Check out the companies making headlines before the market opens. Darden Restaurant – Shares of Darden Restaurant rose nearly 11% after the restaurant operator announced a multi-year on-demand delivery partnership with Uber later this year. However, the company reported quarterly earnings and revenue that fell short of expectations as sales at Olive Garden and its fine-dining restaurants were weak. NextEra Energy Partners — Shares of NextEra Energy rose 2.6% after Jefferies debuted a buy rating on the stock, saying concerns about the roughly $3.75 billion in acquisitions the energy company must deal with were priced in. DoorDash — The food delivery stock rose more than 3% after BTIG upgraded the stock to buy from neutral. The investment firm said third-quarter growth looked strong despite concerns about consumer weakness. Nvidia, ASML, Arm Holdings, Micron – Several strong semiconductor companies rose in pre-market trading as the market digested the Fed’s decision to cut interest rates. Shares of AI darling Nvidia rose 3.1%, while chipmakers ASML and Arm Holdings rose 4.8% and 4% respectively. Memory and storage solutions provider Micron Technology edged up 2.5%. Five points below – Shares fell 1.6% after JPMorgan downgraded the stock to underweight from neutral. The bank noted that sales of a basket of products have declined over the past few quarters and said it expected to see headwinds through 2025 due to labor costs. Coursera — Shares of the online education platform rose 6.1% after Bank of America issued a buy rating. Coursera’s margins should continue to grow and revenue should reaccelerate, the bank said. Lennar — Shares of the homebuilder rose 3.5%, beating third-quarter profit expectations after the close. Analysts polled by FactSet expected quarterly earnings of $3.64 per share on revenue of $9.13 billion and 20,819 deliveries in the quarter, closer to the higher range of its guidance. Alibaba — The Chinese e-commerce company has launched more than 100 open source artificial intelligence models and text-to-video tools, and its shares rose more than 4%. Alibaba also said it upgraded its proprietary flagship model, the Qwen-Max. FedEx — Shares of FedEx rose more than 1% ahead of the shipping giant’s first-quarter earnings report after the bell. Analysts polled by FactSet expected earnings of $4.81 per share in the period on revenue of $21.9 billion. Crypto Stocks – Stocks tied to the price of Bitcoin rose, with the cryptocurrency gaining more than 3% on the delayed reaction to Wednesday’s Federal Reserve interest rate cut. Exchange operator Coinbase rose 4%, while Bitcoin broker MicroStrategy gained 5%. —CNBC’s Sean Conlon, Alex Harring, Samantha Subin, Jesse Pound, Brian Evans, Sarah Min and Michelle Fox Theobald contributed reporting.
