Okay, so another day, another avalanche of corporate earnings reports designed to make us believe everything is either AMAZING or a COMPLETE DISASTER. Can we just admit that most of this is just noise?
The Usual Suspects
Let's start with Uber. Down 5% because their adjusted EBITDA might be slightly less than expected? Give me a break. Adjusted EBITDA is a made-up metric anyway. It's like saying, "Yeah, we're losing money, but if you ignore all the expenses, we're practically printing cash!" And Norwegian Cruise Line? Missed revenue expectations and the stock tanks 10%. I'm sensing a theme here: Wall Street hates it when companies don't meet their imaginary targets. Stocks making the biggest moves premarket: Uber, Sarepta, Palantir, Norwegian Cruise and more
Then you've got Sarepta Therapeutics. Down 35% because some gene therapy trial didn't go as planned. Biotech is a freakin' crapshoot, always has been. You're betting on miracles, and sometimes... they don't happen. Is anyone actually surprised?
And Palantir? This is the one that really gets me. They beat earnings, raised guidance, and the stock still slips 7%. This is what happens when you let the hype train get too far ahead of the actual reality. It's like that friend who brags about their amazing life on Instagram, and then you find out they're living in their parents' basement. Expectations were too high.
Upwork, offcourse, surged 20% after beating expectations. I guess someone's gotta win, right?
Smoke and Mirrors
The whole thing feels like a giant game of expectations management. Companies spend all their time trying to lowball estimates so they can "beat" them and look good. Analysts play along, setting targets that are either laughably easy or impossibly high, depending on their agenda. And we, the poor saps who are supposed to make sense of all this, are left trying to separate the signal from the noise.
Victoria's Secret is getting attacked by an investor who wants to oust the chair. DraftKings and Flutter Entertainment got downgraded because... volatility? Isn't that the point of gambling stocks? Archer-Daniels-Midland cut guidance, but beat expectations anyway...so what are we supposed to think?
It's all so exhausting.
IAC, the media owner, earned adjusted EBITDA of $29.1 million in the third quarter, below the $51.3 million. What is IAC even doing these days? Do people still use Angie's List? I honestly forgot that was a thing.
And Eaton, the power management company...slid 4% on lackluster results. It sounds boring, and the results were boring. Moving on.
The Ferrari Exception
Okay, so Ferrari did beat expectations. Net profit of 382 million euros. But let's be real, Ferrari isn't subject to the same rules as everyone else. They sell dreams to rich people. They're basically immune to economic reality.
But wait...are we really supposed to care about any of this? Are these companies actually innovating or just shuffling money around? What's the real impact on the average person? Probably not much.
So, What's the Real Story?
It's all a rigged game. Wall Street's a casino, and we're all just betting on which companies can best manipulate the system. The actual fundamentals? Doesn't seem to matter all that much, ain't it the truth.