Investopedia Markets News (all except PF)

• Walmart's next earnings report is set to be released Thursday morning, with the retailer's stock seen as possibly able to set a new all-time high this week.
• Sales and profits are expected to have risen in the first quarter, as growing inflation has driven a wider range of Americans to search for value recently.

Walmart is set to post its latest quarterly earnigns before the opening bell Thursday, with the retailer's stock seen potentially climbing to new highs in the days following the results.

Based on current options pricing, traders expect Walmart's (WMT) stock could swing up to about 5% by the end of the week. A move of that size from Monday's close could lift shares above $139, surpassing their February record. The low end of that range would pull the shares under $127, giving up some of their recent gains.

Walmart shares have added about a fifth of their value since the start of the year, as investors have continued to bet on Walmart's ability to gain market share as rising inflation strains the budgets of many American consumers. The quarter was also Walmart's first under new CEO John Furner, who took over in February, with Thursday's earnings call giving Furner an opportunity to talk investors through his vision for Walmart.

Results from Walmart and several other retailers this week could provide insights into how Americans are handling inflation and surging fuel prices as the Iran war drags on.

Oppenheimer analysts recently wrote that they expect a solid first quarter from Walmart, but see the retail giant likely holding its full-year forecasts steady as fuel costs could remain elevated for much of the year. As prices rise, Morgan Stanley analysts wrote that they see Walmart "capitalizing on value-seeking behavior and playing to its strengths in price gaps, convenience, and eCommerce leadership."

Walmart's first-quarter revenue is expected to come in at $174.94 billion, up nearly 6% year-over-year, along with adjusted earnings per share of 66 cents, up 5 cents from a year ago, according to Visible Alpha estimates. Comparable store sales are projected to have grown 3.8%, while Walmart's e-commerce sales likely climbed around 22%, as the retailer has worked to boost its online sales.

Analysts are largely bullish on Walmart's stock, with ten "buy" ratings among the 11 analysts with current ratings tracked by Visible Alpha, along with one neutral rating. Their average price target just above $140 would suggest upside of about 5% from Monday's close.

• The Department of Education reduced its backlog of Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Buyback applications to 88,000 in April 2026, marking the first decline since reporting began.
• The PSLF Buyback program allows borrowers in forbearance or deferment to pay missed amounts and qualify for loan forgiveness.

For the first time since it began publicly releasing data, the Department of Education has reduced its backlog of loan forgiveness applications for public service workers.

In April 2025, the department began releasing data on applications for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Buyback program as the result of a lawsuit. Since last year, the Education Department has struggled to keep up with applications, and the number of pending PSLF Buyback applications has risen each month.

However, in the latest report from April 2026, the backlog of PSLF applications fell by about 1,720 to 88,000.

In that month, 6,870 applications were approved or denied, the largest number of application decisions in one month since the Education Department began reporting PSLF Buyback applications.

The Education Department also said in the report that of the 88,000 pending applications, about 18,000-19,000 are duplicates that will be removed.

Borrowers have to continue making student loan payments until their PSLF Buyback is approved. Monthly student loan payments tend to reduce the amount a borrower can spend and save, making a speedy PSLF Buyback process important for borrowers' finances.

The PSLF program forgives federal student loan borrowers' balance after 10 years of payments while the borrower was a public servant. Public servants are those who work for a government or non-profit, such as teachers, police officers, or nurses at non-profit hospitals.

The PSLF Buyback program allows borrowers who were in forbearance or deferment, which don't normally count toward the 10-year requirement, to pay a lump sum equal to what they would have paid if their payments hadn't been paused. Once they pay back what they owe, their remaining debt will be forgiven.

Some PSLF borrowers say they have waited more than a year for a decision on their PSLF Buyback. And after waiting, borrowers on the now-defunct Saving for a Valuable Education plan could pay thousands more dollars to receive forgiveness than they expected.

• A quarter of job-searchers are taking a year or more to find new positions, according to a survey by Monster released last week.
• The poll highlighted the difficulties of finding work in today’s low-hiring, low-firing labor market, where job turnover and creation have stagnated despite a lack of mass layoffs.
• Tariffs, the Iran war, and artificial intelligence are all reducing job seekers' options.

In today’s low-hiring, low-firing job market, finding a new position can take ages.

That’s according to a survey by job board Monster, which showed 25% of job hunters had been at it for more than a year. That’s a significant figure considering unemployment benefits in most states last six months.

The figure, based on an online survey of 1,003 job seekers in March, differed from official Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys, which showed that 25.3% of unemployed people had been out of work for six months or more in April. Bureau of Labor Statistics via Federal Reserve Economic Data. However, they showed the same trend: job searches are taking longer than they used to.

Longer job hunts are a symptom of weakness in the labor market, which could spell trouble for the economy as a whole if the trend worsens.

U.S. employers have been reluctant to lay off their workforces in large numbers in recent months, and the unemployment rate has stayed near historic lows.

However, that doesn’t mean getting hired is easy: the 25.3% six-month job search rate was down only slightly from the 26% rate in December, which had been a post-pandemic high. The figure had hovered around 20% in the years leading up to the pandemic.

Several factors have dragged down hiring lately: uncertainty about tariffs has made employers table hiring and expansion plans, while President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration has shrunk the available workforce. As a more minor factor, the adoption of artificial intelligence software has reduced the need for human workers in some roles.

The latest headwind comes from the surge in gasoline prices, which has further stoked uncertainty and reduced job creation by an estimated 10,000 positions a month, according to a recent Goldman Sachs estimate.

Amid the hiring slowdown, job hunters are taking drastic steps to land new positions, according to Monster. Among those surveyed, 64% have applied to jobs outside their industry or typical role; 32% said they would take a pay cut; and 73% would give up at least one major benefit.

• Bill Ackman's Pershing Square slashed its stake in Google-parent Alphabet last quarter, while Berkshire Hathaway tripled its stake before shares took flight last month.
• Ackman over the weekend explained the Alphabet sale was "not a bet against the company," but a decision made to fund a $2 billion investment in software giant Microsoft.

Alphabet's stock has been on a torrid run. Some big investors don't agree about what to do with it now.

Industrial conglomerate and investment giant Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) revealed in a regulatory filing on Friday that it tripled its stake in Google’s parent company during the first quarter. The value of Berkshire’s Alphabet (GOOG) investments stood at more than $16.6 billion at the end of March, making it the firm’s seventh-largest holding.  Meanwhile, Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square revealed it sold 95% of its Alphabet stock during the quarter. The stake, Pershing Square’s fourth largest—and worth more than $2.1 billion at the end of 2025—totaled $99 million at the end of March, making it the firm’s second-smallest position. 

To clear one thing up: Pershing Square’s Alphabet sale, Ackman said in an X post on Saturday, “was not a bet against the company. We are very bullish long term on Alphabet. But at current valuations and in light of our finite capital base, we used [Alphabet] as a source of funds" to buy another Big Tech company. Pershing Square on Friday revealed a new stake in Microsoft worth about $2.1 billion at the end of the quarter.

Shares of Nvidia, Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Tesla were moving nearly in lock-step when the tech giants were christened the Magnificent Seven in 2023. Over the past year, concerns about tariffs, AI infrastructure spending, and software industry disruption have led their shares to diverge, creating opportunities for investors to buy high-growth stocks at low-growth valuations.

Alphabet stock has soared over the past year, buoyed by the popularity of its Gemini chatbot, investments in custom AI chips, and its booming cloud computing business. Shares have risen about 140% over the past 12 months and about 30% so far this year, making it is the best-performing stock in the Magnificent Seven across both timeframes. As of Monday, it was America’s second-most valuable company, with a market capitalization of nearly $5 trillion.

Microsoft (MSFT), on the other hand, has been the laggard of the Mag 7 this year. The stock is down more than 12% since the start of the year, underperformance that Ackman, in a post early Friday, attributed to two erroneous investor concerns. 

First, investors fear that the Microsoft’s suite of productivity software, M365, will face tough competition from “increasingly capable AI lab offerings (notably Anthropic's Claude Cowork).” Second, Ackman thinks Wall Street underestimates the durability of Microsoft’s cloud computing business, which competes directly with cloud units at Alphabet and Amazon, another major Pershing Square holding.

Microsoft is one of many software companies to be pressured this year by concerns about disruption by AI start-ups like Anthropic and OpenAI. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software SectorsETF (IGV) is, like Microsoft, down more than 12% year-to-date.

“Investors underestimate the resilience of the M365 franchise,” wrote Ackman. The software “is tightly integrated into the daily workflow of nearly every large enterprise and is supported by Microsoft's identity, security, compliance, and data governance infrastructure, which would be nearly impossible to replicate.” 

Ackman believes investors also aren’t factoring into Microsoft’s stock price the company’s investment in OpenAI, an asset that no other software company can claim. The stock’s multiple, he wrote, “does not reflect the value of Microsoft's approximately 27% economic interest in OpenAI,” which the start-up's most recent funding round would put at about $200 billion. 

Ackman views Microsoft’s recent decision to restructure its OpenAI investment “not as a concession but as part of a deliberate pivot toward a more open, multi-model architecture” of its Azure cloud computing platform. Offering customers more models to choose from, Ackman argues, should fuel cloud computing growth that is expected to accelerate in the second half of this year. 

Microsoft shares dodged a tech stock slump on Monday, rising 0.4% to pace the Mag 7. Alphabet gave up early gains to end the day little changed.

• Berkshire Hathaway added a new, $2.65 billion stake in Delta Air Lines in the first quarter, according to a regulatory filing on Friday.
• Warren Buffett, who headed Berkshire for six decades before stepping down at the end of 2025, often said airlines were a bad investment.

Warren Buffett famously thought investing in airlines was a bad idea after getting burned. Berkshire Hathaway investors undoubtedly hope Greg Abel has better luck.

A regulatory filing Friday showed Berkshire (BRK.A, BRK.B) added a new, $2.65 billion stake in Delta Air Lines (DAL) in the first quarter, its first under Abel since the 95-year-old Buffett stepped down as CEO at the end of last year after six decades at the helm of the conglomerate.

Although Buffett has said he is still involved in investment decisions at Berkshire, purchasing 39.8 million shares of Delta would raise eyebrows, especially given his past history of investing in airlines. (Berkshire declined to comment on how much input, if any, Buffett had on its investment decision.)

As far back as its 1996 letter to shareholders, Buffett wrote, "When Richard Branson, the wealthy owner of Virgin Atlantic Airways, was asked how to become a millionaire, he had a quick answer: 'There's really nothing to it. Start as a billionaire and then buy an airline.'"

In his 2007 shareholder letter, Buffett said, "Investors have poured money into a bottomless pit, attracted by growth when they should have been repelled by it. And I, to my shame, participated in this foolishness when I had Berkshire buy U.S. Air preferred stock in 1989. As the ink was drying on our check, the company went into a tailspin, and before long our preferred dividend was no longer being paid." (US Airways ultimately merged with American Airlines (AAL) in 2013 and disappeared as a brand two years later.)

In that same letter, Buffett wrote of the airline industry that "a durable competitive advantage has proven elusive ever since the days of the Wright Brothers. Indeed, if a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down."

The lesson didn't stick. Starting in 2016, Berkshire bought sizable stakes in American, Delta, Southwest Airlines (LUV), and United Airlines Group (UAL), then sold all of them during the COVID-19 collapse in 2020 at a multibillion-dollar loss.

Given that Berkshire is sitting on a massive cash hoard—it rose to a record $397.38 billion in the first quarter—and that Delta made $5 billion in profit in fiscal 2025, Berkshire executives evidently determined that the timing was right to invest in the carrier.

Still, Delta—like its chief U.S. rivals—once again lost money flying passengers last year, registering a lower passenger revenue per available seat mile (PRASM) than cost per available seat mile (CASM), and was off to a bad start through the first quarter of this year.

Delta shares closed near unchanged on Monday and have only gained 1% in 2026, a tough one for the airline industry amid soaring jet fuel prices.

• "Yeah, we'll probably sell some bitcoin," Strategy chair Saylor said during the company's most recent earnings call in early May.
• Filings show that the firm sold preferred stock STRC and common stock to fund its latest bitcoin purchase.

"HODL," the crypto catchphrase that refers to holding through ups and downs rather than selling, lives another day.

Strategy (MSTR), the enterprise software company turned bitcoin treasury, said it bought $2 billion worth of the crypto last week, bringing its stockpile of the coins to 843,738—valued, at recent prices, at nearly $65 billion. Strategy said it sold 19.5 million shares of its "Stretch" preferred stock, or "STRC," and a smaller amount of its common stock to raise the roughly $2 billion used to fund some of its most recent bitcoin purchase, according to company filings. The average cost of the stash, $75,700, sits slightly below recent prices.

Saylor has long been considered a bitcoin whale—one that has long vowed to buy and "never sell." Now that his philosophy has changed, Strategy is now one to watch for selling activity that could put pressure on digital asset prices.

The company's continued bitcoin purchases may have elicited sighs of relief from crypto investors, since it's been just a few weeks since Strategy founder and executive chair Michael Saylor said the company will "probably sell some bitcoin" during its latest earnings call.

The company also said last week that it repurchased its 2029 convertible notes for roughly $1.4 billion in cash, which Strategy said it expects to fund with available cash, proceeds from sale of securities, or the sale of bitcoin.

That a bitcoin whale that has for years vowed to "never sell" is now open to the idea might concern investors whose hopes for a return of crypto spring were damaged when prices sank to around $76,000 recently. Saylor during Strategy's latest earnings conference call likened the company's philosophy to that of real estate development companies. "We're like a bitcoin development company," he said, according to transcripts provided by AlphaSense. "We buy it cheap. We sell it dear."

In addition to buying cheap and selling high, Strategy could sell for cheap bitcoin it bought at richer prices. CEO Phong Le on the same earnings call said that if the "objective would be sell high cost basis bitcoin to capture some of those unrealized losses." The company, he said, has roughly $2.2 billion of "unrealized tax benefits" on its balance sheet.

• Shares of UnitedHealth Group slipped on Monday after Berkshire Hathaway revealed in a regulatory filing that it divested from the healthcare giant during the first quarter.
• Berkshire also exited positions in Visa, Mastercard and Amazon, while taking new stakes in Delta Air Lines and Macy's, and boosting its position in Alphabet.

The Oracle of Omaha may not be calling the shots anymore, but Berkshire Hathaway’s stock picks can still move markets.

Berkshire Hathaway sold the entirety of its $1.4 billion stake in UnitedHealth Group (UNH) in the first quarter, less than a year after buying into the troubled healthcare giant. UnitedHealth stock was among the worst-performing stocks in the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average in midday trading Monday, with shares down about 1.5%. 

Berkshire opened its UnitedHealth position in the second quarter of last year, around the time the shares lost more than half their value amid financial pressure and mounting scrutiny of its business practices. Berkshire may have made a slight profit on the stock, but only if it bought near its low point last year and sold in January, when the shares hovered around $350. (They're now above $380.)

Legendary value investor Warren Buffett helped Berkshire Hathaway amass one of the most closely followed stock portfolios in the world. The changes made last quarter—Berkshire's first without Buffett at the helm—could signal a new direction for the portfolio under CEO Greg Abel.

UnitedHealth was one of several sizable stakes Berkshire exited last quarter. The conglomerate also sold the entirety of its stakes in payment giants Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA), worth about $2.5 billion and $2 billion, respectively, at the end of the quarter. Their stocks were each up more than 1% in recent trading. 

Berkshire also dumped its nearly $500 million stake in tech giant Amazon (AMZN), shares of which were up slightly Monday. Shares of insurer Aon (AON) were up more than 2% despite Berkshire’s divestments, while Domino’s Pizza (DPZ) stock was up about 1%. (Read our coverage of today's markets here.) 

Delta Air Lines (DAL) and Macy’s (M) advanced about 1%, give or take, on Monday after Berkshire revealed new stakes in the two companies. Berkshire’s Delta purchase, worth about $2.6 billion at the end of the quarter, is its first investment in the airline industry since former CEO Warren Buffett dumped about $4 billion worth of airline stocks at the height of Covid-19.

The biggest change to Berkshire's portfolio last quarter was its purchase of about 40 million shares of Google-parent Alphabet (GOOG), shares of which were up roughly 1% in recent trading. Last quarter's purchases more than tripled Berkshire's Alphabet holdings and made it the firm's seventh-largest stake, worth about $16.6 billion.

Berkshire's Alphabet investment has already made a it good chunk of change on paper. Alphabet shares are up about 40% since the end of the first quarter.

• ServiceNow shares rallied Monday after Bank of America analysts relaunched coverage of the enterprise software maker with a bullish rating.
• The analysts said they expect ServiceNow to benefit from AI rather than be disrupted by it, after AI worries have dragged many software stocks this year.

One software maker's stock is bucking the trend with big gains Monday after a group of Wall Street analysts said they believe concerns about AI disruption to its business are overblown.

ServiceNow (NOW) shares were up 6% in recent trading, making it one of the best-performing stocks in the S&P 500 on a down day for the index and the broader tech sector, after Bank of America analysts reinstated their coverage of the enterprise software maker with a bullish rating.

BofA called ServiceNow's stock a "buy" and gave it a price target of $130, writing that they expect ServiceNow "to benefit from, rather than be replaced by, new AI solutions." That's still a bit below the average price target of analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha, a majority of whom are also bullish on the stock and have a mean target just under $140, despite the stock's recent pullback.

BofA's vote of confidence may help ease concerns that ServiceNow's business could be negatively impacted by the rise of AI, after a rough start to the year for the stock amid a broader hit to the software sector.

The analysts said they believe that the growth of AI agents will increase the need for companies to manage and limit what those agents can do—which they believe will put ServiceNow "at the center of workflow orchestration and control."

A number of software stocks, including ServiceNow, have struggled this year amid concerns that the industry could be disrupted by the growth of AI tools making it easier for clients and new entrants to build their own competing software. The company said in its latest earnings report last month that the Iran war is also impacting its business, delaying the closing of some deals in the Middle East.

Even with Monday's gains, ServiceNow shares have lost about a third of their value since the start of the year, and roughly half in the last 12 months.

Booming AI Demand Creates Need for Scale

• Dominion Energy shares are surging following news that it will be acquired by NextEra Energy in an all-stock deal valued at nearly $67 billion.
• The deal to create a power utility giant underscores the importance of scale for companies to meet the booming demand for electricity from AI data centers.

Dominion Energy shares are soaring Monday on news of a deal that will create a power utility behemoth.

NextEra Energy (NEE) will acquire Dominion (D) in an all-stock transaction valued at nearly $67 billion, which will create the "world's largest regulated electric utility" by market capitalization, the companies announced Monday. The announcement confirmed reports over the weekend that a deal was imminent.

"We are bringing NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy together because scale matters more than ever— not for the sake of size, but because scale translates into capital and operating efficiencies," NextEra CEO John Ketchum said. "It enables us to buy, build, finance and operate more efficiently, which translates into more affordable electricity for our customers in the long run."

Shares of Dominion were up 9% at around $67 recently, pacing gainers in the S&P 500 index and trading at their highest levels since late 2022. NextEra shares fell 6%.

Stocks tied to the artificial intelligence boom have helped lift major indexes to a series of record highs in recent years. Shares of energy companies have been among the beneficiaries as they're considered "pick and shovel" investment plays amid the surge in demand for electricity for data centers.

Energy companies have been looking for ways to operate more efficiently as they work to increase their energy capacity to meet the growing power needs of big tech's sprawling network of data centers that will run AI products.

Dominion provides electricity to 3.6 million residential and commercial customers in Virginia and the Carolinas, including an area northwest of Washington, D.C., known as "data center alley." NextEra owns Florida Power & Light Company, the largest electric utility in the U.S. serving about 12 million people in the state, and also has a big energy infrastructure development business.

Under the terms of transaction, Dominion shareholders will receive 0.8138 shares of the newly combined company for every share of Dominion they own at the close of the deal, which is expected in the next 12-18 months pending regulatory and shareholder approval. Dominion shareholders will continue receiving a quarterly dividend through the closing, as well as a one-time cash payment of $360 million. NextEra shareholders will own just under 75% of the new company.

At a time when there are increasing concerns about rising electricity costs due to the insatiable demand from data centers, the companies are also proposing $2.25 billion of bill credits spread over two years for Dominion customers in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia as part of the deal.

Coming into this week, Dominion shares were up 5% since the start of the year, trailing the 8% gain of the benchmark S&P 500 index. NextEra shares came into Monday's session up 10% so far in 2026.

• Lowe's next earnings report is set to be released Wednesday morning, with the stock expected to make a sizable move following the report.
• Lowe's sales and profits are projected to rise year-over-year, as inflation and a slow housing market have pressured the outlook for the home improvement industry.

Lowe's is set to report its latest quarterly results ahead of the opening bell on Wednesday, with the stock seen making a big move in the days that follow.

Current options pricing indicates that traders are anticipating Lowe's (LOW) stock could swing up to 5.5% in either direction by the end of the week. A move of that size from Monday morning's level around $221 could lift the shares close to $233, recovering some of their recent losses, or drag them below $210.

Lowe's shares are down about 8% since the start of the year, and are nearly 30% off a record high set in February. Concerns that a slow housing market and growing price pressures on consumers could hamper spending on home improvement projects have pressured shares of Lowe's and rival Home Depot (HD) lately.

Investors and analysts will be looking to results from Lowe's and Home Depot for insights into the health of consumer spending, and how the home improvement industry could fare this year.

Ahead of the reports from Lowe's and Home Depot, Morgan Stanley analysts wrote that demand will likely remain pressured in the near term "due to macro, housing, and consumer pressures."

Lowe's is projected to report $22.95 billion in first-quarter revenue, up about 10% year-over-year, with adjusted earnings per share of $2.97, up just over 1%. The retailer's comparable store sales are expected to have grown 0.7% in the quarter, according to Visible Alpha estimates.

Analysts are largely bullish on Lowe's stock, with eight of the ten analysts with current ratings tracked by Visible Alpha calling Lowe's a "buy," compared to two neutral ratings. Their average price target of $291 would suggest over 30% upside from its recent level.