Several companies made headlines in premarket trading, with Mission Produce, an avocado producer, surging 21.6% after reporting a 24% increase in revenue for the fiscal third quarter. Rival avocado producer Calavo Growers also saw a 6.5% increase in its stock price after beating analyst estimates for earnings in its fiscal third quarter and doubling its quarterly dividend. Oracle, a cloud infrastructure platform, rallied 8% after surpassing expectations in its fiscal first quarter, reporting higher earnings and revenue than forecasted by analysts.
Boot Barn, a Western-style retailer, saw a 6% increase in its stock price after announcing a 4% growth in consolidated same-store sales for its fiscal second quarter. On the other hand, Apple’s shares slipped nearly 1% following a ruling by the European Union’s top court that the company must pay $13 billion in back taxes. Despite this setback, Apple recently unveiled the iPhone 16 and other products at an event in California. Similarly, Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s stock dropped more than 5% after announcing plans to sell $1.35 billion of convertible preferred stock to fund the acquisition of Juniper Networks. Rubrik, a data management software company, also saw a drop of nearly 7% in its stock price despite exceeding Wall Street’s quarterly estimates.
Patterson-UTI Energy, an oil and gas service provider, climbed more than 7% after reporting an average of 107 rigs operating in the U.S. in August. Alibaba, the China-based e-commerce company, saw an increase of more than 2% in its U.S.-traded shares following the addition of its Hong Kong shares to stock connect programs linking exchanges in Shanghai and Shenzhen. This move is expected to attract more investments from mainland China. Johnson Controls International’s shares rose nearly 2% after JPMorgan upgraded the stock to buy from neutral, citing the company’s data center business and the search for a new CEO as key factors.
Anheuser-Busch Inbev SA, the beer maker, added 1.7% after being named a top pick among global brewers by Morgan Stanley, which noted upside to valuation despite a “mixed picture” in the near term. Equity Residential, a real estate investment trust, rose 1.3% following an upgrade to overweight from equal weight by Wells Fargo, which cited the company’s better-than-expected earnings over the summer as a reason for the improved recommendation. Overall, a mix of positive and negative news in the premarket trading session impacted the stock prices of various companies in different sectors.
