Raphael Stevens

The Twitter logo is displayed on a smartphone screen on April 14, 2021.
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Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading.
Twitter — Shares of the social media rose 5.7% on news that Twitter would accept a buyout from Elon Musk to take the company private for $54.20 per share.

Penn National Gaming — Shares of the casino and online betting company rose 4.9% after an upgrade from Morgan Stanley. The investment firm hiked its rating to overweight, saying that the recent slump for Penn National’s stock made it an attractive valuation and that the company has a better strategy for gaining sports-betting customers than its competitors.
Oil stocks — Energy stocks dipped amid renewed fears of a global slowdown as the country grapples with a Covid outbreak. Shares of Chevron and Exxon Mobil fell 2.2% and 3.4%, respectively.
Advanced Micro Devices, Marvell — AMD’s stock rallied 2.9% after Raymond James upgraded it to outperform and said its stock could surge 80%. Raymond James also upgraded Marvell to market perform, which sent shares up 3.9%
Verizon — The stock fell nearly 3.1% after Goldman Sachs downgraded Verizon to neutral from buy on valuation, following a big subscriber loss for the telecom giant. Goldman said Verizon is positioned to remain a wireless leader in the 5G cycle but also anticipates a slowdown in revenue growth.
Snowflake — Shares surged 7.6% after Wolfe Research initiated coverage of the cloud data company with an outperform rating. The stock, which is trading at “Black Friday prices,” could get a boost at its upcoming analyst day, the analyst said. Wolfe expects new product reveals, as well as updated guidance on how Snow will reach $10 billion in annual product revenues by the 2029 fiscal year.

ThredUp — Shares of the resale stock dipped 2.3% following a downgrade from a buy to neutral rating by Goldman Sachs, which cited near-term headwinds.
Activision Blizzard — The videogame publisher’s stock moved 0.7% lower after missing analyst estimates in the first quarter. Activision Blizzard cited disappointing demand for its “Call of Duty: Warzone” among the contributors to the weak earnings.
Deere — Shares tumbled 4.5% after Bank of America downgraded the stock to neutral from buy. Analysts said they see limited upside for the agricultural machinery stock, which could get hit by rising fertilizer prices amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
GoDaddy — The stock ticked 4.5% higher after Piper Sandler upgraded the company to overweight from neutral, calling it a top defensive idea. The firm also said the website domain company has strong free cash flow potential, and it likes GoDaddy’s $3B capital return strategy for the next three years.
Formula One — Shares rose marginally higher after Citi downgraded the stock to neutral and said there is little upside left to gain.
— CNBC’s Sarah Min, Tanaya Macheel and Jesse Pound contributed reporting.

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The cash option for this grand prize, which has been rolling higher for about 10 weeks, is $252.1 million.
Since Powerball launched three decades ago, 393 tickets have won jackpots worth an aggregate $25 billion.
Your chance of joining that winners’ club is about one in 292 million.

Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

There’s a chance — a tiny one — that a Powerball player will manage to turn $2 into $421 million on Monday night.
That’s the jackpot amount heading into the week’s first drawing, which comes on the heels of 29 pulls — three weekly — with no one hitting the top prize. The cash option, which most winners choose instead of receiving the money spread over three decades, is $252.1 million.

Of course, the odds are stacked against players, especially for the larger prizes. For the jackpot, a single ticket has a one in 292 million chance of matching all six numbers drawn. Even the chance of winning $1 million is steep: about 1 in 11.7 million.
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Nevertheless, someone will become an awful lot richer when the jackpot is won, whether Monday or down the road. The amount will be added to the $25 billion in jackpot money that’s been won since Powerball held its first drawing in April 1992.
This included a nearly $1.6 billion jackpot, which was won in January 2016 and holds the record for the largest ever. (A Mega Millions jackpot nabbed in October 2018 isn’t far behind, at $1.5 billion.)
Lower-tier prizes — which generally range from $4 to as much as $2 million — have delivered another $23 billion to winning players over the last three decades. There also have been 470 tickets that won $2 million and 2,424 tickets that hit $1 million prizes.

Federal tax coffers also end up benefiting from player windfalls.
There’s a 24% federal withholding, which for this jackpot’s $252.1 million cash option would mean $60.5 million getting shaved off the top. Yet with the top marginal tax at 37%, you could expect to owe more to the IRS at tax time.
State taxes also may be withheld or due, depending on where the ticket was purchased. Those rates range from zero (a handful of states either have no income tax or do not tax lottery winnings) to 10.9% in New York.

So far this year, there have been two Powerball jackpots won: Two tickets, sold in California and Wisconsin, split a $632.6 million jackpot in the Jan. 5 drawing; a ticket in Connecticut hit the Feb. 14 jackpot of $185.3 million.
Meanwhile, the Mega Millions jackpot is $31 million for its next drawing, which is set for Tuesday night.

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Ford Motor is set to be the first automaker to bring a mainstream, full-size electric pickup to the U.S. market.
Other companies, specifically EV start-ups, have previously touted the electric pickup as a massive opportunity, but have so far failed to execute on a large scale.
Ford expects to increase production of the F-150 Lightning to 150,000 units in the next year or so, up from an initial target of 40,000 vehicles.
“In this market, being a first mover is a very, very important move,” Ford CEO Jim Farley told CNBC.

A Ford F-150 Lightning on display at the New York Auto Show, April 13, 2022.
Scott Mlyn | CNBC

DETROIT – Ford Motor is set to be the first automaker to bring a mainstream, full-size electric pickup to the U.S. market, poised to capitalize on a first-mover advantage in what’s expected to be a hotly contested segment in the years to come.
Ford CEO Jim Farley said the company plans to scale production of its electric F-150 Lightning pickup faster than its competitors, with plans to increase production of the Lightning at a plant in Dearborn, Michigan, to 150,000 units in the next year or so, up from an initial target of 40,000 vehicles.

That would dwarf plans of Rivian Automotive and General Motors, which are expected to be in the tens of thousands. Both are already producing and selling pricier electric pickups in smaller and larger truck segments.
Other companies, specifically EV start-ups, have previously touted the electric pickup as a massive opportunity, but have so far failed to execute on a large scale.
“In this market, being a first mover is a very, very important move,” Farley told CNBC. “We didn’t know we’d be first, but we worked fast in case we were, and it’s worked out that way. I think it could be one of the most important advantages we have.”

Ford is “confident” it can hit its 150,000 production target, according to Farley. He said the company has secured the lithium-ion batteries needed for that level of production – a major concern of investors and Wall Street analysts. Ford also will prioritize supplies of semiconductor chips, which have been a major supply chain problem for more than a year, for the Lightning, Farley said.
“We’re not joking. We think this is as big a product as when the Model T came out for us,” Farley said, referring to Ford’s flagship product that is credited with being the catalyst for mass adoption of vehicles from horse and buggies beginning in 1908.

Shipping imminent

Some believe the F-150 Lightning could be the first true test of whether Americans are ready to adopt electric vehicles that aren’t Teslas. The pickup is also crucial to Ford’s $42 billion truck franchise and retaining its decadeslong sales dominance as America’s bestselling truck and vehicle with its F-Series pickups.

Ford has started initial pre-production of its electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck at a new plant in Dearborn, Mich.
Michael Wayland | CNBC

While Rivian’s R1T electric pickup was the first to market last year, it’s a smaller vehicle than the Lightning and priced starting at $67,500. GM also started shipping its GMC Hummer EV pickups at the end of last year, but they’re larger than the F-150 Lightning and initially priced at about $110,000.
The F-150 Lightning starts at about $40,000 for a work-oriented version and $53,000 – only thousands of dollars over the average price paid for a new vehicle – for a consumer pickup.
Ford has started saleable production of the F-150 Lightning. The automaker is expected to begin shipping the new electric trucks to dealers within days.

Scale

First to receive the F-150 Lightning will be select commercial, or fleet, customers and the 200,000 reservation holders who have placed $100 refundable deposits for the vehicle since it was unveiled last May. It could take Ford more than a year to fulfill those orders, according to Farley.
That time frame is longer than historical lead times for such vehicles but is still expected to be sooner than other EVs. New orders for the Hummer EV aren’t expected to be fulfilled until 2024, and Rivian only expects to produce 25,000 vehicles this year.

Ford has started initial pre-production of its electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck at a new plant in Dearborn, Mich.
Michael Wayland | CNBC

Farley said the company is sharing the F-150 internal combustion engine plant, which should help it hit between 150,000 and 200,000 production units a year.  
“We build a million F-150s a year. We know how to do this. And we have incredible scale,” he said.
Ford’s recipe for profitability with the F-150 Lightning is indeed scale. The Lightning shares parts such as seats, doors and much of the vehicle’s interior with its traditional gas-powered siblings to assist with supplier pricing and development.
It’s a different strategy than GM, Rivian and Tesla, which all have unique electric truck platforms. And it’s a strategy that assisted Ford in getting the vehicle to market.
The parts sharing is also expected to assist with increasing production, but it’s opened the company up to criticism that a dedicated EV platform is preferred. Ford eventually expects to build a dedicated EV platform at a new plant in Tennessee.
Unlike the Hummer and R1T, Ford is making it a massive point to target fleet customers with the F-150 Lightning. About 20% to 30% of initial production will be for those customers, however Farley said he believes the demand from companies and work customers could eventually surpass the consumer market.

Growing segment

LMC Automotive expects the U.S. electric pickup truck market to increase from about 25,000 vehicles this year to 1 million or so by 2030. The five electric pickup models available this year are expected to jump to 21 over the next decade.

The race to release electric pickups was largely sparked by Tesla and other EV start-ups eyeing the segment, which the Detroit automakers have dominated for decades.
Ford’s F-Series, which includes the F-150 pickup and its larger siblings, has been America’s bestselling vehicle for 40 straight years and the industry’s top-selling truck for 45 years. Neither are titles Ford wants to relinquish when it comes to electric pickups.
“We’re not going to cede the future to anyone,” Farley told CNBC last year. “Our electric strategy is very specific. We’re going to invest in segments where we’re the dominant player and we have scale, like the F-150, the Transit van, our Mustang.”
Ford has announced plans to ramp production capabilities to 2 million EVs by 2026, as it seeks to become the second-largest seller of such vehicles, behind Tesla, by that time. Its crosstown rival, GM, has said it plans to surpass Tesla in domestic EV sales by 2025.
Both automakers have a lot of catching up to do against Tesla, which accounted for roughly 3 out of 4 electric vehicles sold during the first quarter of this year.  

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SpaceX safely returned its Crew Dragon spacecraft from orbit Monday, carrying the private crew of Axiom Space’s Ax-1 mission back from the International Space Station.
The Ax-1 mission was commanded by retired NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, with real estate investor Larry Connor as the pilot, and Canadian investor Mark Pathy and former Israeli fighter pilot Eytan Stibbe as mission specialists.
Axiom’s first astronaut mission marks SpaceX’s sixth human spaceflight to date, previously launching four NASA missions and the private Inspiration4 mission.

Crew Dragon capsule Endeavour splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean with the Axiom Space Ax-1 crew on April 25, 2022.

SpaceX safely returned its Crew Dragon spacecraft from orbit on Monday, carrying the private crew of Axiom Space’s Ax-1 mission back from the International Space Station.
Crew Dragon capsule Endeavour splashed down off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida in the Atlantic Ocean.

“Welcome back to planet Earth. The Axiom-1 mission marks the beginning of a new paradigm for human spaceflight. We hope you enjoyed the extra few days in space and thanks for choosing to fly SpaceX,” the company’s mission control said on a livestream of the splashdown.
The Ax-1 mission was commanded by retired NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, with real estate investor Larry Connor as the pilot, and Canadian investor Mark Pathy and former Israeli fighter pilot Eytan Stibbe as mission specialists. Lopez-Alegria is Axiom’s vice president of business development, while the other three are passengers whose trips were paid for by other organizations.

The four members of the Ax-1 crew – center, in black and blue flight suits – with the other seven astronauts of the International Space Station’s Expedition 57 on

Ax-1 launched on April 8, with the crew originally scheduled to spend eight days aboard the ISS before returning. However, due to unfavorable weather conditions for splashdown in either the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico, the mission’s return was postponed multiple times. SpaceX, coordinating with NASA and Axiom, delayed the undocking from its original schedule to April 24, with the Crew Dragon capsule departing the ISS on Sunday evening. The delays meant the Ax-1 crew ended up spending 15½ days on the orbiting research laboratory.
Axiom’s first astronaut mission marks SpaceX’s sixth human spaceflight to date, previously launching four NASA missions and the private Inspiration4 mission. In total, SpaceX has flown 22 astronauts to orbit since its first crew launch in May 2020 – with further government and private flights planned for later this year.
While space tourism is an emerging sub-sector of the space industry, Axiom’s private passengers do not put themselves in that category. Each of three passengers had research missions they conducted on behalf of other organizations, including work with the Canadian and Israeli space agencies and health studies for Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, and the Montreal Children’s Hospital.

After Ax-1, Axiom plans to continue flying passengers to the ISS, with the company last year expanding its deal with SpaceX to cover three more missions. Axiom has declined to specify how much the private astronauts pay for a trip, as well as financial details of its deal with SpaceX. NASA is paying Elon Musk’s company about $55 million per astronaut to fly to the space station – giving an idea of the steep cost of a private flight to orbit.
Axiom calls these private flights “precursor missions,” as the unicorn space company is building habitable modules that will connect to the ISS, as well as operate independently in orbit.

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San Francisco-based satellite-imagery specialist Capella Space on Monday announced the close of nearly $100 million in financing.
The company’s business is based on combining a special type of imagery — known as synthetic aperture radar, or SAR — with a small, inexpensive spacecraft.
Capella currently has seven satellites in orbit, with plans to launch more over the next two years.

The deployed reflector of the Capella-3 satellite in orbit.
Capella Space

San Francisco-based satellite-imagery specialist Capella Space on Monday announced the close of nearly $100 million in financing, as the company looks to expand its line of analytics and data products.
Capella raised $97 million through a mix of equity and debt in a round led by NightDragon and joined by previous investors DCVC and Cota Capital. The company declined to specify its valuation following the financing round.

The venture’s business is based on combining a special type of imagery — known as synthetic aperture radar, or SAR — with a small, inexpensive spacecraft. The company is building a network of satellites that can capture images of places on Earth multiple times a day. The SAR technology allows Capella’s satellites to capture images at any time, even at night or through cloud cover.

A synthetic aperture radar image captured by a Capella satellite on the evening of March 25 shows the Ever Given ship surrounded by support boats in the Suez Canal.
Capella Space

Capella currently has seven satellites in orbit, with plans to launch more over the next two years. Company CEO Payam Banazadeh didn’t specify the target number for the satellites it aims to add, saying “it’s not about the number of satellites you want to put up.”
“It’s really about what the customers want — where they’re at with respect to the work that they’re doing with you — and how fast the market is growing,” Banazadeh said.
Its array of satellites allows Capella to take images of “anywhere in the globe” about every three to four hours, he noted.
Capella has “more than a dozen anchor customers,” Banazadeh added, and doubled its revenue over the last 12 months. The company declined to specify the annual revenue. It was founded in 2016 and currently has about 160 employees.

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U.S. stock futures fell on Monday, pointing to a continuation of an April market sell-off that has pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average lower for four-straight weeks.
Fear about a global economic slowdown loomed as Asian stock markets cratered Monday amid concerns about Covid case spikes in China. Oil prices declined and yields retreated on the fears.

Wall Street is also bracing for a stacked week of earnings, including reports from major technology companies like Amazon and Apple.
Dow futures lost about 90 points, or 0.3%. S&P 500 futures dipped 0.3%, and Nasdaq 100 futures declined 0.3%.
The Dow posted its worst one-day performance since October 2020 on Friday, dropping more than 900 points and pushing the average to its fourth straight weekly loss. For the week, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq dropped 2.8% and 3.8% respectively, posting their third straight weekly declines.
“Stocks are kicking off the week deeply in the red as all the anxiety and negativity from Thurs/Fri carried over the weekend,” wrote Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge in a note to clients. “The dramatic shift in [central bank] tightening expectations last week remains a huge overhang, but China is quickly rising the top of the list of market fears as COVID shutdown concerns spread to Beijing.”
After a late March comeback, stocks returned to their losing ways in April. The Nasdaq Composite is down nearly 10% for the month while the S&P 500 and Dow are off by 5.7% and 2.5% respectively. The S&P 500 is back in correction territory, down 11% from its high. The Nasdaq is off by more than 20% from its record.

About 160 companies in the S&P 500 are expected to report earnings this week, and all eyes will be on reports from mega-cap tech names, including Amazon, Apple, Google-parent Alphabet, Meta Platforms and Microsoft.
“This week may easily be a fork in the road of equities. We have nearly a third of the S&P 500 and half of the Dow Jones set to report. Bottom-up drivers will either confirm or reject what the challenging macro backdrop has given us over the last three weeks,” MKM’s JC O’Hara said in a note.
Coca-Cola reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings before the bell Monday and shares rose about 1.5% in the premarket.
Investors are watching Twitter as well, which reportedly is re-examining Elon Musk’s takeover bid. The social media company is nearing a deal to sell itself to the billionaire investor, The New York Times reported, citing unnamed sources. Twitter shares were more than 4% higher in the premarket.
China’s Shanghai composite dropped more than 5% on Monday as China struggles to contain a Covid breakout in Shanghai. Beijing reported a spike in cases over the weekend.
WTI Crude oil fell more than 5% back below $100 on fears of a global slowdown. The 10-year Treasury yield, which has undergone a rapid rise this year that has worried investors, dropped nearly 10 basis points to the 2.8% level (1 basis point equals 0.01%).
Energy and commodity-related stocks dropped in premarket trading as oil prices pulled back.

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Coca-Cola on Monday reported quarterly earnings and revenue that topped analysts’ expectations.
Coke’s unit case volume rose 8% during the quarter, fueled by demand for drinks like Powerade and Coke Zero Sugar.
Despite the suspension of its Russian business, the company reiterated its full-year outlook for organic revenue and comparable earnings per share growth.

Coca-Cola on Monday reported quarterly earnings that topped analysts’ expectations as consumers drank more of its namesake soda, Powerade and Costa coffee.
But CEO James Quincey told CNBC’s Sara Eisen that despite the strong quarter, there are “storm clouds” on the horizon. The company largely weathered inflationary challenges during the first quarter and maintained its outlook.

Shares of Coke rose 2% in premarket trading.
Here’s what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by Refinitiv:

Earnings per share: 64 cents adjusted vs. 58 cents expected
Revenue: $10.5 billion vs. $9.83 billion expected

Coke reported first-quarter net income attributable to shareholders of $2.78 billion, or 64 cents per share, up from $2.25 billion, or 52 cents per share, a year earlier.
Excluding items, the beverage giant earned 64 cents per share, beating the 58 cents per share expected by analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.
Net sales rose 16% to $10.5 billion, topping Wall Street’s expectations of $9.83 billion. Organic revenue, which strips out the impact of acquisitions and divestitures, climbed 18% in the quarter.

Pricing and mix, which includes price increases across its portfolio, grew 7% in the quarter, helped by strategies like bottling its drinks in smaller packaging. As inflation puts pressure on Coke’s profit margins and shoppers’ wallets, the company said it’s been expanding its lineup of single-serving offerings at “affordable” prices.
High demand and shopping trends pushed many food and drink companies to focus on bulk packaging, but smaller packaging has returned in recent months. Quincey told CNBC that consumers won’t “swallow inflation endlessly.” The company is seeing higher costs for key materials like high fructose corn syrup, plastic and aluminum.
Coke’s unit case volume rose 8% during the quarter. The company posted double-digit volume growth in both its nutrition, juice, dairy and plant-based beverages segment and its hydration, sports, coffee and tea segment. The company’s sparkling soft drink unit saw its volume increase 7%, fueled by demand for its namesake soda and its zero-sugar version.
In early March, Coke paused operations in Russia, citing the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. The company said Monday that the decision is expected to dent unit case volume by 1% and revenue and operating income by 1% to 2%. Coke also estimates that the decision will weaken its comparable earnings by 4 cents per share.
“We are keeping a close watch on the spillover effects of the conflict in Ukraine on the health of the consumer, and we remain ready to pivot and adapt,” Quincey told analysts on the company’s earnings call.
Despite the suspension of its Russian business, the company reiterated its full-year outlook of revenue growth of 7% to 8% and comparable earnings per share growth of 5% to 6%. For the second quarter, Coke is expecting a 4% headwind due to foreign currency.
Read the full earnings report here.

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General Motors will produce an electrified Chevrolet Corvette next year, followed by an all-electric version of the iconic sports car, GM President Mark Reuss said.
He declined to disclose when the all-electric Corvette would be released or whether the “electrified” model would be a traditional hybrid or plug-in hybrid electric vehicle.

2020 Chevrolet Corvette

DETROIT – General Motors will produce an electrified Chevrolet Corvette next year, followed by an all-electric version of the iconic sports car, GM President Mark Reuss said Monday.
Reuss said the automaker will continue to produce traditional models with internal combustion engines alongside the electrified models. He declined to disclose when the all-electric Corvette would be released or whether the “electrified” model would be a traditional hybrid or plug-in hybrid electric vehicle.

“We will have an electrified Corvette next year. It’s coming very quick,” Reuss told CNBC’s Phil LeBeau during an interview on “Squawk Box.”
Rumors of an electric Corvette have been swirling for years, including President Joe Biden mentioning it last year during a campaign commercial.
This is breaking news. Check back for updates.

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