Check out some of the stocks posting the biggest moves in midday trading. Alphabet – Shares of the Google parent jumped more than 1% and hit a new all-time high. Cantor Fitzgerald upgraded the Google and YouTube parent to overweight from neutral, citing the company’s artificial intelligence capabilities. Google also announced the addition of more Gemini AI features to Gmail on Thursday. Costco — The warehouse retailer rose 5% after it posted higher year-over-year sales for December. The company reported net sales of $29.9 billion compared to $27.5 billion last year, an 8.5% increase. Karman – Shares of the aerospace company popped 10%. Karman will acquire maritime defense tech companies Seemann Composites and Materials Sciences in a deal worth about $220 million. Bloom Energy — Shares rallied more than 13% after American Electric Power exercised an option to buy solid oxide fuel cells for about $2.65 billion. Bloom Energy is a manufacturer of the fuel cells, which are used to power data centers. Memory storage plays – Data storage stocks tumbled as investors continued to cash in after their recent run-up. Western Digital and Sandisk fell more than 9%. Seagate Technology dropped 8%. Defense stocks — Defense stocks jumped after President Donald Trump called for a defense budget of $1.5 trillion in 2027, saying in a Truth Social post he wanted to build a “Dream Military.” Lockheed Martin advanced more than 4%, and L3Harris Technologies rallied 5%. Northrop Grumman gained more than 3%. Applied Digital — Shares moved almost 12% higher after the company posted an earnings and revenue beat in its fiscal second quarter. Applied Digital’s revenue came in at $127 million, versus the $88 million LSEG consensus estimate. It also broke even on a per-share basis, versus a loss of 12 cents a share expected from analysts. The company said it is in advanced talks with another investment-grade hyperscaler across multiple regions. Gap — The retailer added more than 6% on the back of an upgrade to buy at UBS, which said it expects a turnaround in sales and earnings growth. Analyst Jay Sole lifted his 12-month price target to $41 from $26. Alcoa — The aluminum company fell 3% following a downgrade at JPMorgan to underweight . The bank pointed to uncertainty around tariffs and shares’ relative valuation. Generac — The power generator maker rose 2% following an upgrade to buy from neutral at Citigroup. The bank said the stock’s more than 20% pullback since late October is overdone, and called for more than 45% upside. Constellation Brands — The maker of Corona and Modelo added nearly 2% following third-quarter results. Constellation reported adjusted earnings of $3.06 per share on revenue of $2.22 billion. Analysts polled by LSEG had expected earnings of $2.63 per share on revenue of $2.16 billion. Shell — The petrochemical giant fell more than 3% after Shell issued an update to its fourth quarter outlook, noting weakness in its Chemicals & Products segment, and said Trading & Optimization will be “significantly lower” than in the third quarter. — CNBC’s Fred Imbert, Itzel Franco and Nick Wells contributed reporting.
Stocks making the biggest moves midday: Bloom Energy, Costco Wholesale, Alphabet & more
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