markets

8/8/25

The Trade Desk plunges on tepid outlook and CFO transition

The Trade Desk shares were trading as much as 39% lower on Friday after the ad tech company posted a narrow Q2 revenue beat and offered guidance for Q3 that likely disappointed investors.

Revenue came in at $694 million, slightly above the expected $685 million and up 19% year over year — though slower than the 25% growth in Q1. Adjusted earnings per share were in line with the consensus estimate at $0.41.

The Trade Desk runs a platform that helps advertisers buy digital ad space on websites, apps, and streaming TV in real time. Following strong numbers from digital ad peers like Google and Meta, some may have expected TTD to post similarly upbeat results. However, the company issued Q3 revenue guidance of at least $717 million, roughly matching analyst estimates but seemingly not enough to satisfy investors after a more than 50% rally in the shares over the past three months.

The company also announced that its longtime CFO, Laura Schenkein, will step down later this month, with board member Alex Kayyal set to take over the role.

It’s been a volatile year for TTD: it plunged 33% in February after posting weaker-than-expected guidance, then soared 19% after strong Q1 results in May. It got another lift in July after being added to the S&P 500, just weeks after we’d featured it on lists of the largest stocks not yet in the index. Thursday’s sharp reversal leaves the shares down nearly 50% year to date.

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Nia Warfield, Luke Kawa

S&P 500 falls as rate-cut optimism fizzles

The S&P 500 gave up early gains to close down 0.3%, while the Nasdaq 100 eked out a 0.1% advance and the Russell 2000 outperformed, rising 0.5%.

Brown bear on a rock

markets

2h

Kenvue plunges after reports suggest RFK Jr. may try to link prenatal Tylenol use to autism

Kenvue sank 15% Friday after a WSJ report said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may attempt to link prenatal Tylenol use to autism in an upcoming government report.

Kenvue, the maker of Tylenol and formerly a division of Johnson & Johnson prior to a 2023 spin-out, pushed back, saying the science shows “no causal link” between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and autism, and pointed to FDA and medical groups that agree on the drug’s safety.

The FDA itself has found no “clear evidence” of harm but advises pregnant women to consult providers before taking OTC meds.

The report is also expected to float a folate-derived therapy as a potential treatment.

Tylenol is just the latest well-established medication to face scrutiny under Kennedy, who has already stirred controversy by reshaping vaccine policy and amplifying doubts about mRNA shots.

Kenvue shares are now down over 18% year-to-date.

RFK Jr., HHS to Link Autism to Tylenol Use in Pregnancy and Folate Deficiencies

RFK Jr.

The FDA itself has found no “clear evidence” of harm but advises pregnant women to consult providers before taking OTC meds.

The report is also expected to float a folate-derived therapy as a potential treatment.

Tylenol is just the latest well-established medication to face scrutiny under Kennedy, who has already stirred controversy by reshaping vaccine policy and amplifying doubts about mRNA shots.

Kenvue shares are now down over 18% year-to-date.

markets

2h

Lucid surges following 6 days of losses after headlines misidentify Cantor Fitzgerald’s lower split-adjusted price target as a good thing

It’s been a shortened week, but still a rough one for Lucid. Investor blowback to the luxury EV maker’s 1-for-10 reverse stock split has sent shares to all time lows this week.

After six straight days of closing lower, Wall Street appears to have decided enough is enough and is loading up on Lucid shares on Friday, sending them up 13% in recent trading. As of 2:10pm eastern, Lucid trading volumes were at more than 240% of their 30 day average.

Some of the move could be attributed to traders reading headlines that don’t take into consideration Lucid’s reverse split. Cantor Fitzgerald on Friday slapped a new price target on Lucid of $20, compared to its previous target of $3. Some news outlets (not us!) presented that as an increase. The problem: With the 1-for-10 reverse split in effect, a comparable price target would have been $30. The new $20 target is actually... a cut.

Palantir slips under 50-day moving average, amid momo reversal

What goes up, doesn’t always keep going up.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp PLTR insane valuation

markets

6h

Momentum stocks reverse, weighing on US markets

Momentum stocks dragged the market lower Friday, with stocks like Palantir Technologies, SoundHound AI, Rocket Lab, Robinhood Markets, and GE Vernova continuing a recent slide.

(Robinhood Markets, Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company.)

The iShares MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETF opened 1% higher and built on those gains before reversing hard early in the session to trade 1% lower as of 11 a.m. ET.

If it closes at these levels, this fund that holds US stocks with the best risk-adjusted trailing returns will have completed a so-called “bearish engulfing candle pattern.” As the name suggests is, this is considered to be a negative technical signal that occurs when, the day after a security rises, it ends up opening above the previous day’s closing price and closes below the previous day’s opening price.

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