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Macy’s surges after crushing Q2 expectations and lifting full-year outlook

The department store chain is capitalizing on loyal shoppers and its luxury chains to push a turnaround.

Nia Warfield

Macy’s shares soared after the legacy department store chain posted knockout Q2 results and raised its full-year guidance.

Adjusted earnings per share came in at $0.41, more than double the $0.19 analysts polled by FactSet expected. Revenue hit $4.8 billion, topping Wall Street’s $4.7 billion estimate. Same-store sales rose 0.8%, Macy’s best comp growth in 12 quarters and well ahead of analysts’ forecasts for a 0.5% decline.

Macy’s also lifted its full-year guidance. The retailer now expects adjusted earnings of $1.70 to $2.05, compared with its prior $1.60 to $2.00 outlook and the Street’s $1.79 forecast. Annual revenue is now pegged between $21.15 billion and $21.45 billion, up from the company’s previous range of $21.0 billion to $21.4 billion.

The stock was up 15% in early trading.

CEO Tony Spring said he saw “strong performance” at Bloomingdale’s, Bluemercury, and stores that were part of its ‘Reimagine 125’ rollout, which gave a makeover to 125 core stores with upgraded dressing rooms, refreshed layouts, more staff, and sharper assortments.

Still, the company flagged some pressure as margins got squeezed by spring inventory markdowns and product bought under prior tariff rates. Management also warned that persistent tariffs, inflation, and cautious consumer spending could still be impactful through year-end.

Prior to the earnings release, Macy’s shares were down about 18.5% year to date.

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UPS spikes after reporting Q3 profits way ahead of expectations, as cost savings flow through to bottom line

UPS delivered a rosy set of results which sent the stock up as much as 17.7% in premarket trading on Tuesday, after reporting better-than-expected profit in the third quarter, with the logistics giant’s cost-cutting efforts beginning to show results.

The company’s adjusted earnings per share came in at $1.74 for the quarter, beating the $1.32 average analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Revenue also topped expectations, coming at $21.4 billion, and UPS now expects ~$24 billion for Q4 — above analysts’ prior expectations, who were penciling in $23.8 billion.

The company’s CEO, Carol Tomé, said in the press release:

“We are executing the most significant strategic shift in our company’s history, and the changes we are implementing are designed to deliver long-term value for all stakeholders. With the holiday shipping season nearly upon us, we are positioned to run the most efficient peak in our history while providing industry-leading service to our customers for the eighth consecutive year.”

Indeed, UPS has been on a large-scale turnaround plan lately, focusing on efficiency, after its demand was hit by tariff uncertainties and stiff competition. The company has trimmed down less-profitable deliveries from Amazon and says it has cut a whopping ~34,000 jobs from its operational workforce so far this year, as of Tuesday. The company’s also closed or consolidated a number of packaging facilities, and says it is on track to achieve $3.5 billion worth of total cost savings in 2025, relative to last year.

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Strive’s new wave of retail bulls have nearly completely vanquished the shorts

Shares of Strive Inc. are on the back foot this morning as a torrid two-day rally that saw the stock rise 90% amid back-to-back records for call options traded begins to cool.

JPMorgan strategist Arun Jain observes that the short interest in the stock tumbled from north of 20 million shares to a negligible amount, as the stock soared thanks to heavy retail buying in recent sessions.

JPM ASST retail imbalance and short interest

(20 million in short interest, for the record, pales in comparison to the nearly 1.3 billion in volumes over the course of Friday and Monday, another reminder that even successful short squeezes are defined more by the enthusiasm of new buyers.)

The elimination of that forced buyer base might be serving as a bit of a “mission accomplished” signal for bulls in the near term.

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PYPL leaps after signing OpenAI deal, enabling users to check out instantly using PayPal within ChatGPT

PayPal soared almost 15% at one point in premarket trading on Tuesday, after the online transactions giant announced it had signed a deal with OpenAI, enabling instant checkout on the chatbot for millions of users.

The deal — which was signed over the weekend and will reportedly go into effect next year — will also see PayPal connect tens of millions of merchants with OpenAI, allowing massive companies and independent sellers alike to integrate their businesses into ChatGPT in 2026. The agreement makes PayPal the first payments wallet in ChatGPT, per CNBC.

In the press release announcing the new partnership, PayPal CEO, Alex Chriss, confirmed:

By partnering with OpenAI and adopting the Agentic Commerce Protocol, PayPal will power payments and commerce experiences that help people go from chat to checkout in just a few taps for our joint customer bases.

The agreement will also see PayPal expand its use of OpenAI tech at a corporate level, opening up ChatGPT Enterprise to its almost 25,000 employees and enabling some to use other software and APIs.

Even with the rise, which has been pared back a little at the time of writing, PayPal is still down around 10% so far this year.

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