Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading. Berkshire Hathaway — Berkshire’s Class B shares dipped 1.2% in intraday trading. Earlier in the session, the conglomerate’s stock reached all-time highs, following strong operating earnings in its fourth quarter. R1 RCM — Shares surged 28% after major holders of the health-care payment tech company indicated that they have been weighing strategic alternatives, including taking R1 RCM private, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Freshpet — Shares surged 16%. The pet food company posted fourth-quarter adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $31.3 million, topping the FactSet consensus estimate of $27.4 million. Revenue of $215.4 million was above the $204.6 million. HashiCorp — Shares jumped 14% after Morgan Stanley upgraded the software company to overweight from equal weight. The bank said HashiCorp should benefit from a resurgence in cloud initiatives. Pilgrim’s Pride — Shares climbed 6.2% after the meat processing company beat Wall Street’s expectations for the fourth quarter. Pilgrim’s Pride reported earnings of 59 cents per share, excluding items, on $4.53 billion in revenue, while analysts surveyed by FactSet had called for earnings of 43 cents per share on $4.48 billion in revenue for the quarterly period. Domino’s Pizza — Shares advanced 6% after the restaurant chain announced it would raise its dividend by 25% , to be paid on March 29. Domino’s board also authorized an additional share repurchase program of up to $1 billion. Amer Sports — The athletic retailer climbed 3% on the back of a slew of bullish calls from Wall Street analysts. Many of these analysts said to expect upside for the parent of brands such as Wilson and Arc’teryx, whose stock went public earlier this month. Micron Technology — Shares rose nearly 6% on artificial intelligence-related tailwinds after the semiconductor manufacturer announced it would begin mass production of its high bandwidth memory 3E solution. The company shared that this HBM3E solution consumes 30% lower power than competitors, providing data centers with the memory bandwidth to seamlessly adapt their AI applications. Moderna — Shares of the vaccine maker fell 5% after a downgrade to reduce from hold by HSBC. Moderna’s RSV vaccine looks less effective than competitors, which could hurt future growth, HSBC said. Alcoa — Shares of the aluminum maker slid 5%. On Sunday, Alcoa announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire its Australian joint venture partner Alumina Limited for about $2.2 billion in an all-stock transaction. Fluence Energy — Shares popped more than 4% after Susquehanna Financial upgraded the energy storage stock to positive from neutral , saying the recent stock weakness is an attractive entry point. Fresh Del Monte Produce — Shares fell 2% after the agriculture company reported quarterly results that fell short of expectations. In its fourth quarter, Fresh Del Monte Produce posted adjusted earnings of 25 cents per share, lower than the earnings per share of 31 cents anticipated by analysts polled by FactSet. Revenue of $1.01 billion was lower than the consensus estimate of $1.03 billion. PPG Industries — Shares dipped 2% after PPG Industries said it’s reviewing strategic alternatives for its architectural coatings business in the U.S. and Canada. — CNBC’s Brian Evans, Michelle Fox, Lisa Kailai Han, Alex Harring, Tanaya Macheel, Jesse Pound and Pia Singh contributed reporting.
Source: www.cnbc.com