See the companies making news before the bell. Darden Restaurants — Shares rose nearly 11% after the restaurateur announced a multi-year partnership with Uber for on-demand delivery later this year. However, the company reported weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings and revenue as sales fell at Olive Garden and its upscale restaurants. NextEra Energy Partners — Shares rose 2.6% after Jefferies initiated coverage of NextEra Energy with a buy rating, saying concerns about the roughly $3.75 billion in acquisitions the energy company has to digest are already priced into the stock. DoorDash — The food delivery stock rose more than 3% after being upgraded to buy from neutral by BTIG. The investment firm said growth still looks strong in the third quarter despite concerns about a slowing consumer base. Nvidia, ASML, Arm Holdings, Micron — Several high-flying semiconductor companies rallied in premarket trading as the market digested the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates. Shares of AI darling Nvidia 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 downgraded it to underweight from neutral. The bank pointed to declining sales across a basket of products in recent quarters and said it sees potential headwinds through 2025 from labor costs. Coursera — The online education platform rose 6.1% after Bank of America initiated a buy rating. The bank said Coursera should see margins continue to expand and revenue accelerate again. Lennar — Shares of the homebuilder rose 3.5% ahead of its expected third-quarter earnings after the market closed. Analysts polled by FactSet expected earnings of $3.64 per share on revenue of $9.13 billion for the period and deliveries of 20,819 for the quarter, closer to the upper range of its forecast. Alibaba — Shares rose more than 4% after the Chinese e-commerce company launched more than 100 open-source artificial intelligence models and a text-to-video tool. Alibaba also said it upgraded its own flagship model, known as the Qwen-Max. FedEx — Shares rose more than 1% ahead of the shipping giant's first-quarter earnings report expected after the bell. Analysts polled by FactSet expected earnings of $4.81 per share on revenue of $21.90 billion for the period. Crypto Stocks – Stocks linked to the price of bitcoin rose as the cryptocurrency gained more than 3% in a delayed reaction to the Fed’s rate cut on Wednesday. Exchange operator Coinbase rose 4%, while bitcoin proxy MicroStrategy rose 5%. — CNBC’s Sean Conlon, Alex Harring, Samantha Subin, Jesse Pound, Brian Evans, Sarah Min and Michelle Fox Theobald contributed reporting.
