Markets
markets
Luke Kawa

Walmart’s reign atop the revenue leaderboard poised to pass to Amazon, barring an epic quarter

Walmart has ruled the roost when it comes to revenue generation by an S&P 500 company.

But it may be officially cede that crown when the retailer reports its results on February 20.

The brick-and-mortar retail giant with a big e-commerce footprint is on the verge of being surpassed by an e-commerce giant with a big cloud business. In its most recent quarter, Amazon booked nearly $188 billion in sales, with President and CEO Andy Jassy hailing the holiday shopping season as its “most successful yet.”

Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg anticipate that Walmart’s revenues will come in around $180 billion.

The best projection of the bunch calls for $182 billion in sales. Walmart would need to exceed the consensus estimate by about 4.4% in order to maintain its top spot on the top line. Over the past decade, Walmart has beaten revenue expectations by that much or more only once: in the first quarter of 2022, when its sales figure was 4.81% above the consensus forecast.

More Markets

See all Markets
markets

Opendoor surges on bullish options bets as traders look to potential real estate tokenization

Opendoor Technologies is surging on Friday amid bullish options bets and social media posts referencing unconfirmed rumors about the company.

The stock moved higher in the premarket session after the soft inflation report boosted stocks and briefly pushed long-term bond yields lower (positive for a real estate company). But the real gains came after the opening bell rang and options demand picked up.

As of 12:11 p.m. ET, roughly 664,000 call options have changed hands versus a 10-day average of about 364,000 for a full session.

What seems to be galvanizing members of the “$OPEN Army” is the potential for the company to pursue the tokenization of real-world assets, with Robinhood often bandied about as a potential partner in this endeavor.

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

Opendoor bulls have often pointed to signs that Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev appears to be fond of the company, from what appeared on-screen during a demo of a social trading feature at HOOD’s conference in Las Vegas in September to offering support to Opendoor CEO Kaz Nejatian in setting up an opportunity for retail shareholders to ask questions during the online real estate company’s next earnings call.

Opendoor is currently in a quiet period ahead of earnings, which restricts what type of announcements a company can make.

The call options seeing the most demand expire this Friday with strike prices of $8, $8.50, and $9.

Intel Earnings Researchers

Wall Street analysts see some issues with Intel’s earnings

Even with the US government as a partial owner, Intel’s turnaround has a long way to go.

markets

Beyond Meat gains amid slightly better-than-expected Q3 sales, positive commentary on legal issues

Shares of Beyond Meat built on their premarket gains after the plant-based meat seller reported preliminary Q3 sales a bit ahead of Wall Street’s expectations, before paring this advance after the market opened.

For the three months ended September 27, management said net revenue would be approximately $70 million. That’s in line with their guidance range of $68 million to $73 million, but Wall Street was expecting sales to skew toward the lower end of that range, at $68.7 million.

However, its anticipated gross margin of 10% to 11% is lower than analysts had been expecting (13.8%). That’s still the case even adjusting for expenses related to its downsizing of operations in China, which would have left margins around 12% to 13%, per Beyond.

Perhaps more importantly, the company provided positive commentary regarding arbitration discussions with a former co-manufacturer that appear to bring it closer to a resolution while limiting potential damages:

“As previously disclosed, in March 2024, a former co-manufacturer brought an action against the Company in a confidential arbitration proceeding claiming that the Company inappropriately terminated its agreement with the co-manufacturer and claimed damages of at least $73.0 million. On September 15, 2025, the arbitrator issued an interim award (the ‘Interim Award’) and found that the Company had a valid basis to terminate the agreement with the Manufacturer. The details of the Interim Award are confidential, and a final arbitration award has not been issued. Additional proceedings will be held to determine the award of attorneys’ fees, prejudgment interest and costs, if any, before a final arbitration award will be issued. On September 25, 2025, the Manufacturer filed a request with the arbitrator to re-open the arbitration hearing. On September 29, 2025, the Company opposed this request. On October 20, 2025, the arbitrator denied the Manufacturer’s request.”

markets

Softer inflation means higher conviction in Fed easing, per prediction markets

A cooler-than-expected inflation report is fueling more confidence in additional Federal Reserve easing through year-end.

CPI rose 0.3% month on month in September, while its core measure of inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.2%. Both increases were a tick less than economists polled by Bloomberg had anticipated.

Market-implied odds derived from event contracts offered on Robinhood show that the probability of the US central bank delivering exactly three cuts this year rose to as high as 85% in the minutes following the release, up from 77% beforehand.

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

The Federal Reserve reduced its policy rate by 25 basis points in September to a range of 4% to 4.25%. It meets again next week and its final rate decision for 2025 is scheduled for December 10.

The central bank’s most recent “dot plot” showed that the median official thought 75 basis points of easing (or three 25-basis point rate cuts) would be appropriate for 2025 if the economy evolved in line with their expectations.

Stocks rose in the minutes after the CPI print, with the SPDR S&P 500 Trust gaining 0.3%, as of 8:50 a.m. ET, leaving it 0.6% higher than it closed last night.

Latest Stories

Sherwood Media, LLC produces fresh and unique perspectives on topical financial news and is a fully owned subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, Inc., and any views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any other Robinhood affiliate, including Robinhood Markets, Inc., Robinhood Financial LLC, Robinhood Securities, LLC, Robinhood Crypto, LLC, or Robinhood Money, LLC.