GEO Group rises on ICE contract announcement

Federal immigration and prison operator GEO Group popped after announcing late Tuesday that it has won a new contract from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to continue in its role as a vendor of electronic monitoring, case management, and supervision services under the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program.

(That’s a program that keeps track of people as they undergo the immigration review process.)

Since the election, GEO Group has been one of a number of stocks whose business — or leadership — is seen as closely tied to the Trump administration, or set to benefit from White House policy changes.

GEO Group is up 150% since President Trump was elected last November.

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Claire Yubin Oh11m

Netflix announces $25 billion share buyback boost

Netflix is ticking up in premarket trading on Thursday after the streaming giant announced plans to buy back an additional $25 billion worth of shares, roughly 6% of the company's market cap as of yesterday's closing price.

Per the company's regulatory filing reported on Wednesday evening, Netflix's board authorized the repurchase program in addition to the buyback plan announced in December 2024 that still had ~$6.8 billion available for purchase.

Netflix is down more than 13% since the close of trading on April 16th, the day before the company reported disappointing first-quarter results, alongside announcing that co-founder Reed Hastings will be stepping down as its chairman in June. The plan likely comes as a small surprise for Wall Street, as Netflix announced in its latest earnings call that it will make no changes to its capital allocation program despite expectations that the company may use the increased financial headroom from the now-axed Warner Bros. deal to do so.

Max Knoblauch32m

American Airlines cuts its full-year earnings forecast, reports better than expected Q1 revenue

The final of the big four US airlines to drop its Q1 earnings, American Airlines, did just that on Thursday morning before markets opened. The carrier’s shares ticked down in premarket trading.

For Q1 2026, American reported:

An adjusted loss of $0.40 per share, compared to the loss of $0.47 per share expected from Wall Street analysts polled by FactSet.
$13.91 billion in revenue, compared to estimates of $13.79 billion.

Looking ahead to Q2, the company expects adjusted earnings per share of between -$0.20 and $0.20, compared to the $0.08 loss expected by Wall Street. For the full year ahead, American forecast adjusted earnings of between a $0.40 loss per share and earnings of $1.10 per share, lower than its earlier forecast of $1.70 to $2.70 per share. Analysts expected a loss of $0.65.

American said it paid $2.93 billion for fuel and related taxes in the quarter, up 13.2% from the same period last year.

Like the rest of its major rivals, American airlines hiked its bag fees earlier this month in an attempt to offset fuel costs that’ve spiked amid the war in Iran. In March, American boosted its sales outlook on stronger than expected demand.

Lately, the airline has spent time and effort rejecting rumors that it could potentially merge with rival United Airlines. Recent reports that United CEO Scott Kirby had floated the idea to President Trump sent American’s shares climbing, but they’ve since pared most of those gains. On Tuesday, the president said he doesn’t like the idea of the merger.

ServiceNow’s woes are dragging the entire software sector down

It’s software spooky season... and misery loves company.

David Crowther1h

Max Knoblauch15h

Southwest reports lower-than-expected Q1 earnings and revenue, declines to offer full-year profit update

Southwest Airlines reported its first-quarter earnings after the bell on Wednesday. Its shares fell more than 6% in after-hours trading.

For the first quarter, Southwest reported:

Adjusted earnings of $0.45 per share, compared to the $0.47 per share expected by Wall Street analysts polled by Factset.
Revenue of $7.25 billion, compared to estimates of $7.27 billion.

The carrier guided for adjusted earnings of between $0.35 and $0.65 per share for its second quarter, a range whose midpoint is below analyst estimates of $0.53 per share. Regarding its full-year 2026 earnings estimate of “at least” $4 per share, Southwest declined to give an update “given the ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty.”

“Achieving this outcome would require lower fuel prices and/or stronger revenue performance to offset higher fuel expense,” Southwest said.

Southwest introduced bag fees last year, ending a more than five-decade-long “bags fly free” policy. Earlier this month, less than a year after the change, it joined its major US rivals in hiking its bag fees by $10 amid surging jet fuel prices.

Southwest, which discontinued its fuel-hedging program last year, said it spent $1.36 billion on fuel and related taxes in the first quarter, up 8.6% year over year.

Matt Phillips15h

ServiceNow dives after reporting sequential decline in profit margins

Cloud software giant ServiceNow — which has been something of a poster child for the AI-related software sell-off — saw its shares fall sharply after delivering Q1 results that included a quarter-on-quarter decline in profit margins.

The company reported:

Revenue of $3.77 billion, higher than the $3.75 billion analyst consensus estimate published by FactSet.
Diluted adjusted earnings of $0.97 per share, on point with the $0.97 analysts had expected.
Subscription revenue of $3.67 billion vs. the $3.65 billion predicted.
Non-GAAP gross margins of 79.5%, down from 80.5% in Q4.

ServiceNow issued guidance for Q2 subscription revenues of between $3.815 billion and $3.820 billion, compared to the $3.75 billion FactSet consensus estimate.

ServiceNow shares have been at the epicenter of the software sell-off driven by the fear that such companies are at risk of being rendered obsolete by AI. The stock was down 33% for the year through the end of the New York trading session on Wednesday.

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