Johnson and Johnson pharmaceutical office.

Johnson & Johnson pops on top- and bottom-line beat, boost to full-year outlook

The drugmaker’s “grind it out” year is paying off, with sales jumping even as its blockbuster treatment faces more competition.

Nia Warfield

7/16/25 10:09AM

Johnson & Johnson shares are the top performer in the S&P 500 on Wednesday morning, jumping nearly 6% after the drugmaker posted better-than-expected earnings and hiked its outlook for the year.

Revenue hit $23.7 billion last quarter, besting the $22.8 billion forecast from analysts polled by Bloomberg. Earnings also reached an adjusted $2.77 per share, beating the expected $2.70.

Investors were bracing for a slowdown as Stelara, JNJ’s blockbuster psoriasis drug, faces new competition. The company originally forecast just 1% sales growth for 2025.

But even as Stelara sales cool, other drugs in JNJ’s portfolio have stepped up. Now, the company expects full-year total sales of $93.2 billion to $93.6 billion, up 5.1% to 5.6% from last year. The Street had penciled in sales of about $91.4 billion for 2025.

The company also spotlighted its cardiovascular unit as a “constant growth” driver and slashed its expected tariff costs for the year to $200 million — half the $400 million it projected earlier.

Shares of Johnson & Johnson are up nearly 13% year to date.

Luke Kawa2h

GameStop jumps in after-hours trading after CEO Ryan Cohen purchases another 500,000 shares

Ryan Cohen is putting his money where his mouth is.

The GameStop CEO bought another 500,000 shares of company stock for $10.8 million on Wednesday, per a filing.

The stock was trading higher on Wednesday thanks to Cohen’s purchase of 500,000 shares for roughly $10.6 million on Tuesday, and extended these gains in the after-hours session on this news.

“The Reporting Person believes that it is essential for the Chief Executive Officer of any public company to purchase shares of such company in the open market with his or her own personal funds in order to further strengthen alignment with stockholders,” per the filing. “The Reporting Person believes that any Chief Executive Officer who fails to do so should be fired.”

Cohen is poised to become even more financially enmeshed with GameStop’s stock and operating performance should shareholders approve a package that would tie his pay completely to ambitious targets for the company’s earnings and market cap.

The CEO now owns about 8.56% of shares outstanding.

Luke Kawa3h

AppLovin tumbles; company dismisses negative report as “false, misleading, and nonsensical”

AppLovin managed to finish Tuesday well off its lows after initially getting clobbered in the wake of an incendiary report published by CapitalWatch.

Nonetheless, shares are getting torched on Wednesday, ending down nearly 6%. An AppLovin spokesperson forcefully denied the allegations made by CapitalWatch, which included calling the ad tech firm “the ultimate monument to 21st-century new-type transnational financial crime.”

Per an emailed statement:

“We categorically reject the claims made in this report, which is rife with false, misleading, and nonsensical allegations. AppLovin’s public filings transparently disclose our material investments, global operations, and information regarding significant shareholders.”

“Claims that AppLovin facilitated money laundering or its products are used for unauthorized downloads are patently false. AppLovin functions within a broader ecosystem that includes major app stores, operating systems, and payment providers, and the apps monetized through our platform must be publicly available on the major app stores and subject to their independent review and enforcement. Economically, the money laundering theory is implausible: publishers receive only a portion of advertiser spend, meaning any attempt to ‘launder’ funds would require forfeiting a substantial share while creating a highly visible, auditable transaction trail across multiple independent companies. Accepting the report’s premise would therefore imply a systemic failure across the broader mobile advertising and app-store ecosystem, for which the report provides no evidence.”

AppLovin craters after report from CapitalWatch alleges it’s a money-laundering operation for “transnational criminal kingpins”

Per an emailed statement:

“We categorically reject the claims made in this report, which is rife with false, misleading, and nonsensical allegations. AppLovin’s public filings transparently disclose our material investments, global operations, and information regarding significant shareholders.”

“Claims that AppLovin facilitated money laundering or its products are used for unauthorized downloads are patently false. AppLovin functions within a broader ecosystem that includes major app stores, operating systems, and payment providers, and the apps monetized through our platform must be publicly available on the major app stores and subject to their independent review and enforcement. Economically, the money laundering theory is implausible: publishers receive only a portion of advertiser spend, meaning any attempt to ‘launder’ funds would require forfeiting a substantial share while creating a highly visible, auditable transaction trail across multiple independent companies. Accepting the report’s premise would therefore imply a systemic failure across the broader mobile advertising and app-store ecosystem, for which the report provides no evidence.”

Tasha Matsumoto, Nate Becker

Stocks jump as Trump walks back European tariff threats

All sector ETFs traded higher in the broad-based rally.

Benny, the mascot for the Chicago Bulls, performs during a break between the Bulls and the New Orleans Pelicans at the United Center on January 14, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois.

Matt Phillips7h

Intel soars amid retail engagement, analyst chatter

Intel ripped toward a new 52-week high Wednesday, amid a flurry of activity in the options market and a couple of positive analyst assessments ahead of its earnings report due tomorrow.

Shortly after 11 a.m. ET, call options activity was roughly equivalent to the full-day average over the past 10 sessions. Bets on stock swings using call options have become a highly popular retail trade, suggesting that retail investors are getting interested in the shares ahead of the report from the partially nationalized American chip icon.

(That interpretation is buttressed by what we’re seeing on social sentiment-monitoring sites like SwaggyStocks, which at about 11:30 a.m. listed Intel as the fifth-most-mentioned stock on Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets forum over the past 24 hours.)

Wall Street analysts are also chattering about the stock, with RBC and Bernstein Research both writing about it in the last 24 hours.

RBC — which has a “sector perform” (or neutral) rating on Intel — said it expects a “slight beat and largely inline outlook” when the company reports after the close Thursday.

Bernstein’s Intel watchers — who have a “market perform” (also neutral) rating on the stock — seemed a bit more cautious, writing, “Overall numbers going forward still looking high to us. Fundamentals and valuation keep us sidelined.”

“If there is no memory, there’s no AI.”

Johnson & Johnson pops on top- and bottom-line beat, boost to full-year outlook

More Markets

GameStop jumps in after-hours trading after CEO Ryan Cohen purchases another 500,000 shares

AppLovin tumbles; company dismisses negative report as “false, misleading, and nonsensical”

AppLovin craters after report from CapitalWatch alleges it’s a money-laundering operation for “transnational criminal kingpins”

Intel soars amid retail engagement, analyst chatter

FLASH FORWARD

ByMattPhillips

WedJan 212026

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