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Nia Warfield8/21/25

Coty shares sink after the beauty conglomerate posts surprise Q4 loss

Coty shares sank nearly 20% in premarket trading Thursday as investors digested the beauty conglomerate’s disappointing Q4 results after the bell Wednesday.

The cosmetics and fragrance company posted an adjusted loss of $0.05 per share, well below Wall Street’s forecast for a $0.01 profit, according to analysts polled by FactSet. Revenue came in at $1.25 billion, topping analyst estimates of $1.21 billion but still down 8% year over year. Growth was driven by Coty’s prestige fragrance portfolio, which includes Gucci, Swarovski, and Tiffany & Co.

Looking ahead, Coty guided for adjusted EPS of $0.33 to $0.36 in the first half of its fiscal year, with stronger gains expected in the back half. Analysts are projecting full-year adjusted earnings of about $0.50 per share.

Management flagged a cautious retail backdrop, noting that retailers are destocking and consumers are trading down toward cheaper value options.

“Consumer demand for beauty continues to be solid, particularly for fragrances across price points and formats,” the company said in a statement. “At the same time, macroeconomic and tariff uncertainty is fueling cautious retailer ordering and a more promotional competitive environment.”

Coty also said it expects about $70 million in gross tariff headwinds this year, driven by new US tariffs on European-made fragrances and Chinese-sourced components. To offset the impact, Coty plans to raise prices across select categories.

Prior to the earnings release, Coty shares were down 29% year to date.

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Federal Reserve cuts rates and signals end to quantitative tightening

The Federal Reserve delivered its second rate cut of 2025 as expected, taking its policy rate down 25 basis points to a range of 3.75% to 4%. Officials also said they plan to stop reducing the size of their balance sheet as of December 1.

Stocks were little changed in the wake of this announcement, but fell during the press conference when Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that there were strongly differing views on whether or not to cut interest rates again in December, and that another reduction is “far from” a foregone conclusion. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF went on to pare much of its losses after Powell suggested that core PCE inflation isn’t really too far above 2%, once one strips out how tariffs are boosting price pressures. Stocks careened lower once again after Powell said a “growing chorus” of Fed officials support skipping a cut.

Event contracts traded on Robinhood showed a rate cut of this size was a lock for this meeting. Heading into the decision, a separate contract showed that the odds of 75 basis points in easing for 2025 was roughly 83%, implying a strong expectation that another 25 basis point reduction will be delivered at its December meeting. The prediction market implied odds of no more cuts in 2025 rose to 30% from 14% by the time the press conference ended.

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions. Event contracts trading is offered by Robinhood Derivatives, LLC, a registered futures commission merchant with the CFTC.)

It’s the first time since 1995 that the US central bank has held one of its meetings during a government shutdown, which has left monetary policymakers with less data than usual to aid in their decision-making processes.

In their statement, monetary policymakers said that the unemployment rate “remained low through August,” adding that “more recent indicators are consistent with these developments.” All in all, this does not necessarily escalating concern about the state of the labor market, given that officials used the past tense to describe how downside risks to employment “rose in recent months.”

“I do wonder if officials will be comfortable cutting rates again on December 10 if they go into that meeting with no official data reflecting activity in October and November,” writes Omair Sharif, president of Inflation Insights. “It may be hard to reach a consensus on another cut, especially given the split in the FOMC indicated in the September dot plot.”

There were two dissents at this meeting, as Kansas City Fed President Jeff Schmid preferred no change, while Fed Governor Stephen Miran wanted a 50 basis point cut.

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Investors will be watching to see if Microsoft’s Azure cloud business can keep up its brisk growth, and an updated deal with OpenAI presents some new opportunities.

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Bloom Energy soars amid parade of price target hikes

Bloom Energy soars amid parade of post-earnings target hikes

Bloom’s share price is booming on Wednesday.

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Max Knoblauch5h

Fubo climbs as Disney merges the platform with Hulu Live TV

Shares of streamer FuboTV are surging on Wednesday, after Disney announced it completed its majority stake acquisition of the company.

Fubo will be merged with Hulu Live TV, creating a juggernaut virtual pay-TV company rivaling YouTube. With about 6 million subscribers, the program will also become the sixth-largest pay-TV operator in the US. According to the companies, Fubo and Hulu Live will also continue to be available as separate services, “each offering consumers multiple plan options from skinny to robust at compelling price points.”

Disney now owns 70% of the joint venture. As part of the deal, which was first announced in January, Fubo dropped its lawsuit against Disney, which sought to block its planned joint sports streaming venture, Venu Sports. Venu was dissolved within a week after the deal. Fubo shares closed up more than 250% on the day the deal was first announced.

As part of the transaction, Fubo will have access to a $145 million term loan from Disney next year.

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