By George Glover and Joe Woelfel

Stock futures were rising Wednesday as investors snapped up tech shares, buying the dip following a recent selloff.

These stocks were poised to make moves:

Nvidia rose 1.7% ahead of the opening bell. Facebook owner Meta Platforms is expanding its business with the chip designer in a deal likely to be worth tens of billions of dollars. Meta will use millions of Nvidia's Blackwell and Rubin graphics processing units, a reminder that Nvidia is still the leading player in artificial-intelligence processors. Meta shares ticked up 0.6% in premarket trading, having taken a battering in recent weeks due to concerns about the so-called hyperscaler's AI spending plans.

Palo Alto Networks was the S&P 500's biggest decliner, tumbling 7.5% after the cybersecurity company reported strong fiscal second-quarter earnings but forecast that its profitability would suffer in the second half of the fiscal year. That's likely due to high memory prices and the costs involved in integrating two acquisitions.

New York Times climbed 3.4%. Berkshire Hathaway initiated a new holding by buying 5 million shares of the newspaper publishing company in the fourth quarter, according to a 13-F filing. The filing, which covered Warren Buffett's last quarter as CEO, also showed that Berkshire continued to trim its stakes in Bank of America and Apple and sold most of its holdings in Amazon.com over the quarter. Bank of America rose 0.3%, Apple added 0.5%, and Amazon gained 1.4% on Wednesday.

Sandisk slipped 2.6% after former parent Western Digital said it would sell shares in the flash-memory supplier. Sandisk announced a $3.09 billion secondary offering of its shares. Before the offering closes, Western Digital is expected to exchange the shares for some debt held by affiliates of JPMorgan and Bank of America.

Cadence Design Systems was the S&P 500's top performer, rising 5.8% after the chip-design software maker beat analysts' targets for fourth-quarter profit and revenue. At the mid-point, Cadence's profit and revenue guidance for the current fiscal year also topped Wall Street's expectations.

Hecla Mining jumped 4.8% after the silver miner reported fourth-quarter profit and revenue above analysts' estimates and said it would double its exploration and pre-development spending to $55 million in 2026. The results cover a period when silver prices surged as investors piled into precious metals in the so-called debasement trade.

Steel Dynamics rose 3.1% after the steelmaker and Australian conglomerate SGH submitted an enhanced offer for BlueScope Steel. The new bid values BlueScope at about $11 billion, or 34 Australian dollars a share before payment of an interim and special dividend. BlueScope's Sydney-listed shares closed 2.6% higher at A$28.74 on Wednesday.

Earnings reports are expected Wednesday from Analog Devices, Booking Holdings, Carvana, DoorDash, Occidental Petroleum, and Garmin.

Write to George Glover at george.glover@dowjones.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 18, 2026 06:09 ET (11:09 GMT)

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