U.S. stock futures were trading lower on Thursday Feb. 25 after Wednesday’s bounce, with Dow futures trading flat, S&P futures down 0.3% and Nasdaq futures falling around 1% at the time of writing.
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Investors are waiting for AMT and NTES to release their financial results before the opening bell, while CRM, ADSK and HPQ are expected to report after the market closes.
AMC Entertainment (AMC), GameStop (GME) and Sundial Growers (SNDL) were among the most actively traded stocks in the pre-market session, gaining 20%, 75% and 12%, respectively, at the time of writing.
Pandion (+130%), Dynatronics (+100%) and Koss Corp (+98%) were the biggest gainers before the market opened, while IT Tech Packaging (-23%), Invesco Dynamics (-18%) and Oric Pharma (-17%) were the pre-market’s biggest losers.
In corporate earnings news, Nvidia (NVDA) reported better-than-expected fourth quarter earnings on Wednesday of $3.10 compared to analysts’ estimates of $2.81, while revenue for the quarter grew 61% year-on-year to $5 billion, beating the consensus estimate of $4.82 billion. However, shares of the graphics processing card company were trading almost 2% lower in the pre-market session after CEO Jensen Huang told analysts that he did not expect Nvidia’s Cryptocurrency Mining Processor (CMP) to grow into an “extremely large” part of the business.
Meanwhile, Bilibili (BILI) was trading 10% higher before the bell after delivering better-than-feared results for the fourth quarter, with year-on-year topline growth jumping 91%, driven by a higher number of users. The company posted a net loss per share of $0.29, which was lower than analysts’ expectations of a net loss of $0.33. Average monthly active users of the platform increased 55% year-on-year to 202 million in Q4, while the number of average monthly paying users increased by 103% year-on-year to 17.9 million.
Six Flags (SIX) reported worse-than-feared fourth quarter losses as pandemic-led restrictions caused year-on-year revenues to plunge 58%. The company incurred a loss of $1.00 per share compared to the $0.89 loss estimated by analysts. However, total sales topped analysts’ expectations of $86.59 million, coming in at $109 million. Despite the results, investors are looking ahead and are banking on the pent-up demand in 2021 as restrictions start to ease. Shares closed 4.6% higher on Wednesday and were up around 3.5% at the time of writing.
Teladoc Health’s (TDOC) shares fell almost 7% before the bell after the company reported a wider-than-expected fourth quarter loss of $3.07 per share compared to analysts’ estimates of $0.24. However, revenues for the quarter increased 145% year-on-year to $383.3 million, beating consensus estimates of $378.93 million. TDOC expects revenues for Q1 2021 to be in the range of $445 million to $455 million, with full year revenues expected to be between $1.95 billion and $2 billion.
In M&A news, HP (HPQ) signed a deal to buy HyperX, the gaming unit of Kingston Technology Company, for $425 million in cash. The transaction is likely to boost HP’s growth in peripherals and expand its gaming network. The deal is expected to close in Q2 and is anticipated to be accretive within the first full year. HP anticipates the global peripherals market to reach $12.2 billion by 2024 and its gaming portfolio has been gaining momentum with the popularity of its OMEN brand.
