Stocks Slide as U.S.-Iran Tensions Drive Oil Prices to 6-Month High

Booking Holdings Stock Slumps as Room Booking Growth Expected To Slow

FROM 5 minutes ago

Shares of Booking Holdings (BKNG) slumped on Thursday despite beating estimates across key metrics with its fourth-quarter earnings report. 

Booking on Wednesday evening reported room nights, a measure of hotel occupancy, grew 9% in the quarter, three percentage points above the upper end of company guidance. Adjusted EBITDA growth accelerated to 19% from 15% in the prior quarter.

“We remain focused on our key priorities, especially advancing our use of Generative AI to enhance the value we deliver to both travelers and partners,” said CEO Glenn Fogel in a press release. Booking plans to reinvest $700 million in strategic initiatives around generative AI, expanding its Asia and U.S. businesses, growing its advertising business, and enhancing its fintech offerings. 

Bank of America analysts noted strategic reinvestments will likely slow the company’s pace of margin expansion, a possible rational for the stock’s weakness Thursday. Investors may also be disappointed by aspects of the company’s guidance, including its forecast that room night growth will decelerate in the current quarter. 

Shares of Booking Holdings were down more than 7% in recent trading. The stock has lost more than a quarter of its value since the start of the year. 

Carvana Stock Drops 10% Thursday, Deepening Its Recent Rout. Here’s Why

FROM 48 minutes ago

Carvana stock was driving in reverse on Thursday.

Shares of Carvana (CVNA) were down nearly 10% to $327 in recent trading after the online used car marketplace reported weakness in some key profitability metrics that outweighed solid sales numbers.

The company’s gross profit per unit declined year-over-year and came in below analysts’ expectations at $6,427 for the fourth quarter. The company said in its letter to shareholders that some costs were higher than anticipated.

Carvana also warned it could face elevated vehicle reconditioning costs in the first quarter, though it expects per-vehicle profits to improve.

For the full year, Carvana said it forecasts “significant growth” in vehicle sales volume and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), but the company declined to provide specific figures in its forecasts for the current quarter or full year.

Analysts from Wedbush and JPMorgan cut their price targets for Carvana to $425 and $490, respectively, following the results. Still, both firms said they remain bullish on Carvana’s potential for gains, pointing to its strong sales growth.

Carvana reported a 58% year-over-year jump in revenue to $5.6 billion in the fourth quarter, topping the analyst consensus compiled by Visible Alpha.

While ratings are still in flux, Wall Street analysts are widely bullish on the stock. Twelve of the 13 analysts tracked by Visible Alpha have issued “buy” or equivalent recommendations, compared to one neutral rating. Their average price target of $450 would suggest nearly 30% upside from the stock’s recent level.

With Thursday’s drop, Carvana shares have lost about one-quarter of their value since the start of the year.

–Aaron McDade

Herbalife Stock Soars as Cristiano Ronaldo Invest $7.5M in Subsidiary

FROM 1 hr 37 min ago

Shares of Herbalife (HLF) soared on Thursday after the health and wellness company announced a splashy investment in a tech-focused subsidiary. 

Soccer legend and longtime partner Cristiano Ronaldo acquired a 10% stake in HBL Pro2col, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Herbalife, for $7.5 million, according to a company press release. Ronaldo, who has partnered with Herbalife for more than a decade, will also “provide services and sponsorship rights” to Pro2col as part of the deal.

Pro2col is a “next-generation, digital, personalized health and wellness operating system” that  tracks user behavior to inform custom wellness plans. 

Ronaldo’s “investment reflects a shared belief in the power of nutrition, data, AI, and personalized insights to drive better health outcomes, and reinforces his confidence in the future impact of Pro2col,” said Herbalife CEO Stephan Gratziani. 

Shares of Herbalife were up 19% in recent trading, and has gained 50% since the start of the year. 

Etsy Stock Has Had a Rough Time Of It. Here’s Why It’s Rising Today.

FROM 2 hr 34 min ago

Etsy is getting a lift today—for selling a business for less than it paid to buy it.

The morning’s rise in Etsy (ETSY) shares, recently up 9% to around $48, illustrates the long journey the crafts marketplace company’s stock has been on since its pandemic highs, when shares traded in the neighborhood of $300 apiece. While today’s move is notable, the shares are still down this year and over the past 12 months.

The sale was announced yesterday: Etsy said it would hand Depop, a fashion marketplace for consumers, over to eBay (EBAY) for $1.2 billion in cash. (Shares of eBay were up about 5% this morning. Read Investopedia’s full markets roundup here.) That news closed the book on a $1.6 billion acquisition Etsy announced in 2021.

Etsy is characterizing the sale as letting it focus on its core Etsy marketplace, which as of the end of 2025 had nearly 87 million buyers but saw global merchandise sales fall year-over-year. (Roughly 90% of the company’s “GMS,” the company says, came from the Etsy marketplace.) When it acquired Depop, Etsy sought to define itself as a “house of brands” that also included Reverb and Elo7. Now, it’s moved on from all three of the other properties.

“We are excited that this transaction allows us to focus exclusively on the compelling opportunity we see in front of us: to grow the Etsy marketplace in ways that matter most to our buyers and sellers,” said Etsy CEO Kruti Patel Goyal. “We believe this transaction is a great outcome for Etsy’s shareholders, and a positive next step for all involved.”

That’s encouraging investors today. Wall Street analysts are broadly bullish on Etsy’s stock, though their $67 mean price target, per Visible Alpha, still falls well short of its apex.

–David Marino-Nachison

Fed Minutes Show Division as Rate Cuts Remain on the Table

FROM 3 hr 39 min ago

The Federal Reserve is still leaning toward cutting interest rates again this year, but the readout of its latest meeting shows all the reasons why it may not.

The minutes of January’s meeting, released on Wednesday, displayed the clear division at the Fed over where it should go next after cutting rates three times in 2025.

Most still think “further downward adjustments” are likely still necessary if inflation keeps decelerating, the minutes show. That’s in line with markets’ current expectations of a couple of rate cuts later this year. 

But with inflation still a bit above the Fed’s 2% target, some central bank officials appeared more reluctant. They argued that cutting rates more than necessary may push up prices again, undercutting their efforts to quell the inflation that spiked in 2022.

“Several participants cautioned that easing policy further in the context of elevated inflation readings could be misinterpreted as implying diminished policymaker commitment to the 2% inflation objective, perhaps making higher inflation more entrenched,” the FOMC minutes said.

Indeed, several of them even thought the Fed’s communications should remove the current bias toward cutting rates again, the minutes show.

While the Fed kept rates steady at 3.5% to 3.75% in January, its statement said officials would consider the “extent and timing of additional adjustments” —a signal that rate cuts were more likely than not. The minutes released Wednesday showed several “would have supported a two-sided description,” reflecting that rate hikes are just as possible if inflation remains above 2%.

Few analysts see the Fed hiking rates this year, but the minutes nonetheless underline Fed officials’ focus on fully bringing inflation back to 2%. The most recent reading, from December, showed annual inflation was still slightly above 2.5%.

“We must remain focused on our headline inflation objective; otherwise, I believe there is a real risk that inflation will get stuck closer to 3% than 2% in the long run,” Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid said last week.

Read the full story here.

–Diccon Hyatt

U.S. Stocks Are Having a Rough Start to the Year

FROM 4 hr 36 min ago

It’s a big year for international sporting competition—the Winter Olympics, this summer’s World Cup. In the stock market, the U.S. is losing badly.

U.S. stocks are off to their worst start to a year relative to the rest of the world since 1995, according to a recent Goldman Sachs note.

The MSCI World ex-USA Index, which tracks large-and mid-cap stocks in every developed market except the U.S., is up 8.2% so far this year, nearly six percentage points ahead of the equivalent index that includes the U.S. The S&P 500, the benchmark U.S. equities index, is essentially flat for the year. 

After years of outperformance, U.S. stocks began to trail the rest of the world last year. Elevated U.S. stock valuations, geopolitical and economic uncertainty, stimulus measures abroad, and a weakening U.S. dollar all played a part in the reversal of fortunes. Since the start of 2025, major indexes tracking the European market, developed markets in Asia, and global emerging markets have all more than doubled the S&P 500’s approximately 17% return. 

The divergence has accelerated this year. All but one major European stock market is pacing the S&P 500 this year. Belgian, Norwegian, and Turkish benchmarks are all up double digits this year. Denmark, the sole outlier, has been weighed down by shares of GLP-1 pioneer Novo Nordisk (NVO), which is feeling the pressure in a fiercely competitive weight loss market. 

In Asia, Korea’s KOSPI Composite has soared nearly 35% in just the last month and a half. Some of the index’s largest components, including chip giants Samsung and SK Hynix, are riding a surge in AI-related data center spending. 

Meanwhile, the tech stocks that led the S&P 500 to a series of record highs over the past year have been a drag on the index in recent months. The Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF (MAGS), composed of seven tech companies with market caps ranging from $1.5 trillion to $4.5 trillion, is down more than 6% this year.

What To Expect From Friday’s Inflation Report

FROM 5 hr 51 min ago

The Fed’s inflation benchmark likely worsened, not improved, over 2025.

A report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis on Friday will likely show consumer prices as measured by Personal Consumption Expenditures rose 2.8% over 12 months through December, according to a survey of economists by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. “Core” PCE, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, is forecast to rise 3.0%, up from 2.8% in November.

That would put both measures slightly higher than they were in January 2025. The expected rise in core PCE inflation could be especially notable because that’s the yardstick the Federal Reserve uses to gauge its 2% annual inflation target.

If the report matches expectations, it could throw some cold water on the optimism that arose in financial markets last week when another inflation measure, the Consumer Price Index, showed a promising slowdown in January.

What’s more, some forecasters expect the annual PCE measure to continue edging up as companies pass the cost of tariffs along to consumers. Economists at Goldman Sachs, for instance, expect core PCE to rise to 3.05%, which would be the highest since March 2024. (PCE reports are being released a month later than usual because of last year’s government shutdown, and the January PCE report will be published in March.)

Officials at the Fed will look at upcoming inflation data, especially PCE, when deciding whether to cut borrowing costs to help boost the job market or keep them higher for longer to wrestle inflation down to the 2% target.

“With inflation well above target for going on five years in a row, policymakers will need more clarity on inflation trends before cutting rates further, especially given that some of the downside risks to the labor market seem to be receding,” economists at Deutsche Bank led by Justin Weidner wrote in a commentary. “These data strengthen our view that the Fed will not be able to cut again until later this year.”

–Diccon Hyatt

Futures Point to Lower Open for the Major Indexes

FROM 6 hr 45 min ago

Futures contracts connected to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down about 0.3% in premarket trading on Thursday.

S&P 500 futures were also off 0.3%.

Nasdaq 100 futures contacts fell 0.4%.