Apple, Intel little changed near noon following earnings: Morning Buzz

Get caught up quickly on the top news and calls moving stocks with these five Top Five lists.

1. STOCK NEWS:

• Apple (AAPL) reported upbeat Q1 results, with CEO Tim Cook calling it the company’s “best quarter ever”
• Visa (V) reported better-than-expected Q1 earnings and revenue, with payments volume up 9%
• Chevron (CVX) reported downbeat Q4 earnings while Exxon Mobil (XOM) reported upbeat Q4 earnings per share
• Intel (INTC) reported upbeat Q4 results but provided a lower-than-expected outlook for Q1
• Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ (VRTX) non-opioid Journavx was approved for pain treatment by the FDA

2. WALL STREET CALLS:

• Hershey (HSY) downgraded Comcast (CMCSA) to Neutral from Buy
• MoffettNathanson upgraded Electronic Arts (EA) to Buy from Neutral
• RMD (RMD) upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS
• Baird initiated coverage of Zillow Group (ZG) with a Neutral rating

3. AROUND THE WEB:

• Meta (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg told staff in an all-hands company meeting to “buckle up” for an “intense” year, BI says
• U.S. officials are investigating whether China’s DeepSeek purchased advanced Nvidia (NVDA) semiconductors through third parties in Singapore, Bloomberg reports
• Costco (COST) will increase the pay for most of its hourly U.S. store workers to over $30, Reuters says
• Honda (HMC) and Nissan (NSANY) will delay the unveiling of their merger plan until mid-February, Kyodo News reports
• CEO Satya Nadelia and other Microsoft (MSFT) executives moved quickly to get engineers to test and deploy DeepSeek R1 on Azure and GitHub in 10 days, The Verge says

4. MOVERS:

• Cipher Mining (CIFR) gains after announcing a $50M investment from SoftBank (SFTBY)
• Viavi (VIAV) increases after reporting quarterly results and providing guidance for Q3
• AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) higher after announcing the FCC granted the company Special Temporary Authority authorizing testing service in the U.S.
• Walgreens (WBA) falls after suspending its quarterly dividend and announcing plans to evaluate all options to maximize its equity value
• Deckers Outdoor (DECK) lower after reporting Q3 results and raising its guidance for FY25

5. EARNINGS/GUIDANCE:

• AbbVie (ABBV) reported Q4 results, with EPS missing consensus
• Colgate-Palmolive (CL) reported Q4 results and provided guidance for FY25
• Church & Dwight (CHD) reported Q4 results, with EPS in-line with consensus
• RBC Bearings (RBC) reported Q3 results, with CEO Michael Hartnett commenting, “RBC delivered another quarter of strong operational performance”
• Piper Sandler (PIPR) reported Q4 results, with CEO Chad Abraham commenting, “we delivered a strong fourth quarter and our second strongest year on record”

INDEXES:

Near midday, the Dow was down 0.03%, or 13.72, to 44,868.41, the Nasdaq was up 1.23%, or 241.91, to 19,923.66, and the S&P 500 was up 0.64%, or 38.78, to 6,109.95.