A look at companies in the spotlight before the market opens: Darden Restaurants — Shares rose nearly 11% after the restaurant operator announced a multiyear partnership with Uber for on-demand delivery later this year. But the company reported weaker-than-expected quarterly profit and revenue as sales at Olive Garden and fine-dining restaurants slumped. NextEra Energy Partners — Shares rose 2.6% after Jefferies covered NextEra Energy with a buy recommendation, saying concerns over a $3.75 billion acquisition the energy company must process are already priced into the stock. DoorDash — The food delivery stock rose more than 3% after BTIG upgraded it to a buy recommendation from neutral. The investment firm said third-quarter growth remained solid despite concerns about a weakening consumer. Nvidia, ASML, Arm Holdings, Micron — Several high-flying semiconductor companies rose in premarket trading as the market digested the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates. AI darling Nvidia’s shares rose 3.1%, while chipmakers ASML and Arm Holdings rose 4.8% and 4%, respectively. Memory and storage solutions provider Micron Technology rose 2.5%. Five Below: Shares fell 1.6% after JPMorgan cut its rating to underweight from neutral. The bank pointed to declining sales for a range of products over the past few quarters and said labor costs could create headwinds through 2025. Coursera: Online education platform Coursera rose 6.1% after Bank of America assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The bank said Coursera’s profit margins should continue to expand and sales should reaccelerate. Lennar: Shares of the homebuilder rose 3.5% ahead of expected third-quarter earnings after the market close. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected earnings of $3.64 per share on revenue of $9.13 billion for the period. It also delivered 20,819 vehicles for the quarter, near the high end of its guidance. Alibaba – Shares rose more than 4% after the Chinese e-commerce company unveiled more than 100 open-source artificial intelligence models and a text-to-video conversion tool. Alibaba also said it had upgraded its own flagship model, known as Qwen-Max. FedEx – Shares rose more than 1% ahead of the shipping giant’s first-quarter earnings report, scheduled for after the close of trading. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had expected earnings of $4.81 per share on revenue of $21.9 billion for the period. Crypto Stocks – Stocks tracking bitcoin prices rose as cryptocurrencies reacted belatedly to the Fed’s interest rate cut on Wednesday, rising more than 3%. Exchange operator Coinbase rose 4% and bitcoin proxy MicroStrategy added 5%. —CNBC’s Sean Conlon, Alex Harring, Samantha Sabin, Jesse Pound, Brian Evans, Sarah Ming and Michelle Fox Theobald contributed reporting.
