE) was the worst-performing stock in the S&P 500, with shares down 7% after the provider of rental space for life sciences businesses reported weak guidance and slashed its dividend.

Shares of Paramount Skydance (PSKY) and Netflix (NFLX) fell about 5% following reports that the two media companies have made revised bids to buy Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), shares of which were little changed.

Acadia Healthcare (ACHC) shares sank 13% after the operator of medical facilities warned that it faced higher-than-anticipated liability costs.

Oil and gold futures advanced. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note edged lower to 4.07%. The U.S. dollar lost ground to the euro, pound, and yen. Prices for most major cryptocurrencies were higher. 

• Marvell Technology reported a quarterly profit ahead of analyst' estimates, thanks in part to strong data center demand.
• The semiconductor company also said it is acquiring Celestial AI in a $3.25 billion deal.

Marvell Technology (MRVL) shares jumped Wednesday after the semiconductor company topped profit estimates on strong data center demand and announced an AI acquisition.

The shares were up close to 5% in recent trading, making Marvell one of the best-performing stocks in the Nasdaq Wednesday. (Read our daily markets coverage here.) 

Marvell posted adjusted earnings of $0.76 per share for the third quarter of fiscal 2026, slightly above the analyst consensus compiled by Visible Alpha. Revenue was in line with estimates at $2.07 billion.

Marvell CEO Matt Murphy said the company saw strong demand for its data center products in the quarter, and expects full-year revenue growth north of 40% compared to fiscal 2025. Murphy said in Tuesday's earnings call that Marvell's revenue is projected to grow at least 10% in fiscal 2027, while revenue from its data center products could surge more than 25%, according to a transcript provided by AlphaSense.

Marvell also announced a deal to acquire Celestial AI for $3.25 billion in cash and stock, with another $2.25 billion in potential stock awards if Celestial hits certain revenue milestones in the next several years. The deal is set to close in the first quarter of next year, with Celestial AI to meaningfully contribute to revenue by the back half of fiscal 2028.

Marvell stock's pop Wednesday could be taken as another sign of confidence in the flagging AI trade, and the semiconductor firm's place in the industry.

Bullish analysts at Oppenheimer, who hold an "outperform" rating for Marvell stock, raised their target to a new Street high of $150 from $115 following the announcement, citing optimism about the Celestial AI acquisition.

Despite Wednesday's gains, Marvell's stock has lost about 12% for 2025 after a hit earlier in the year amid some concerns about its outlook.