Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading. Broadcom — Shares of the semiconductor maker jumped 20% after the company beat fiscal fourth-quarter earnings expectations and posted artificial intelligence revenue that more than tripled for the year, pushing Broadcom’s market cap above $1 trillion for the first time . CEO Hock Tan said Broadcom is developing custom artificial intelligence chips with three large cloud customers, also driving investor enthusiasm. PayPal — PayPal shares edged 1.5% higher after Wolfe Research upgraded the financial technology platform to outperform from peer perform, saying it sees potential upside to Wall Street estimates given its strong monthly active user base. Tesla — Shares of the electric vehicle maker gained about 2.2% after Reuters reported that President-elect Donald Trump’s team recommended ending a car-crash reporting requirement. Tesla has reported the most crashes under the program and the requirement has been disliked by CEO Elon Musk, Reuters reported. Walgreens Boots Alliance — The pharmacy stock jumped 5% after Sky News reported that Sycamore Partners is lining up funding from banks for a buyout of Walgreens Boots Alliance. The stock is still below its peak level from Tuesday, when the Wall Street Journal first reported discussions between the company and Sycamore. Centene — The health care stock advanced 3.7% after UBS upgraded Centene to buy from neutral, calling the stock “too cheap to ignore.” RH — Shares of the luxury furniture retailer surged nearly 15%, trading at levels not seen since January 2022. The rally came after RH forecast fourth-quarter revenue growth of 18% to 20% from a year earlier, citing “an acceleration of demand.” The company also swung to a profit in the third quarter. TaskUs — The outsourcing stock surged 11.7% on the heels of Morgan Stanley’s upgrade to overweight from equal weight. The bank said TaskUs has both “industry-leading” margins and a “competitive moat.” TaskUs should also benefit from artificial intelligence, according to Morgan Stanley. Upstart Holdings — Shares of the lending platform popped more than 14% after an upgrade to buy from hold at Needham. The investment firm said Upstart now has a “proper balance in funding” and has strengthened its balance sheet after refinancing some debt. Ciena — The networking equipment company’s stock price jumped 6.4% a day after posting its best performance since August 2023, when shares closed 15% higher after Ciena beat quarterly revenue expectations and lifted its revenue guidance for fiscal year 2025. The company still fell below Wall Street’s earnings expectations, however. On Friday, Bank of America upgraded the stock to a buy from neutral on the back of stabilizing demand and accelerated cloud and AI momentum. Salesforce , ServiceNow — Salesforce and ServiceNow shares slid 1.2% and 2.6% lower, respectively, after KeyBanc Capital Markets issued a 2025 stock-specific outlook for enterprise software in which it upgraded Salesforce to overweight and downgrading ServiceNow to sector weight. The firm said Salesforce still has “room for improvement” after rallying this quarter, and said ServiceNow is an “early AI leader” but has little upside ahead. Canadian Solar — Shares of the renewable energy company added 3.6% after Mizuho initiated the stock at an outperform rating. The firm believes investors have not fully priced in the value of growth within the company’s energy storage business. Penn Entertainment — Shares of the online sports betting company moved 3% higher following an upgrade at JPMorgan to overweight from neutral. The bank said it sees a path to aggregate growth ahead as Penn Entertainment’s capital projects begin to bear fruit and believes the company can ultimately generate double-digit cash-on-cash returns next year. — CNBC’s Alex Harring, Jesse Pound, Yun Li, Lisa Han, Sarah Min and Michelle Fox contributed reporting.
