Dow Jones Today: S&P 500, Nasdaq Open at Fresh Records; Delta Stock Pops on Strong

PepsiCo’s Earnings Top Projections; Walmart’s Schmitt to Take Over as CFO

23 minutes ago

PepsiCo (PEP) posted quarterly earnings slightly ahead of analysts’ expectations and announced a new chief financial officer Thursday.

The maker of Pepsi soda and Doritos chips posted adjusted earnings per share of $2.29 on revenue that rose 2.7% year-over-year to $23.94 billion for the third quarter. Both figures topped analysts’ projections compiled by Visible Alpha, thanks in part to strength in the snack giant’s international business and improvements in its North American beverage operations.

PepsiCo also said that Steve Schmitt, chief financial officer for Walmart’s (WMT) U.S. unit, will take over as chief financial officer from Jamie Caulfield effective Nov. 10. Caulfield decided to retire next year after more than 30 years with the company, PepsiCo said. He became CFO in December 2023.

The management shift comes as activist investor Elliott Investment Management, which has taken a $4 billion stake in the company, called for changes to boost PepsiCo’s lagging stock price.

Read the full article here.

–Nisha Gopalan

Why Wall Street Analysts Say We’re Not in an AI Bubble … Yet

1 hr 13 min ago

A spate of unusual deals within the AI ecosystem has recently fueled concern that the AI boom is actually an AI bubble, but some professional market watchers say this isn’t 1999—at least not yet.

OpenAI has vowed to spend hundreds of billions on Nvidia (NVDA) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) chips; in exchange, Nvidia will invest in OpenAI, and OpenAI will invest in AMD. Nvidia has invested in cloud providers Nebius (NBIS) and CoreWeave (CRWV), both of which buy its chips, and agreed with the latter to buy all of its unused computing capacity through 2032. These deals are just a few threads in a growing web of entanglements connecting chipmakers, cloud providers and AI model makers. 

Skeptics warn these circular deals are evidence of an artificial intelligence bubble forming. They argue that Nvidia, through investments in the companies buying and renting its chips, is subsidizing the AI build-out, and artificially overstating the strength of AI demand in the process. 

But many on Wall Street disagree, including analysts at Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, who cast doubt on the bubble narrative in notes published Wednesday. 

“We believe the recent concerns re AI financing are highly overstated,” wrote BofA semiconductor equity analyst Vivek Arya, who doesn’t expect circular deals to account for more than 5% to 10% of the $5 trillion that is likely to be spent on AI by 2030.

Read the full article here.

–Colin Laidley

Akero Therapeutics Stock Soars on Acquisition by Novo Nordisk

1 hr 34 min ago

Shares of Akero Therapeutics (AKRO) jumped nearly 20% in premarket trading after Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk (NVO) announced it was buying the firm for up to $5.2 billion.

Novo Nordisk, the maker of blockbuster weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, said it was buying Akero for $54 per share, or $4.7 billion, in cash, with a contingent value right of $6 per share, or $500 million.

Akero is developing a treatment for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) called efruxifermin that Novo Nordisk calls “potentially best-in-class.”

“If approved, we believe it could become a cornerstone therapy, alone or together with Wegovy (semaglutide), to tackle one of the fastest-growing metabolic diseases of our time,” Novo Nordisk CEO Mike Doustdar said. 

Entering Thursday’s session, Akero shares had added two-thirds of their value in 2025, while U.S.-listed shares of Novo Nordisk had dropped 30%.

Fed Officials Are Willing To Cut Rates, But Inflation Could Derail Plans

2 hr 3 min ago

Officials at the Federal Reserve cut the central bank’s influential interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point last month despite inflation remaining near the top of their list of worries, according to minutes released by the Federal Open Market Committee Wednesday.

The minutes detailed the discussions that led the Fed to cut interest rates for the first time this year. Central bankers face a dilemma as they strive to fulfill their dual mandate of maintaining low inflation and high employment. Inflation remains above the Fed’s target of a 2% annual rate, while job growth has slowed to a crawl.

Fed policymakers have been wrestling with their options: cut the federal funds rate to boost job creation, or keep it higher for longer to wrestle down inflation. The Fed’s key interest rate influences the economy because it dictates borrowing costs on all kinds of short-term loans.

While markets widely expect the Fed to make two more cuts at its remaining meetings this year, Fed officials are keeping a close eye on inflation, suggesting higher-than-expected price increases in the coming months could derail those expectations.

“Two more rate cuts aren’t a done deal because policymakers aren’t letting go of their inflation mandate,” David Russell, global head of market strategy at TradeStation, wrote in a commentary.

Read the full article here.

–Diccon Hyatt

Stock Futures Little Changed After S&P 500, Nasdaq End at Records

2 hr 24 min ago

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose less than 0.1%.

S&P 500 futures were near flat.

Nasdaq 100 futures also were little changed.