Check out the companies making the biggest moves in midday trading: Meta Platforms — The social media giant fell more than 6%. Mehta lost two major child safety lawsuits this week. While the fine is not large considering the company’s size, Meta’s loss in court calls into question Big Tech’s role in protecting social media safety and free speech on these platforms. AppLovin – The app marketing company’s stock price fell about 8%. The stock fell on reports that slowing e-commerce spending trends were hurting AppLovin, and that the company didn’t see enough new customer momentum to offset customer churn in the first quarter. Separately, Piper Sandler said in a report Wednesday that it believes the company continues to “outperform its peers and all signs point to strong E-Com adoption.” Brown-Forman — Shares of the Jack Daniel’s owner rose more than 14% after Bloomberg reported that French spirits company Pernod Ricard is considering buying Brown-Forman. Scotts Miracle Gro — Shares fell more than 4% after the lawn and garden products company was downgraded from Overweight to Neutral at JPMorgan. “The raw material issue is likely to cause some uncertainty in profit growth,” the analyst said. Best Buy — The electronics retailer’s stock price rose 4% on no specific news. Gordon Haskett analysts told clients there was speculation that GameStop could consider acquiring Best Buy. GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen has signaled a deal, with the company disclosing in a 10-000 filing that it has set aside $700 million in collateral related to unspecified derivative positions. Gordon Haskett said GameStop may have built up exposure to Target through swaps. HB Fuller — The adhesive maker posted a 4% profit in its first quarter, beating street expectations. HB Fuller earned 57 cents per share, excluding certain items. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected earnings of 55 cents per share. The company’s full-year profit forecast also exceeded analysts’ expectations. Pony AI — Shares fell 13% after the company announced ambitious robotaxi expansion plans. The announcement came as the company reported its first quarterly profit. The Chinese self-driving company’s revenue decreased 18% to $29 million, primarily due to the timing of project-based revenue recognition. Robotaxi’s revenue more than doubled, and management emphasized plans to scale to more than 3,000 vehicles and expand globally, which could put pressure on margins. Worthington Steel — The steel processing company plunged 15% after posting adjusted earnings of 27 cents per share in its fiscal third quarter. This was down from 35 cents per share in the year-ago period. Memory stocks — Shares of memory chip makers fell following the announcement of Google’s new AI model. The company announced that this will reduce the amount of memory required to run large language models. SanDisk fell 7%, while Micron Technology, Western Digital and Seagate Technology each fell more than 4%. NAVAN — The travel technology company soared 27% after forecasting strong earnings in 2027. Navan expects full-year revenue to be $866 million to $874 million, compared with the FactSet consensus estimate of $840.8 million. The company’s fourth-quarter adjusted earnings per share and revenue also exceeded Wall Street expectations. MillerKnoll — The furniture company plunged nearly 23% after posting fiscal third-quarter adjusted earnings of 43 cents on $926.6 million. This reflects a 2% decline in adjusted earnings and a 6% increase in revenue year over year. Miller Nord warned of an approximately $8 million to $9 million fourth-quarter impact related to the Middle East conflict. This is due to minimal expected shipments to that region of the world and increased logistics costs. Snapchat — Shares fell nearly 9% after the European Union announced it was investigating Snapchat for allegedly not taking sufficient measures to prevent child grooming and the sale of illegal products. —CNBC’s Fred Imbert, Darla Mercado, Sarah Ming, Nick Wells and Lisa Han contributed reporting.
