Midday Fly By: Novo Alzheimer’s trial misses goal, Green Dot to be acquired

The major averages were broadly higher near noon as the markets aim to rebound heading into the Thanksgiving holiday following last week’s declines. A key driver remains policy expectations. Comments from the Fed’s New York president suggesting room for a rate cut pushed odds of a December move higher, but this optimism is tempered by mixed signals as recent labor and inflation data has disappointed in places and several Fed officials remain cautious.

Coming up this week, the focus will shift to inflation readings, notably the producer price index and other data that could tip the balance in the Fed’s policy deliberations. Liquidity will likely be thinner than usual given the holiday and markets are braced for potentially sharper moves given the reaction-sensitivity.

Looking to commodities, gold and oil were both fractionally higher near noon.

Get caught up quickly on the top news and calls moving stocks with these five Top Five lists.

1. STOCK NEWS:

• Novo Nordisk (NVO) shares were dropping after its Alzheimer’s drug trial missed a key target
• Green Dot (GDOT) agreed to be acquired by Smith Ventures and CommerceOne Financial
• Performance Food Group (PFGC) and US Foods (USFD) will no longer pursue a combination
• Salesforce (CRM) CEO Marc Benioff said he prefers Google’s (GOOGL) Gemini 3 over OpenAI’s ChatGPT, saying everything on Gemini 3 is “sharper and faster”
• Amazon (AMZN) will invest up to $50B to expand AI infrastructure for the U.S. government

2. WALL STREET CALLS:

• Booking Holdings (BKNG) upgraded to Buy at BofA after AI-related selloff
• Wedbush upgraded “new used car king” Carvana (CVNA) to Outperform
• Merck (MRK) upgraded to Overweight at Wells Fargo
• JFrog (FROG) downgraded to Neutral at UBS
• QuantumScape (QS) downgraded to In Line at Evercore ISI

3. AROUND THE WEB:

• Alibaba’s (BABA) new AI assistant, Qwen, surpassed 10 million downloads in its first week of public beta, outpacing early adoption of ChatGPT and DeepSeek, SCMP reports
• Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD) CNN has removed its stories from Apple News (AAPL), ending its contract to share content on the news app, Semafor says
• JD.com’s (JD) supply chain technology unit Jingdong Industrials has begun gauging investor interest for a Hong Kong initial public offering, Bloomberg reports
• EssilorLuxottica (ESLOY) is preparing to buy a 5%-10% stake of Giorgio Armani following the death of the fashion house’s founder, Bloomberg says
• Blue Owl (OWL) is debating on reviving a merger plan between two of its private credit funds if share price of the larger fund improves, Reuters reports

4. MOVERS:

• Inspire Medical (INSP) increases after Stifel and Nephron Research upgraded their ratings on the stock
• T1 Energy (TE) higher after Roth Capital initiated coverage of the stock with a Buy rating
• Credo Technology (CRDO) gains in New York after reaching a license agreement with The Siemon Company
• Grindr (GRND) lower after ceasing engagement with the take-private proposal from Ray Zage and James Lu
• PureCycle (PCT) falls after TD Cowen downgraded the stock to Hold from Buy

5. EARNINGS/GUIDANCE:

• CureVac (CVAC) reported Q3 results, with revenue lower year-over-year
• WeRide (WRD) reported Q3 results, with EPS and revenue higher year-over-year
• Kraken Robotics (KRKNF) reported Q3 results and provided guidance for FY25
• Waldencast (WALD) announced Q2 results and provided guidance for Q3 and FY25
• Corporacion America Airport (CAAP) reported Q3 results, with CEO Martin Eurnekian commenting, “We delivered another very strong quarter”

INDEXES:

Near midday, the Dow was up 0.49%, or 226.60, to 46,472.01, the Nasdaq was up 2.31%, or 514.35, to 22,787.44, and the S&P 500 was up 1.36%, or 89.51, to 6,692.50.