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Netflix rose in after-hours market trading after beating analyst expectations, with earnings per share of $6.61 versus the FactSet consensus estimate of $5.67 and quarterly revenue of $10.543 billion compared to the $10.5 billion analysts estimated.

Last quarter Netflix added a record number of subscribers, but it’s no longer reporting those numbers. Apparently the company didn’t hit a “major subscriber milestone,” as it said it would announce those as it crossed them.

Netflix previously said it would instead focus on user time spent and financial metrics — mainly operating margin and revenue. Its operating margin was 32% compared with 28.1% last year, and its revenue was up 13%.

Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Netflix has the goal of reaching a $1 trillion market cap (it’s currently worth less than half that) and doubling its revenue (which was $39 billion last year) by 2030.

Netflix has been considered a relatively safe pick amid a tariff-fueled market rout that has roiled tech and media companies alike. As Bank of America noted today, Netflix’s “strong subscription model with critical entertainment” is one that “historically has performed well in a recession.” Earlier today, Netflix was up about 9% on the year.

With tariffs slamming the auto industry, investors continue pouring into rental car companies.

On Wednesday, news that Bill Ackman’s investment firm Perishing Square scooped up 12.71 million shares of Hertz sent the stock soaring up 56% at close.

The trend continued Thursday, with Hertz shares up more than 50% intraday. Rival Avis was up more than 16%, seemingly on the same principle: that rental fleets will become more valuable as new vehicles get pricier (and, therefore, fewer sell). There’s also a line of thinking that as people buy fewer new cars, they’ll rent more often.

In the meantime, automakers like Ford appear to be working out the math on when to begin their tariff price hikes.

Palantir has returned to the radar screens of active retail traders over the last week or so, with the defense contractor and AI software company showing up on JPMorgan’s rankings of stocks with the biggest buying interest from the unwashed masses.

It’s the first time Palantir — which was the best performer in the S&P 500 last year with a 340% gain — made the list of top buys since early mid-March.

JPMorgan analysts estimate retail accounted for roughly 16% of net buying for the four-session stretch between April 9 and April 15. The return of retail activity corresponded with some favorable headlines for the company regarding a new contract with NATO, which helped the shares shake off more general slump for Big Tech recently. The Nasdaq 100 is down over 5% in April, while Palantir is up about 10%.

In fact, among JPM’s listing of the top recent retail buys — led by Tesla and Amazon — Palantir was the only stock that was actually up over the period analysts examined.

AI-powered commercial real estate company Janover is not wasting time on increasing its solana bet. On April 15, the company purchased 80,567 solana for approximately $10.5 million.

Solana, with a $69 billion market cap, is the seventh-largest crypto. It’s also the biggest crypto gainer in the past 24 hours, up more than 6%. Meanwhile, bitcoin and most of the asset class is flat this morning.

This represents the company’s third acquisition since it announced its Strategy-like digital asset treasury strategy on April 7. It previously purchased $4.6 billion of solana on April 10 and 44,158 solana for approximately $5 million on April 11. Janover now holds 163,651.7 solana, valued at approximately $21.2 million.

CEO Joseph Onorati said earlier in April that the company’s move emulates Strategy’s approach, but argued, “Solana is even better suited for this than bitcoin is.”  

Onorati told Sherwood News:

Trump Media & Technology Group called on the US Securities and Exchange Commission to “immediately investigate” what the company alleges is “suspicious trading” relating to a massive short position in the stock by UK-based hedge fund Qube Research & Technologies.

The owner of Truth Social says there is “potential illegal naked short selling and market manipulation” of its shares, citing discrepancies between short interest data from exchanges and the short position of 5.7 million shares that Qube disclosed.

“Naked short selling” occurs when a fund sells shares it hasn’t yet been able to locate a borrow for.

Qube’s short position of about 2.5% of the shares outstanding of DJT is larger than every individual owner’s long position except for that of President Donald Trump, who holds a majority stake.

The IPO environment has been bad enough for US banks, with tumultuous markets leading many companies to shy away from going public.

Now, the head of a US congressional committee is asking JPMorgan and Bank of America to pull back from a big fee-generating opportunity on their books, alleging that the Chinese company in question — Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited, or CATL —develops products that have military and surveillance applications and has suppliers that utilize forced labor camps. The two US banks have been tapped to run the offering, along with a pair of Chinese financial institutions.

Republican representative John Moolenaar, who runs the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, sent letters to CEOs Jamie Dimon and Brian Moynihan asking the leaders to withdraw from this offering.

“We are troubled by reports indicating JPMorgan and other American banks aggressively pursued the IPO of Chinese military company CATL despite clear and public knowledge of CATL’s military-related designation and association with sanctioned entities,” he wrote in the letter to Dimon. “Given CATL’s direct links to China’s military modernization, its complicity in the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang, and the grave risks it poses to U.S. national and economic security, we urge JPMorgan to withdraw from underwriting CATL’s upcoming IPO.”

JPMorgan’s equity underwriting fees were $324 million in the first quarter, well below estimates and the weakest since Q4 2023. Bank of America’s equity underwriting fees of $272 million likewise trailed analysts’ projections in Q1.

CATL is poised to raise at least $5 billion and list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange sometime in the second quarter, according to Reuters.

Eli Lilly’s once-daily weight-loss pill, orforglipron, succeeded in early trials with results similar to popular GLP-1 injections on the market now, bolstering the company’s lead in the race to make the next weight-loss drug.

Patients on orforglipron lost 16 pounds on average, or 7.9% of their body weight, which is roughly in line with the results for patients on Ozempic. Lilly rose 15% in midday trading on the news and Novo Nordisk, which makes Ozempic and Wegovy, fell 7%.

“Sema-who?” wrote analysts at Deutsche Bank, referring to semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy. The bank also raised its price target for Lilly to $1,010 from $734.90.

The news comes after Pfizer announced this week that it would drop its weight-loss pill after it was found to cause liver damage. In March, Novo reported results from its next-generation GLP-1 jab that were not much better than the products it already sells. Amgen, which is trying to develop a new GLP-1 treatment, recently embarked on late-stage trials after disappointing early results.

The world’s biggest chipmaker is undaunted by the trade war or increased restrictions on semiconductor exports to China.

TSMC is up nearly 3% in early trading after the Taiwan-based foundry giant issued a second-quarter outlook that wowed investors. Management expects revenues to come in between $28.4 billion and $29.2 billion in the current quarter. Even the low end of that range is above the consensus estimate of $27.35 billion.

CEO CC Wei said the recent ban on H20 sales to China has been incorporated into TSMC’s outlook, and that the company continues to see “robust AI-related demand,” maintaining calls for those revenues to double this year.

“We understand there are uncertainties and risks from the potential impact of tariff policies. However, we have not seen any change in our customers’ behavior so far,” he said on a conference call with analysts. “Therefore, we continue to expect our full-year 2025 revenue to increase by close to mid-20s percent in US dollar terms.”

First-quarter earnings per share of NT$13.94 came in ahead of estimates for NT$13.58. TSMC’s revenue figures were a known quantity, as the chipmaker breaks out its monthly sales with March’s data reported last week.

UnitedHealth slumped ~20% in premarket trading after posting disappointing results for the first quarter and lowering its profit forecast for the year.

In its Q1 and revised outlook report this morning, the healthcare and insurance giant revealed that heightened demand for its Medicare Advantage plans — used mostly by customers over the age of 65 — was “far above” expectations, weighing more heavily than expected on the company’s earnings so far in 2025.

While revenues for the first quarter rose to $109.6 billion, up $9.8 billion compared to the same period last year, and operating earnings climbed $1.2 billion in the same time frame, the company cut its net earnings per share forecast to $24.65 to $25.15 — down from its estimates of $28.15 to $28.65 in December.

Humana, Cigna, and Elevance Health were also down premarket.

President Donald Trump said that Fed Chair Jerome Powell “is always TOO LATE AND WRONG,” adding that his “termination cannot come fast enough” in a post on Truth Social this morning. The comments left no obvious, large imprint on financial markets.

It’s a familiar critique from the president, who often castigated the Fed during his first term for, in his view, raising policy rates too much and continuing to run down bonds off its balance sheet (known as quantitative tightening) for too long.

Back in November, when asked if the president has the ability to fire him, Powell said it was “not permitted under the law.” Per the Federal Reserve Act, members of the board of governors of the Fed can only be fired for cause — though what constitutes “cause” is not something that’s been tested when it comes to the US central bank.

Further muddying the waters is that there are ongoing legal battles that could potentially see the Supreme Court water down or reverse a long-standing precedent known as Humphrey’s Executor, which prevents the president from firing certain nonpolitical appointees.

Responding to a question on Wednesday, Powell said he did not think one particular case in question would apply to the Fed, regardless of the decision.