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Top Midday Stories: Allbirds to Pivot to AI From Shoes, Stock Soars; Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Q1 Earnings Top Estimates
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite were up, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down in late-morning trading Wednesday, as investors remained hopeful that war in Iran could end soon.In company news, Allbirds (BIRD) said Wednesday it has executed a definitive agreement with an institutional investor for a $50 million convertible financing facility that will enable it to pivot its business to artificial intelligence compute infrastructure. The long-term goal is for the company to become a fully integrated "GPU-as-a-Service" and AI-native cloud solutions provider under the new name of NewBird AI, Allbirds said. Shares of Allbirds were up 616.3% around midday.Morgan Stanley (MS) reported Q1 earnings Wednesday of $3.43 per diluted share, up from $2.60 a year earlier and above the FactSet consensus estimate of $3.00. First-quarter net revenue was $20.58 billion, up from $17.74 billion a year ago and above the FactSet consensus of $19.74 billion. Morgan Stanley shares were up over 5%.Bank of America (BAC) reported Q1 earnings Wednesday of $1.11 per diluted share, up from $0.89 a year earlier and above the FactSet consensus of $1.01. First-quarter net revenue was $30.27 billion, up from $28.25 billion a year ago and above the FactSet consensus of $29.95 billion. Bank of America shares were up 1.7%.Snap (SNAP) said Wednesday it's cutting its workforce by 16%, or roughly 1,000 jobs. The cuts are expected to generate $500 million in annualized cost savings, Snap said. The company also updated its Q1 revenue outlook to about $1.53 billion, above the FactSet consensus analyst estimate of $1.52 billion. Snap shares were up 8.5%.CoreWeave (CRWV) will receive about $6 billion from Jane Street in exchange for use of its AI cloud platform, the companies said Wednesday. Jane Street has also made an equity investment of $1 billion at $109 per share, the companies said. CoreWeave shares were slightly up.Broadcom (AVGO) and Meta Platforms (META) said late Tuesday they have entered into a multiyear, multi-generation strategic partnership to support Meta's rapidly scaling AI compute infrastructure. Under the expanded partnership, Broadcom will deliver technology supporting Meta Training and Inference Accelerator chips, with plans to extend the deal through 2029, the companies said. Broadcom shares were up 3%, while Meta shares were up 1.8%.Price: $17.84, Change: $+15.35, Percent Change: +616.27%
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