By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- Stocks in focus in premarket trading on Thursday, 21st October. Please refresh for updates.
- Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) stock was down 1.7% after the Dutch government's forensic laboratory said it had decrypted the electric carmaker’s driving data-storage system, revealing a wealth of information that could be used to investigate serious accidents. It noted that the data were far more extensive than Tesla had previously indicated. Tesla stock had been only slightly weaker before the news, struggling to gain any support from its best financial quarter ever.
- Digital World Acquisition (NASDAQ:DWAC) stock rose 20% after former President Donald Trump said his new social media company, TRUTH Social, will merge with the newly-listed SPAC.
- IBM (NYSE:IBM) stock was down over 5.2% after yet another quarterly update showed the pressures on its business. Even revenue at the unit containing its Red Hat unit eked out less than 3% in revenue growth, while the rest of the business was overshadowed by the looming spin-off of its declining managed infrastructure business.
- AT&T (NYSE:T) stock rose 1.2% after the company added 928,000 net new postpaid subscribers in the third quarter, nearly double market estimates and well ahead of the comparable figure from Verizon (NYSE:VZ) earlier in the week. Subscriber growth at its streaming unit HBO Max also held up well, despite being removed from Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) Prime in September.
- PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) stock rebounded a mere 0.3% after falling heavily on Wedneday in response to news that it is in talks to acquire Pinterest (NYSE:PINS). Pinterest stock, by the same token, held on to most of its 13% gain on Wednesday, giving up only 1.7%.
- Unilever (NYSE:UL) ADRs rose 1.1% after the company joined Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG) and Nestle (OTC:NSRGY) in saying it expects to pass on higher input prices to consumers in the coming months. The Anglo-Dutch company repeated its guidance on operating margins for the full year, despite noting a sharp rise in third-quarter costs.
- United Airlines (NASDAQ:UAL) stock rose 0.2% after the company reported a narrower adjusted loss in the third quarter and said it will continue to add capacity through the winter as demand for air travel returns. Capacity will still be well below pre-pandemic level at the end of the year, however.
- Danaher (NYSE:DHR)stock fell 2.2%, despite the medical device maker raising its full-year revenue guidance after a better-than-expected quarter for both sales and profit.
- Union Pacific (NYSE:UNP) stock also fell despite reporting better-than-expected earnings. The railroad operator was down 0.6% but has risen 16% since the start of the month, amid evidence that freight companies are able to expand their margins in a world marked by strained supply chains and strong demand. It nonetheless revised its guidance down a little for the final quarter.