Midday Fly By: Walmart reports Q4 beat, eBay to acquire Depop from Etsy

The major averages were lower near noon, giving back some of the gains from Wednesday as investors respond to the latest slate of quarterly earnings reports and continue to monitor tensions between the U.S. and Iran. There also remain growing concerns about lingering uncertainty over the Federal Reserve’s rate path.

Looking to commodities, gold was fractionally higher near noon, with the “safe haven” asset hovering above the $5,000 threshold. Oil rose amid the tensions in Iran.

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

1. STOCK NEWS:

• Walmart (WMT) reported better-than-expected Q4 results, provided its outlook for Q1 and FY27, announced a new $30B share buyback program, and raised its quarterly dividend
• eBay (EBAY) reported upbeat Q4 results and agreed to acquire Depop from Etsy (ETSY) for $1.2B in cash
• Meanwhile, Etsy (ETSY) reported lower-than-expected Q4 earnings and revenue
• Deere (DE) reported upbeat Q1 results and provided its outlook for FY26
• DoorDash (DASH) reported downbeat Q4 earnings and revenue

2. WALL STREET CALLS:

• Chewy (CHWY) upgraded to Outperform at Raymond James
• Daiwa (VZ) to Buy from Outperform and T-Mobile (TMUS) to Outperform from Neutral
• Shopify (SHOP) upgraded to Buy at Phillip Securities
• Cheesecake Factory (CAKE) downgraded to Equal Weight at Stephens
• Fiverr (FVRR) downgraded to Neutral at JPMorgan and Citi

3. AROUND THE WEB:

• Snowcap is short Sterling Infrastructure (STRL), which it calls “a poster child for the AI bubble in public markets”
• Kinetik (KNTK), a $7.2B gas pipeline operator with roughly 4,600 miles of pipeline in the Delaware Basin, is considering a sale following interest from Western Midstream Partners (WES), backed by Occidental Petroleum (OXY), FT says
• Uber (UBER) plans to tighten its driver background check policies following a New York Times investigation that found drivers with certain older violent convictions were approved in some states, NYT reports
• Meta (META) plans to spend $65M to boost state politicians who are friendly to the A.I. industry, NY Times says
• The DOJ has summoned large theater chains to discuss the potential impact of a sale of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), with government antitrust lawyers seeking information on how a sale would impact the movie-going public and film releases in theaters, Bloomberg reports

4. MOVERS:

• Remitly (RELY) increases after reporting Q4 results and appointing Sebastian Gunningham as CEO
• Herbalife (HLF) gains after reporting Q4 results and announcing Cristiano Ronaldo invested $7.5M in Pro2col technology
• Talkspace (TALK) and Omnicom (OMC) higher after reporting quarterly results
• Corcept Therapeutics (CORT) falls after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a ruling in a patent case with Teva (TEVA)
• Epam System (EPAM) and N-able (NABL) lower after reporting Q4 results

5. EARNINGS/GUIDANCE:

• Integer (ITGR) reported Q4 results, with CEO Payman Khales commenting, “Integer delivered strong performance in 2025”
• Travelzoo (TZOO) reported Q4 results and providing guidance for Q1
• Klarna (KLAR) reported Q4 results, with revenue beating consensus
• Upbound Group (UPBD) reported Q4 results and providing guidance for Q1 and FY26
• LKQ Corp. (LKQ) reported Q4 results, with CEO Justin Jude commenting “Throughout 2025, our team relentlessly focused on what we could control, resulting in significant free cash flow generation despite sector headwinds across our global enterprise”

INDEXES:

Near midday, the Dow was down 0.59%, or 294.94, to 49,367.72, the Nasdaq was down 0.38%, or 87.21, to 22,666.42, and the S&P 500 was down 0.41%, or 28.52, to 6,852.79.