Walt Disney ( NYSE:DIS), the long-standing theme park behemoth that's now a streaming service contender, just released its latest round of quarterly data. Usually Disney stock isn't particularly volatile, but Monday's share-price action brought surprises and a bit of whiplash. It's been a major challenge for Disney's streaming service, Disney+, to keep up with competitors like Netflix ( NASDAQ:NFLX). Furthermore, after the film Snow White bombed at the box office last year, investors may wonder whether Disney has lost its magic touch in the mid-2020s.
What they're saying: "The market has gotten comfortable, maybe naively," Trevor Slaven, global head of asset allocation at Barings, tells Axios, adding that investors seem to think 70% of Trump's policies are "just bluster." The other 30% is when Trump takes steps toward a more "aggressive approach" only to walk that back after getting checked by either the market or other advisors, Slaven says.
Shares of Palantir ( NASDAQ:PLTR) have been turbulently climbing back in the past month, and while the latest 7% slip in the face of what seems to be a Santa Claus slump, especially for tech stocks, investors might not wish to bet against CEO Alex Karp and company as they look to drive a comeback and bring the pain to Michael Burry, who's likely hanging onto his big bearish bets against the firm going into the new year.
A lot of the hoopla started when investors questioned Oracle's ( NASDAQ:ORCL) heavy debt load for the OpenAI deal. Capital expenditures came under pressure, and people wondered how OpenAI would be able to pay $300 billion over five years. That contract starts in 2027, and rumors circulated that OpenAI pushed back its data center completion to 2028, a year later than initially planned. It put more pressure on AI data center providers like IREN, even though Oracle refuted the rumor on the same day.
Alternative meat company Beyond Meat saw its stock drop almost 5% in early trading on Tuesday after a significant rally had pushed shares up a day earlier and into premarket trading. As of around noon, the stock was trading at $1.28 a share after opening at $1.40. The volatility is another sign that the heavily shorted stock is being embraced by meme stock traders, with some seeking to lock in profits after shares rise. As of this writing, the stock is still up over 47% over the past five days.
An October equity offering raised approximately $514 million (with net proceeds of $576 million), but investors who were diluted by the move didn't like that the offering was priced 11% below where the stock had been trading. Its just released Q3 report also showed a much wider-than-expected loss of $0.48 per share compared to consensus estimates of $0.19, highlighting investor concerns over ongoing cash burn and delayed profitability.
For a safer wager, you might just buy and hold Tesla ( NASDAQ:TSLA) stock since it's a well-known and widely analyzed company with a stake in the self-driving car market. On the other hand, Aurora Innovation stock is low-priced and under the radar, so it has the potential to explode higher. On the other hand, a recently released financial filing should remind investors that Aurora Innovation is still a "show-me" story.
Shares of Tylenol maker Kenvue bounced back sharply at the opening bell Tuesday, a day after President Donald Trump promoted unproven and in some cases discredited ties between Tylenol, vaccines, and autism. "Don't take Tylenol," Trump instructed pregnant women around a dozen times during the White House news conference Monday, also urging mothers not to give their infants the drug, known by the generic name acetaminophen in the U.S. or paracetamol in most other countries.
Conservative investors might prefer to own shares of traditional insurance companies like Allstate ( NYSE:ALL) and Progressive ( NYSE:PGR), and that's fine. However, if you're more adventurous, you might choose to look into modern disrupters like Lemonade ( NYSE:LMND), Trupanion ( NASDAQ:TRUP), Hippo ( NYSE:HIPO), and the subject of today's analysis, Root, Inc. ( NASDAQ:ROOT). There are risks to investing in high-tech insurance plays, but the potential rewards could be substantial.
