Before the bell: Wave of Takeovers

DoorDash stays hungry as investors await the Fed decision.

Belgium’s Bel20 index fell by 1.1% yesterday, underperforming the broader European market (-0.4%). Postal firms bpost and PostNL dropped by 4.9% and 4.1%, respectively, as both continue to struggle and are expected to feel the pressure of rising global import tariffs. In the United States, the S&P 500 lost 0.8% and the Nasdaq fell by 0.9%. Palantir shares dropped 12% as investors were clearly unimpressed by its latest quarterly results.

Asian markets opened cautiously higher this morning. The Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong is up by 0.7%, and Tokyo’s Topix gained 0.5%. In the Netherlands, Ahold Delhaize reported that its like-for-like sales rose by 3.3% last quarter, driven by strong performance in both Europe (+3.7%) and the United States (+3.1%). In the United Kingdom, results from ARM Holdings are expected today. In the U.S., earnings are due from Walt Disney, Uber, Barrick Gold, Vistra Energy, Occidental Petroleum and Israeli generic drugmaker Teva. On the macro front, eurozone retail sales for March will be released at 11:00 CET, followed by the U.S. Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision at 20:00 CET. Markets widely expect rates to remain unchanged.

A bitter pill

Novo Nordisk had another tough trading day yesterday, with shares falling nearly 4% on the Copenhagen stock exchange. Over the past year, the stock has lost half of its value—despite solid business performance. This morning, the company reported its best quarter ever, with first-quarter revenue rising by 19% to 78 billion Danish kroner. While that figure came in slightly below expectations, the company beat profit estimates with a net profit of 29 billion Danish kroner (vs. 25.4 billion expected). So why is the stock still under pressure? Besides having been richly valued, investors now fear that competitor Eli Lilly’s weight-loss pill will disrupt the market. Despite strong fundamentals, Novo Nordisk shares continue to underperform—especially compared to Eli Lilly, whose stock is flat versus a year ago.

DoorDash doubles down

Barely a month after announcing a takeover offer of 2.9 billion pound sterling for UK-based Deliveroo, American food delivery company DoorDash unveiled a second multi-billion deal—this time for the New York-based hotel and restaurant reservation platform SevenRooms. The new deal is worth 1.2 billion dollar. Meanwhile, Deliveroo’s board has approved the original acquisition. Alongside this news, DoorDash also published strong quarterly figures: total order value rose by 18% to a record 23.1 billion dollar. Still, investors are uneasy about the company’s buying spree and sent the stock 7.5% lower yesterday. Even so, DoorDash shares are still up over 60% compared to a year ago.

Did you know…

that despite a 10% price hike, Ferraris in the United States continue to sell just as well? Unlike many other automakers, the company behind the iconic red sports cars has not revised its guidance for the year.

This article was translated from Dutch and was originally published on Spaarvarkens.be.