Trump Trade: Fiserv shares slip as CEO set to join new administration

Catch up on the top industries and stocks that were impacted, or were predicted to be impacted, by the comments, actions and policies of President-elect Trump with this daily recap compiled by The Fly:

FISERV CEO TO JOIN TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: Fiserv (FI) announced that Frank Bisignano, Fiserv chairman, president and CEO, has been nominated by president-elect Donald J. Trump as the Commissioner, Social Security Administration. The appointment of Bisignano is subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate, and Bisignano will continue in his current positions with the company until confirmation occurs.

BofA says it expects shares to trade lower on this “unexpected news.” While Bisignano has been a very prominent figure in Fiserv’s success over the past few years, the firm believes the company has a strong bench of talent and notes the “upbeat tone” from CFO Bob Hau’s fireside chat at an investor conference. BofA has a Buy rating and $214 price target on Fiserv shares.

FIGHT FOR FDA: After President-elect Donald Trump chose Robert Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic with no medical or public health training, was chosen to be the next health secretary, Eli Lilly (LLY) chair and CEO David Ricks said his company would fight to defend preserving the Food and Drug Administration as it stands today, Aimee Ortiz of The New York Times reports. Ricks said, “We’re the only country on Earth that does primary data review… I think that’s a value to society we need to keep. We’ll argue that strongly with our new regulator.”

NEXT SEC CHAIRMAN: In a post to his Truth Social platform, President-elect Donald Trump stated, “I am delighted to announce the nomination of Paul Atkins to be the next Chairman of the Securities & Exchange Commission. Paul is a proven leader for common sense regulations. He believes in the promise of robust, innovative capital markets that are responsive to the needs of Investors, & that provide capital to make our Economy the best in the World. He also recognizes that digital assets & other innovations are crucial to Making America Greater than Ever Before.

“Paul is the CEO & Founder of Patomak Global Partners, a risk management consultancy. As Co-Chairman of the Digital Chamber’s Token Alliance since 2017, he has worked on & studied the digital assets industry. A former SEC Commissioner from 2002-2008, Paul strongly advocated for transparency & protecting investors. He earned a J.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Law, & his A.B. from Wofford College, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa.”

Publicly traded companies in the digital assets industry include Bit Digital (BTBT), Bitfarms (BITF), Coinbase (COIN), Core Scientific (CORZ), Greenidge Generation (GREE), Mara Holdings (MARA), MicroStrategy (MSTR), Riot Platforms (RIOT), Stronghold Digital Mining (SDIG) and TeraWulf (WULF).

STOCK RATING CHANGES:

Benchmark downgraded Shift4 Payments (FOUR) to Hold from Buy and removed the firm’s prior price target on the shares after founder and CEO Jared Isaacman was nominated by President-elect Trump to be the next Administrator of NASA. While the firm believes Shift4’s end-to-end integrated payment solution remains well positioned to gain traction in the U.S. and Europe, it views Isaacman’s pending departure as “representing the realization of the key person risk” that has been one of the company’s primary vulnerabilities since it went public.

BofA also downgraded Shift4 Payments to Neutral from Buy with a price target of $105, down from $112, after the news.

Commenting on President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Shift4 Payments Chairman and CEO Jared Isaacman as Administrator of NASA, DA Davidson says that it views the news with mixed feelings, as it saw Isaacman as a unique entrepreneurial visionary.

BTIG keeps a Buy rating and $118 price target on Shift4 Payments, saying the firm would be a buyer of the stock after its 12% decline following the announcement that CEO Jared Issacman accepted his nomination from President-Elect Trump for Administrator of NASA.

RBC Capital notes current Shift4 President, Taylor Lauber, will remain at the company, which gives the firm confidence in the broader growth strategy remaining in place.

OTHER NEWS:

Trump Media‘s (DJT) Truth Social had 355,000 daily active users in November, up 3% month over month after Donald Trump won his second term as U.S. president, according to data from research firm Apptopia, Bloomberg’s Bailey Lipschultz reports. Traffic at the social media site remains small compared to its competitors, and while the monthly gain did outpace peers, the total user numbers still trail X’s by 400-times and Instagram’s (META) Threads by a similar margin, the data show. Apptopia data also show that the average person who opens the Truth Social app on a smartphone spent 4.4 minutes there per day in November, while users scroll X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, for nearly 28 minutes per day.

While off-road vehicle maker Polaris (PII) has benefited from moving some production to Mexico, Trump’s 25% tariff proposal is primed to add millions in costs, The Wall Street Journal’s John Keilman reports. According to David MacGregor of Longbow Research, the new duties could create $400M in costs for Polaris that would be passed on to consumers. Speaking at an investor conference on Wednesday, CEO Michael Speetzen said Polaris is reviewing its sourcing but otherwise is waiting to see what happens.