The East Side of the US Capitol Building in the early morning, Washington DC, USA.

The east side of the US Capitol Building. (Getty images)

Health insurers rise after the Senate rejects competing healthcare plans

The Democratic plan would have extended tax credits, while the GOP plan would have replaced them with HSAs.

The US Senate rejected two competing healthcare plans as insurance premiums are set to skyrocket and the Biden-era enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits are set to expire at yearsend.

A Democratic proposal to extend the tax credits — which were at the center of the longest government shutdown in history — failed, as did the Republican plan would have allowed ACA subsidies to lapse and partially replace them with federally funded tax-advantaged health savings accounts.

The biggest providers of ACA Marketplace plans like Oscar Health, UnitedHealthcare, Molina Healthcare, Elevance Health and Centene rose after the vote. While the potential end of the ACA subsidies would hurt their bottom line, investors have had time to price that in, while the Senate GOP plan to replace that funding with HSA contributions presented a new threat.

The ACA tax credits, which subsidize health insurance plans provided by private insurers, were part of a 2021 COVID-19 relief package passed by a Democratic-controlled Congress. The subsidies, which are set to expire on December 31, led to a boom in ACA enrollment.

The tax credits are set to end just as ACA Marketplace premium payments are expected to double next year, according to an estimate from KFF.

Max Knoblauch1h

Budget airline stocks dip as Spirit pilots ratify contract that’ll help the carrier stay afloat

Low-cost airlines JetBlue and Frontier are trading lower on Thursday following the news that Spirit Airlines pilots ratified modifications to their labor contract that will lower costs for the carrier, which filed for bankruptcy in August.

According to the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), Spirit pilots approved a deal that included “temporary reductions to pay rates and retirement contributions.” Beginning January 1, hourly pay will be reduced 8% and retirement contributions will drop by half from 16% to 8%.

"Spirit pilots made a difficult choice that provides the Company with what it needs from labor to secure financing and complete its restructuring,” said Captain Ryan P. Muller, chairman of the Spirit Airlines Master Executive Council.

Wall Street sees Jetblue and Frontier as the biggest beneficiaries to Spirit’s woes, and both carriers have attempted to purchase Spirit in recent years.

Matt Phillips2h

Planet Labs rips on strong earnings report

Satellite services company Planet Labs was on track for a new record closing high after rising more than 35% in early afternoon trading on Thursday.

The roughly $5 billion company posted better-than-expected quarterly results and guided toward higher-than-expected sales for the current quarter after the close of trading Wednesday.

“AI continues to be a major tailwind as the company is seeing significant demand through enhanced capabilities for its advanced satellite data solutions,” wrote Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives, adding “We continue to believe the PL is well-positioned at the intersection of Space and AI.” He has an “outperform” — basically a “buy” — rating and a price target of $20 on the stock.

Other satellite services AST SpaceMobile and Rocket Lab also enjoyed a bump on Thursday, seemingly riding the momentum of Planet Labs’ numbers.

Planet Labs Stock Soars After Earnings Report. Why Shares Are Headed to the Moon.

Other satellite services AST SpaceMobile and Rocket Lab also enjoyed a bump on Thursday, seemingly riding the momentum of Planet Labs’ numbers.

Max Knoblauch4h

Rivian sure picked a bad time for its AI Day as investors dump tech stocks

The event coordination team at Rivian is probably having a bad one, as investors dumped the stock ahead of its “Autonomy and AI Day” amid a broader AI trade sell-off.

Heading into the event that began at noon ET, Rivian shares were down 5%, following a strongly negative reaction to Oracle’s earnings results. The stock began climbing as Rivian’s event started, but remains in the red on the day.

A year flush with tariffs and the end of the EV tax credit has pushed Rivian to pitch a techier version of its future. During Thursday’s event, Rivian said its forthcoming vehicles would ditch Nvidia chips for its own AI chips produced by Taiwan Semiconductor.

The vehicles will feature lidar sensors, enabling “level 4” autonomous driving (similar to Google’s Waymo), the company said. According to CEO RJ Scaringe, the updates will allow Rivian to “pursue opportunities in the rideshare space,” hinting at future robotaxi plans, which rivals Tesla and Lucid have already begun.

Wall Street appears skeptical of Rivian, with Morgan Stanley this week downgrading the stock to “underweight” and dropping its price target to $12. Lucid, which in October announced it’s planning a privately owned autonomous car built with Nvidia tech, also received a downgrade.

Rivian turns to AI, autonomy to woo investors as EV sales stall

Luke Kawa4h

Robinhood tumbles after November trading volumes post monthly drop across equities, options, and crypto

Robinhood Markets is getting crushed today, and not just because it’s the place where people go to buy AI stocks (which are under big pressure after Oracle’s earnings report). As stocks retreated in November, activity on the platform did, too.

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)

The brokerage reported that November trading volumes fell across equities, options, and crypto compared to October. Equity notional volumes were down 37% month on month, options contracts traded were off 28%, and crypto notional volumes fell double digits. The bright spot: its prediction markets business is still in boom mode, with 3 billion contracts traded, up 20% versus the prior month.

Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Brett Knoblauch trimmed his price target on the shares to $152 from $155 following this release, noting that this monthly decline was somewhat expected.

After a quarter century, Cisco surpasses dot-com bubble closing high

Matt Phillips4h