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Luke Kawa

United States Antimony soars after proposed acquisition of Australian miner Larvotto Resources

United States Antimony Corp. is up after revealing a proposal to purchase Australian miner Larvotto Resources in an all-stock deal.

US Antimony has already acquired 10% of the company in the open market.

Larvotto is planning on developing Australia’s largest deposit of antimony, a metalloid that’s used in ammunition, batteries, and certain semiconductor products. Antimony is not a rare earth, but is considered strategically important and its production has been dominated by China.

“Our proposal to combine with Larvotto reflects our deep commitment to build a world class industry player in the critical minerals space and our strong conviction in the strategic and cultural fit between the two organizations as well as our countries,” Chairman and CEO Gary Evans said. “We see this as a compelling opportunity for Larvotto shareholders to participate in the upside of a larger, more diversified group — one with financial strength, global reach, and top tier technical capabilities.”

US Antimony has rallied strongly in recent months as the US government began to accumulate equity positions in critical minerals producers and investors tried to identify future potential targets for government investment. Those gains kicked into high gear last week after JPMorgan announced plans to invest billions in critical minerals and other industries key to America’s economic security and resiliency.

William Blair analyst Neal Dingmann initiated coverage of USAC with an “outperform” rating on Monday, suggesting that the US government may also take a position in the firm, per Bloomberg.

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Luke Kawa

Retail traders are pressing bets on potential short squeeze targets, sending 1-800-Flowers and Krispy Kreme soaring

Spurred by the parabolic surge in shares of Beyond Meat in recent sessions, traders are aggressively looking for potential short-squeeze targets with a number of buyer’s binges in the works.

1-800-Flowers.com spiked double digits late in Tuesday’s session, with the gains coming on heavy volumes the heels of a since-deleted tweet from a prominent social media account calling attention to a company with high short interest, high insider ownership, and low near-term debt — without even mentioning its name or ticker! Shares are continuing to build on that advance in the premarket on Wednesday, up 20% as of 7:37 a.m. ET. The company is the most heavily shorted member of the Russell 3000, per exchange data, with about three-quarters of its float sold short.

Krispy Kreme, which enjoyed a run as a meme stock in late July, is also up about 20% in premarket trading, is also among the 25 most heavily shorted companies in the Russell 3000. The stock soared on Tuesday as call volumes spiked, and hasn’t had any major fundamental news to speak of — unless you count the announcement of its seasonal “Frankendough Dozen” deal (I don’t).

GE Vernova Q3 earnings results

GE Vernova rises as backlog expands, despite earnings miss

Revenue topped estimates, while profit fell short.

Matt Phillips24m
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Claire Yubin Oh & Luke Kawa

AST SpaceMobile drops after announcing new share issuance and plans to raise more debt

AST SpaceMobile is down in premarket trading on Wednesday after the space-based cellular broadband network company announced that it’s refinancing by issuing more shares and raising more debt.

Most notably for shareholders is that these plans include dilution to the tune of 2 million shares at $78.61 per share, with the proceeds being used to buy out $50 million out of $100 million in senior convertible notes due in 2032, which have a coupon of 4.25%, from their holders.

Separately, the company also announced an offering of convertible senior notes that was quickly upsized to $1 billion, which will have a coupon of 2% and are due in 2036. These notes have an initial conversion price of about $96.30 per share, more than 20% above where shares closed on Tuesday. There’s the potential for an additional $150 million of these notes to be issued.

If the full initial $1 billion of notes were converted to shares, this would notionally add around 10.4 million shares to the company’s shares outstanding (274.6 million as of the latest count, per Bloomberg).

AST SpaceMobile said it would be able to settle conversions of the notes through cash or stock, or a combination thereof, and plans to use the proceeds for general corporate purposes and “funding the deployment of AST SpaceMobile’s worldwide constellation of satellites.”

So, in sum: more shares, more overall debt, the potential for additional shareholder dilution going forward in light of this addition of convertible notes, and less debt in 2032 that had a higher coupon than these new notes.

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Tom Jones

Texas Instruments slumps on disappointing Q4 revenue and profit outlook

Texas Instruments is down a little over 8% in premarket trading, as investors react to the weaker-than-expected fourth quarter guidance the company gave in its Q3 earnings yesterday.

The world’s biggest analog chipmaker said that Q4 revenue would come in between $4.22 billion and $4.58 billion, where analysts had expected $4.5 billion on average, per Bloomberg. TI’s profit forecast for the period also disappointed, after the company said that earnings would be in the region of $1.13 to $1.39 per share, compared to reported Wall Street estimates of $1.41.

While its actual third quarter numbers were broadly solid all told, with adjusted EPS at $1.59 meeting expectations, the Q4 outlook is a clear signal to some that recovery will likely be a little more sluggish than they expected. As the company’s CEO, Haviv Ilan, put it on an analyst call:

The overall semiconductor market recovery is continuing, though at a slower pace than prior upturns, likely related to the broader macroeconomic dynamics and overall uncertainty.

Texas Instruments counts more customers than anyone else in the semiconductor business and has a broader range of products, too, making it something of a bellwether for the industry more broadly, with its softer outlook weighing modestly on stocks such as Analog Devices, AMD, and Intel.

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Matt Phillips

DraftKings moves to counter prediction market threat

DraftKings is holding onto its gains from after the bell yesterday, trading 6% higher in the pre-market, following news that it is buying Railbird in an effort to address the competitive threat from prediction markets that has weighed on its share price — and that of FanDuel parent Flutter Entertainment — for weeks.

The deal is then latest example of the increasing linkages and overlap between worlds of financial markets, gambling, and prediction markets.

Earlier this month, ICE — the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange and the ICE futures markets, among others — announced it would invest up to $2 billion in prediction markets company Polymarket.

And Robinhood shares have recently gotten a lift from its ongoing partnership with prediction market platform Kalshi, which has seen growing uptake of its events contracts that allow buyers to take positions on football games.

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

By and large investor excitement over prediction markets — which has picked up since the start of football season — has seemed to come at the expense of Flutter and DraftKings, the two companies that dominate US sports betting.

Over the last three months through the end of regular trading on Wednesday, DraftKings and Flutter were down 23% and 18%, respectively, while the S&P 500 is up about 7%.

DraftKings acquires predictions platform Railbird

DraftKings acquires predictions platform Railbird

The deal is then latest example of the increasing linkages and overlap between worlds of financial markets, gambling, and prediction markets.

Earlier this month, ICE — the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange and the ICE futures markets, among others — announced it would invest up to $2 billion in prediction markets company Polymarket.

And Robinhood shares have recently gotten a lift from its ongoing partnership with prediction market platform Kalshi, which has seen growing uptake of its events contracts that allow buyers to take positions on football games.

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

By and large investor excitement over prediction markets — which has picked up since the start of football season — has seemed to come at the expense of Flutter and DraftKings, the two companies that dominate US sports betting.

Over the last three months through the end of regular trading on Wednesday, DraftKings and Flutter were down 23% and 18%, respectively, while the S&P 500 is up about 7%.

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