These stocks were poised to make moves Thursday:
Tesla Inc. shares rose 2.8% in premarket trading. Tesla revealed plans to begin robotaxi operations and forecast a sales recovery this year, fueling what Elon Musk predicted would be an “epic” period of growth for the electric vehicle maker.
The chief executive officer cited advancements in vehicle autonomy and new model plans, and in its earnings report the company predicted a “return to growth in 2025.” Musk described a future that focused on driverless cars, humanoid robots and artificial intelligence. The comments largely sidestepped the actual sales and profit results, which missed Wall Street’s expectations for the final three months of a tumultuous 2024.
Microsoft Corp. said its cloud-computing business will continue to grow slowly in the current quarter as the company struggles to build enough data centers to handle demand for its artificial intelligence products.
The Azure cloud division will grow at as much 32% in its fiscal third quarter, not much faster than it did during the last three months of 2024. The shares fell about 4% in premarket trading.
Meta Platforms Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg exuded confidence in his company’s artificial intelligence strategy, saying 2025 will be a “really big year” in which its AI assistant will become the most widely used in the industry.
The remarks sent Meta shares up 2% in premarket trading.
IBM surpassed analysts' estimates for fourth-quarter profit on Wednesday, driven by demand in its high-margin software unit as businesses ramped up IT spending, sending its shares soaring about 7.8% in premarket trading.
The company's software segment recorded its biggest revenue jump in five years, as customers prioritized spending on cloud infrastructure amid a rush to adopt the data-intensive generative artificial intelligence technology.
ServiceNow's CFO says the forecast for subscription revenue is prudent. And one analyst cheers the company's momentum with large deals.
ServiceNow Inc.'s stock had been hot, but it lost steam in Wednesday's after-hours trading as the company came up a bit shy on subscription revenue, a closely watched metric. ServiceNow shares slumped 9.6% in premarket trading.
A regional jet flown for American Airlines Group Inc. collided in a deadly midair crash with a military helicopter as it flew into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, prompting a search and rescue operation for any survivors in the Potomac River.
American Airlines stock fell 2.5% in premarket trading.