Facebook  shares climbed on Friday, after Credit Suisse analyst Stephen Ju raised his price target on the social media giant’s shares.

Ju  hiked his price target to $480 from $400, while maintaining his outperform rating.

“As Facebook (and the broader online ad industry) continues to benefit from budget recovery for the second quarter, our focus shifts back to offense and product development,” Ju wrote in a commentary.

 “At the time of its last disclosure (the third quarter of 2020), the core Facebook app had 200 million business profiles and 10 million advertisers, while Instagram had 4 million advertisers,” Ju wrote.

“From a near-term tactical perspective, our conversations with advertisers continue to suggest ad budget recovery across most sectors.”

Alphabet  shares climbed on Friday, following price target hikes at Credit Suisse, ahead of second quarter earnings release next week.

Credit Suisse analyst Stephen Ju  boosted his price target on the Google-parent’s shares by 21.5% to $3,350 per share.Ju mentioned the impact of new product launches that will increase the company’s total addressable advertisement market to around $3 trillion on the back of a strategy that targets both larger and small-to-medium sized businesses with real-time inventory listings that can link to its search and map features.

Shopify  shares climbed Thursday to touch a record high, following optimistic views from analysts.

Stifel’s Scott Devitt raised his price target on the e-commerce company’s shares to $1,600 from $1,400, while maintaining his buy rating.

Devitt mentioned the company’s “proven track record of creating products and services that generate value for merchants”, and said that he expects the ongoing investments to create monetization improvements as the platform continues to scale.The analyst also indicated that the company’s outlook for the second half of the year is crucial on challenging prior year comparisons during reopening.

Susquehanna Financial Group’s John Coffey boosted his price target on Shopify shares to $1,800 from $1,500, while keeping his positive rating.

The figure also reflects a bounce-back  from a pandemic-induced loss of -$1.20 a share in the year-ago quarter.

Net interest income climbed +5% year-over-year to $2.3 billion.Revenue, net of interest expense, came in at $3.58 billion, beating analysts’ expectation of $2.9 billion.

Discover’s Board of Directors approved  share repurchases of up to $2.4 Billion of common stock, and a +14% increase in the quarterly common stock dividend to $0.50 Per Share.

 

Technology giant Intel  posted its second-quarter earnings that topped analysts’ expectations. 

Intel’s reported earnings came in at $1.28 a share, exceeding the $1.07 a share expected by analysts polled by FactSet.Sales from chips for data centers segment were down -9% year-over-year to $6.5 billion.

Intel has predicted adjusted third-quarter revenue of about $18.2 billion, compared with the FactSet estimate of $18.1 billion.

The company now projects annual adjusted revenue of $73.5 billion, higher than its prior forecast of $72.5 billion.

The social media company’s revenue also exceeded estimates.

Snap’s  net loss came in at -10 cents per share for the quarter, compared to the -18 cents per share anticipated by analysts polled by FactSet.The number of daily active users rose +23% year over year to 293 million.

The company launched eight new "Snap Originals" shows and 177 new "Discover Channels.

Twitter  shares climbed in after-hours trading Thursday, following better-than-expected  second-quarter results.

The social media behemoth’s adjusted diluted earnings came in at 35 cents a share, handily beating analysts’ expectations of 7 cents.Net income was 8 cents a share, bouncing back from loss of - $1.75 per share a year ago.

Revenue increased +74% from the year-ago quarter to $1.19 billion compared to analyst consensus of $1.07 billion.

The platform’s average monetizable daily active users in the second quarter was 206 million - up +11% year-over-year and +3% quarter-over-quarter.

For the third quarter, Twitter is expecting revenue to range between $1.22 billion and $1.3 billion .

Shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill  reported second quarter earnings that exceeded analysts’ expectations.

The fast casual restaurant chain's  net income came in at $6.60 a share, compared to the $6.50 per share predicted by analysts surveyed by FactSet.Adjusted earnings for the quarter were $7.46 a share, also topping analysts’ estimate of $6.53; the figure is also above the year-ago quarter’s 40 cents.

Revenue rose +39% year-over-year to $1.89 billion in the quarter, compared to  analysts’ estimate of $1.88 billion.

Chipotle has projected comparable restaurant sales growth in the low- to mid-double digits for  the third quarter.

Chipotle Chief Executive Brian Niccol indicated that the company is optimistic on achieving its goal of $3 million average unit volumes with “industry leading returns” on invested capital that are expected to improve as it continues to add Chipotlane drive-through lanes.

CSX  reported its second-quarter earnings forecasts after the bell Wednesday.

The rail-based freight transportation company's adjusted earnings for the quarter came in at 40 cents a share, compared to the 37 cents a share expected by analysts polled by FactSet. 

Earnings experienced tailwinds of +12 cents a share from the sale of property rights in line segments to the Commonwealth of Virginia for passenger rail operations.

Revenue grew +33% year-over-year to $2.99 billion in the quarter, on the back of growth across all lines of business.The company experienced a -9% year over year decrease in expenses, while its operating income improved to $1.69 billion for the quarter.

In June, CSX announced that its board had approved a 3-for-1 stock split to be given out to shareholders as a stock dividend.

Texas Instruments Inc.  posted its second-quarter results that surpassed analysts' expectations.However, the company provided a guidance that turned out to be not so impressive.

The semiconductor manufacturer’s second quarter earnings came in at $2.05 per share, beating analyst expectations of $1.83 per share.

Revenue grew +41% from the year-ago quarter to $4.58 billion, also exceeding estimates of $4.36 billion.

For the third quarter, Texas Instruments has projected an earnings range of $1.87 per share to $2.13 per share –$1.97 per share expected by analysts polled by FactSet.

Shares of sports betting company DraftKings rose Wednesday, following announcement of the company's plans to launch DraftKings Marketplace.

The marketplace will offer access to curated nonfungible-token releases and provide secondary-market transactions.The initial offering, called the Pre-Season Access collection, will feature NFTs from Autograph's athletes roster, which includes Tiger Woods, Wayne Gretzky, Derek Jeter, Naomi Osaka and Tony Hawk.

"The NFT boom has reinvented the collectibles industry and driven excitement to early-adopting audiences worldwide — including the DraftKings community,” said DraftKings co-founder and president Matt Kalish.

All of Apple’s next-generation iPhones to be released next year will reportedly be 5G-capable.

According to a Nikkei Asia report, Apple will not introduce any new 4G models next year. The company  will begin selling a version of its iPhone SE  that is compatible with the next-generation communication standard.

The budget 5G iPhone is expected to start selling as early as the first half of 2022 and will be powered by Apple's own A15 processor.

They affirmed a buy rating on the stock.

Analyst David Vogt mentioned “aggressive carrier promotions in the U.S. and strength in China” as factors that should boost iPhone units to at least 44 million in the June quarter, up almost +15% year over year and about +5% above UBS prior forecast.UBS expects iPhone sales to rise +12% year over year to 85 million in the second half of the year, on the back of the next phone launch in September.

Analysts at UBS increased their earnings estimates for Apple to $1.01 a share up from the previous view of 95 cents a share.

Shares of chipmaker Nvidia  moved lower Tuesday, ahead of a stock split.

In late May, Nvidia told investors that it would execute a four-for-one stock split beginning on July 20, that included shareholders of record on June 21.This would lead to an investor holding one share at $750 each to four at $187.80 each, but without any change to the chipmaker's market value.

The company’s shares have rallied around 52% so far this year, on the back of  gaming and cryptocurrency mining and its expanding footprint in artificial intelligence.

First Horizon National reported earnings for the second quarter, beating analysts’ expectations.

The bank holding company’s adjusted earnings for the quarter ending June came in at $0.58 per share, compared to Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.43 per share.The figure is also higher than the year-ago quarter’s $0.20 per share.

Revenues of $782 million exceeded the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1.36%.

Global business process management company WNS posted net profit of $26.8 million for the first quarter, which represent an 81% year-over-year increase.

Revenues climbed +22% from the year-ago quarter to $253.2 million.

"Despite Covid-related challenges in the quarter, WNS continued to perform well and posted solid financial results.Hiring accelerated in support of both new wins and committed volume increases with existing clients," said Group CEO Keshav R Murugesh.

As of quarter-end, the company had $311.3 million in cash and investments.

Shares of Dow Inc. and LyondellBasell  fell after Bank of America analyst Steve Byrne downgraded rating on the chemicals companies.

Byrne cut his rating on Dow Inc. shares to underperform from neutral, while lowering his price target to $68 from $71.He downgraded LyondellBasell stock to neutral from buy and reduced his price target to $114 from $117.

The lowered outlook was largely due to the possibility of commodity price inflation peaking.

posted its fiscal second quarter earnings that surpassed analysts’ expectations.

The beverage giant’s adjusted earnings for the quarter came in at $1.72, compared to $1.53 expected by analysts polled by Refinitiv.

Revenue increased more than +20% year-over-year to $19.22 billion , also exceeding analysts’ expectation of $17.96 billion.

Net sales climbed +20.5% year-over-year to $19.22 billion, vs. analysts’ expectations of $17.96 billion.The Quaker Foods North America segment was the only business to report decreasing organic revenue (a -21% fall in the segment’s volume led to a -14% decrease in organic revenue ).

The company narrowed its projection for 2021 organic revenue growth from mid-single digits to 6%.

Pepsi now projects + 11% growth in constant currency earnings per share, higher than its prior forecast of high-single digit growth.

Wells Fargo on Wednesday reported second-quarter earnings and revenue results that topped Wall Street’s expectations, as the bank continued to release reserves that it had set aside as cushion against pandemic-induced loan loss risks.

The financial behemoth’s earnings for the quarter came in at $1.38, beating the 97 cents a share expected by analysts polled by Refinitiv.The quarter marked a  sharp rebound from the loss it incurred in the year-ago quarter.

Revenue rose +10% year-over-year to $20.27 billion, vs. $17.77 billion expected by analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.

Wells Fargo released $1.6 billion of its credit loss reserves as consumers perform better than the bank expected amid the pandemic-induced recession.

The bank’s net interest margin was 2.02% for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectation of 2.05% (according to FactSet).

On Thursday, Apple  shares touched  a market value of $2.5 trillion, as analysts offer optimistic outlook on the tech giant’s stock.

 At Morgan Stanley, analyst Kathy Huberty boosted price target on Apple shares  by $4 to $166 per share, emphasizing solid demand forecasts and improving supply-chain dynamics heading into Apple's iPhone 13 launch in the fall.Huberty also mentioned a Bloomberg report that suggested Apple is planning to build 90 million next-generation iPhones this year.

Earlier this week, JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee included Apple to his 'analyst focus list'.