S&P 500 opens higher, nears 5,000 level: Live updates – CNBC

Enphase shares rose more than 16% in premarket trading after the company’s CEO said he expects the solar market to bottom in the first quarter of this year and then begin to recover.

Enphase reported quarterly earnings on Tuesday that roughly met Wall Street expectations, with earnings per share of 54 cents compared to expectations of 55 cents. The solar power company’s gross profit also improved both quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year.

Enphase went bankrupt in 2023 as demand fell due to high interest rates and the company was left with excess inventory. Chief Executive Officer Badri Kothandaraman told analysts on an earnings call that the market could bottom out in the first three months of this year.

Enphase makes inverters that convert solar energy into grid-compatible electricity.

“Europe is already showing early signs of recovery, and we expect states other than California to recover quickly,” Kosandaraman said. “Eventually, we expect demand to recover in California.”

The CEO’s comments and the company’s earnings are driving the solar sector higher this morning, with rival SolarEdge’s stock up nearly 13%. The Invesco Solar ETF rose about 5%.

— Spencer Kimball

Roblox stock rose 12% before the bell after the video game developer released strong full-year guidance, beating Wall Street expectations.

The company reported a loss of 52 cents per share on $1.13 billion in bookings. This was the highest quarterly booking value on record and exceeded the 55 cent per share loss and $1.08 billion booked by analysts surveyed by LSEG. The number of reservations is used as Roblox’s revenue figure.

The company said it expects full-year bookings to be in the range of $4.1 billion to $4.28 billion, above the consensus range of $3.4 billion to $4.27 billion.

— Samantha Subin, Rohan Goswami

New York Community Bancorp’s stock price soared in pre-market trading after the company was formed. announced Alessandro Dinero, former CEO of Flagstar Bank, will become the company’s executive chairman effective immediately.

The bank scheduled a conference call to discuss these changes Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. ET.

The move comes after NYCB’s stock price has fallen sharply over the past week on concerns about the company’s potential loan losses. Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the bank’s credit rating to “junk” on Wednesday.

NYCB’s stock price rose 13% to $4.75 per share in pre-market trading, after briefly falling to $3.50 per share in after-hours trading.

Alibaba shares soared after the Chinese e-commerce giant announced it would accelerate share buybacks despite falling short of market sales expectations.

The company’s U.S.-listed shares rose 3.2% in premarket trading after the company announced it would expand the size of its stock repurchase program by $25 billion. Alibaba reported first-quarter revenue of 260.35 billion Chinese yuan ($36.6 billion), compared to expectations of 262.07 billion yuan.

Alibaba is coming off a tumultuous year in which it carried out its largest corporate restructuring ever and made several high-profile management changes.

—Arjun Karpal, Evelyn Chen, Jeff Cox

Hong Kong-listed shares of Chinese electric car companies rose in late morning trading, influenced by the Hong Kong market. Ministry of Commerce of China The company unveiled plans for the “healthy development of new energy vehicles” in the country.

BYD stock rose 2.7%, Nio rose 3.3%, and Xpeng and Li Auto rose 1.2% each.

“The healthy development of new energy vehicle trade cooperation will promote the transformation and sophistication of the automobile industry, and play an important supporting role in stabilizing and optimizing the foreign trade structure,” the statement said. ing.

The Hang Seng Index rose 0.3%, and the CSI300 index rose 0.4%.

Earlier this year, BYD said it would produce more than 3 million new energy vehicles in 2023, surpassing U.S. EV leader Tesla’s production for the second year in a row.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

China’s largest semiconductor maker SMIC said on Wednesday that persistent global macroeconomic headwinds and geopolitical tensions could impact its operations in 2024.

“In 2024, the company will continue to face challenges from macroeconomics, geopolitics, industry competition, and the availability of all products,” SMIC said in its 2023 fourth quarter earnings conference on Wednesday.

The company fell 54.7% on Tuesday. Profits declined in the fourth quarter as the semiconductor industry faced several headwinds, including inventory adjustments and macroeconomic headwinds.

Profits for the fourth quarter of 2023 were $174.68 million, down 54.7% year-on-year. This was lower than the $225.41 million expected by LSEG analysts. Gross profit margin for the fourth quarter fell to 16.4% from 32% in the same period last year.

– Sheila Chan

Kakao Bank shares rose 7% on Wednesday after the digital payments company reported an increase in fourth-quarter profits.

Company’s 4th quarter Net profit increased by about 25% year-on-year to 75.7 billion Korean won ($57.2 million).

Kakao Bank added 2.42 million new users to its platform, an increase of 11.8%.

The company’s operating revenue was 663.7 billion Korean won ($501 million), an increase of nearly 37% from the same period last year.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

Australian energy company Santos was the biggest loser on the S&P/Australian Stock Exchange 200 Index on Wednesday after merger talks with Woodside ended on Wednesday.

Santos shares fell by up to 8.5%, while Woodside rose 2.38%.

Woodside said in an exchange filing that the two sides have “discontinued discussions regarding a potential merger.”

Santos confirmed the announcement, saying, “Following the initial exchange of information, sufficient merger benefits were not identified to support a merger in the best interests of Santos shareholders.”

— Lim Huijie

Warner Bros. Discovery, Fox and Disney’s ESPN will launch a joint sports streaming service later this year, the companies announced Tuesday.

Both companies will own a third of the shares in the new platform, which has not yet been named or priced. Consumers can also choose to subscribe via the new app or through a bundle with the company’s other streaming products, including Max, Hulu, and Disney+.

Disney shares fell about 1% in after-hours trading, while Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery rose 6% and 3%, respectively.

— Brian Evans