Videogame maker Electronic Arts Inc. saw a modest uptick in gaming demand during the holiday season, helped by gains in its “EA Sports FC” soccer franchise, but signaled a slowdown in a key demand metric for its fourth quarter. Executives said they expected fiscal fourth-quarter net bookings, a gauge of physical and digital sales, of between $1.625 billion and $1.925 billion. EA EA, -0.74%, when it reported fourth-quarter results last year, said net bookings were $1.946 billion, results that were boosted by ...

Starbucks Corp. SBUX, +0.30% on Tuesday reported fiscal first-quarter profit and sales that missed Wall Street’s expectations. Revenue rose 8% to $9.4 billion, below FactSet estimates for $9.6 billion. Starbucks’ adjusted earnings per share were 90 cents, below FactSet forecasts for 93 cents. Same-store sales rose 5%, compared with FactSet estimates for a 7.1% gain. Operating margins expanded to 15.8%. Shares rose 2.3% after hours. ...

Microsoft Corp. posted beats across the board with its latest results Tuesday afternoon, calling out momentum in the cloud and traction with artificial intelligence. Microsoft’s MSFT, -0.28% Azure and other cloud-services businesses posted revenue growth of 28% on a constant-currency basis in the fiscal second quarter. Analysts expected Azure constant-currency revenue growth of 27% for the period. Overall, Microsoft recorded $62.0 billion in revenue for its latest quarter, up from $52.7 billion a year earli ...

PayPal Holdings Inc. plans a new round of layoffs as it continues its efforts to cut costs. The company intends to reduce its workforce by 9% through a mix of layoffs and elimination of some open roles over the course of this year, PayPal PYPL, +0.01% Chief Executive Alex Chriss said Tuesday in a letter to staff that was reviewed by MarketWatch. “We are doing this to right-size our business, allowing us to move with the speed needed to deliver for our customers and drive profitable growth,” Chriss said in t ...

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. shares have rocketed some 80% since the company last posted earnings. That means the pressure is on heading into Tuesday afternoon’s report. Despite the stock’s big rally, AMD’s AMD, -2.29% story at the moment is mixed, as the traditional personal-computer and data-center markets are under pressure. But AMD also has the potential to see more momentum with its data-center AI offerings, and that’s been driving the stock’s recent momentum. Even so, some analysts are skeptical that t ...

When Google parent Alphabet Inc. reports its fourth-quarter results Tuesday, analysts and investors expect a bountiful haul in advertising revenue.Here what analysts are looking for ahead of Alphabet’s GOOG, -0.73% GOOGL, -0.79% report, which is due out after the closing bell. What to expect Earnings: Analysts tracked by FactSet on average expect Alphabet to report earnings of $1.59 a share, compared with $1.05 a share a year ago. Revenue: Analysts on average expect Alphabet to report $85.3 billion in tota ...

Block Inc. is a hodgepodge of businesses, but better synergies between them could send the stock soaring. At least, that’s the view of BTIG analyst Andrew Harte, who upgraded Block’s stock SQ, -0.32% to buy from neutral Tuesday after recently assuming coverage of the name. He has a new $85 price target on shares that’s about 22% above current levels. “Our core investment thesis is focused on SQ’s attractive position between the consumer and merchant with its Cash App and Square ecosystems and potential for ...

Morgan Stanley analyst Betsy Graseck on Tuesday upgraded Bank of America Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc. and Bank of New York Mellon Corp. on optimism around pared-back capital requirements now under study by the the U.S. Federal Reserve.Morgan Stanley also said the entire group of big-bank stocks look attractive, and lifted price targets by a median of 16% across the board on 12 of them.If banks are not required to hold quite as much capital as in the initial Basel III endgame proposal by r ...

U.S. small-cap stocks have had a rocky start to 2024 following a stellar fourth quarter. But a growing number of Wall Street analysts believe these stocks, which make up just 6% of the U.S. equity market by valuation, are poised to gain as the Federal Reserve prepares to start cutting interest rates later this year. On Tuesday, a team of market strategists at UBS Group became the latest to recommend that clients consider adding exposure to small caps on the expectation that the torrid rally seen by the Russ ...

Shares of Pfizer Inc. PFE, +0.04% gained 0.7% early Tuesday after the company beat analysts’ earnings expectations and reaffirmed its full-year 2024 guidance issued in December. The drugmaker reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $3.37 billion, or 60 cents a share, compared with net income of $4.995 billion, or 87 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Adjusted earnings per share came to 10 cents, beating the FactSet consensus of a loss of 18 cents per share. Revenues totaled $14.249 billion in the quar ...