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The one group of people in markets who aren’t worrying about a recession

Earnings per share estimates are following a normal path ahead of the third-quarter reporting period, and 2025 profit forecasts are still going up.

Yiwen Lu

Corporate profitability is tethered to consumer welfare.

When estimated earnings per share (or EPS, a key measure of a company’s profitability) are revised higher, it’s generally a sign of solid economic times: workers have more more money to spend, so corporations make more. Vice versa for negative revisions, which suggest an economic soft patch where people are reducing spending and profits slide.

Thus, when everyone in the market is supposedly worrying about a bleak economic outlook, as has been the case lately, we should expect to see more downward pressure of EPS estimates. But the latest data compiled by FactSet suggests that analysts think that the economy is poised to keep chugging along. 

For all S&P 500 companies, bottom-up EPS estimates — that is, an aggregation of the company-by-company forecasts — for the third quarter of 2024 decreased by 2.8% from June 30 to August 31. These estimates go down heading into a reporting period, only for companies to then exceed expectations on a lowered bar. One quant once slammed earnings season as “cheating season” for this very reason.

But is a 2.8% cut to EPS estimates unusually large?

FactSet senior earnings analyst John Butters calculated the average decline of EPS estimates over the past 5, 10, 15 and 20 years and found that these ranged from 2.3% to 3.0%, meaning that the latest number sat fell around the middle of the range. 

What’s more, expectations about the future further down the road are still getting sunnier. Butters also noted that while during the first two months of the quarter, EPS estimates for the third quarter dropped, analysts bumped up their EPS estimates for calendar year 2025 by 0.3%.

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Nvidia and SK Hynix strike multiyear partnership on memory chips, AI data center build-out

Nvidia shares are modestly higher after it announced a multiyear partnership with SK Hynix on memory chips and building out AI data centers.

The agreement secures a long-term pipeline of memory chips for Nvidia. At the center of the partnership is the integration of SK Hynix’s high-bandwidth memory chips into Nvidia’s newly unveiled Vera central processing units. The Vera processor is Nvidia’s first stand-alone data center microprocessor designed to compete directly against traditional enterprise server lines.

The collaboration is also structured to reshape how semiconductors are manufactured. Under the terms of the agreement, SK Hynix will implement Nvidia’s CUDA-X library and PhysicsNeMo framework directly into its memory design and manufacturing workflows.

The announcement happened during a high-profile visit to Seoul by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who arrived on June 5 to align with core infrastructure partners. Over the weekend, Huang met with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, SK Hynix CEO Kwak Noh-Jung, and other top South Korean technology executives during a dinner meeting, according to Nvidia’s blog posts and Reuters.

Last week, SK Hynix told investors that its proposed US listing has received strong backing, which would potentially give US investors an alternative way to play the memory chip crunch.

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FuelCell Energy rises as AI data center pipeline overshadows Q2 miss

FuelCell Energy shares rebounded into positive territory during premarket trading, reversing an initial dip sparked by Q2 results that showed widening net losses and a year-over-year revenue decline.

Key numbers:

  • Revenue of $35.6 million (compared to analyst estimates of $40.56 million).

  • An adjusted loss per share of $1.45 (estimate: a $0.50 loss).

That revenue number marks a 5% decrease from the $37.4 million generated during the same quarter last year.

The company’s net loss expanded to $78.7 million, or $1.45 per share, compared to a loss of $38.8 million in the prior-year period. Management attributed the deeper loss primarily to a $42.6 million one-time impairment expense linked to essential equipment upgrades at its Groton Project facility.

While a 9.9% drop in total backlog initially added to the shares’ downward momentum, investors appeared to quickly pivot their attention to the company’s forward-looking metrics. FuelCell highlighted a 267% sequential jump in its sales pipeline, which has reached 4 gigawatts. The surge is driven by demand for its packaged 12.5-megawatt utility-grade power block solution tailored specifically for the booming AI data center market.

To support this high-growth data center strategy, FuelCell announced a major capacity expansion at its Torrington, Connecticut, manufacturing facility. The company plans to raise its annualized production ceiling from 350 MW to 500 MW, an infrastructure upgrade estimated to cost between $200 million and $275 million over the next 24 months.

Driven by the AI data center narrative, FuelCell Energy’s stock has risen over 130% year to date.

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Lilly says its next-gen GLP-1 shot drove 28.3% weight loss, reduced comorbidities

Eli Lilly has risen around 4% in premarket trading after reporting impressive trial results for its next-generation weight-loss drug over the weekend.

According to the results unveiled on Saturday, Lilly’s experimental weight-loss shot, retatrutide, helped patients lose 28.3% of their body weight at 80 weeks. That’s more than tirzepatide, Lilly’s weight-loss shot currently considered the most effective in the market, which helped people lose 26% of their weight over 88 weeks.

Retatrutide is a triple agonist, meaning it mimics three different hormones that promote weight loss, compared to one by Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide and two by tirzepatide. Lilly says it helps preserve more muscle mass than other weight-loss shots and also helped improve knee osteoarthritis pain and obstructive sleep apnea.

Lilly has said it would submit the drug for approval this year with the goal of getting it out to market in 2027. The jab could be the next big moneymaker for Lilly, which currently sells the most lucrative drug in the world but has had an underwhelming rollout of its oral weight-loss pill, which came to market earlier this year.

Retatrutide is already quite popular among those who experiment with peptides, or unapproved injectable drugs often sold online “for research purposes only.” For gym bros trying to attain a certain physique, a drug that has shown it can melt fat while preserving muscle is enticing.

But in a market full of knockoff drugs, will retatrutide enthusiasts pay full price for the drug when it officially goes to market?

markets

Marvell and Flex rise on S&P 500 inclusion announcement

Chipmaker Marvell Technology and electronics manufacturer Flex are jumping 7% and 3%, respectively, in premarket trading on Monday after S&P Dow Jones Indices announced late on Friday that the two companies are set to join the S&P 500 benchmark index.

Replacing Pool Corp. and Campbell’s in the S&P 500, Marvell and Flex’s addition will be effective from June 22, per a press release from the provider, which assesses and updates the index on a quarterly basis.

Marvell has been one of the leading candidates for inclusion across the last few quarterly index rebalances. The company has ballooned into a $230 billion chip giant of late, thanks to the wider AI boom, investors chasing momentum, and, yes, Jensen Huang. Flex, which has been part of the S&P MidCap 400 Index since 2024, has also grown recently, having played a part in the data center boom with a portfolio that spans across infrastructure and cooling systems.

With today’s premarket movement taken into account, MRVL has now risen almost 40% in the last week alone.

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