People pass by a Starbucks coffee shop in Manhattan, New York, on Jan. 15, 2025.
Mostafa Bassim | Anadolu | Getty Images
My top 10 things to watch Wednesday, Jan. 29
1. Wall Street was headed for a muted open after the Nasdaq closed 2% higher Tuesday and made back a big chunk of Monday’s big DeepSeek-driven selloff. The market is still heavily overbought, so I’m more inclined to reduce stock exposure than increase it.
2. Our Big Tech names start reporting earnings Wednesday evening, beginning with Meta Platforms and Microsoft. KeyBanc raised its Meta price target to $750 per share from $700, expecting better-than-expected numbers after the bell.
3. OpenAI and Microsoft are looking into whether a group linked to the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek used data from ChatGPT without permission, Bloomberg reported. Meanwhile, China-based tech giant Alibaba says it has something faster than DeepSeek.
4. Starbucks shares were jumping 3% early Wednesday on evidence that CEO Brian Niccol’s turn around has begun. But it won’t be fast because the former Chipotle chief inherited had so many issues involving partners and customers and throughput, especially mobile ordering. Club name Starbucks reported better than expected earnings and revenue after Tuesday’s close.
5. Club stock Nextracker was soaring more than 20%, the morning after the U.S.-based solar company delivered a quarterly beat and outlook raise. Barclays upgraded Nextracker on flawless execution. President Donald Trump has said he’s a “big fan of solar,” but his feelings toward government renewable energy and solar tax credits are unclear.
6. Danaher shares were dropping roughly 6% early Wednesday, shortly after the life sciences company missed on earnings and beat on revenue. The Club name preannounced so that’s not much of a surprise. Investors were focusing on the outlook, which was soft for both the current quarter and the full year.
7. Apple, which reports earnings Thursday evening, is teaming up with T-Mobile and Elon Musk’s SpaceX to support Starlink on iPhones, Bloomberg reported. This could be very significant. T-Mobile previously said Starlink was available on some Samsung phones. Apple already enables Globalstar.
8. Club name CrowdStrike said it got a perfect score on the prevention and detection of ransomware on SE Labs tests, which are the gold standard evaluating cybersecurity companies’ abilities.
9. Dutch company ASML Holding reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings and revenue and said that DeepSeek is good news because it promotes the democratization of AI. I think that idea might be too positive, but the numbers are driving other semiconductor equipment makers higher, including U.S.-based Applied Materials.
10. Nucor CEO Leon Topalian was on Tuesday evening’s “Mad Money,” predicting that there will be a renaissance in American made steel after tariffs are put on Mexican and Canadian transshipments.
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