Chapter 1: Why did Micron's shares fall despite strong Q2 results?
Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Breakfast, where we cover the top news for investors every morning. Good morning. Today is Thursday, March 19th. I'm Julie Morgan. Micron Technology is down 5.2% in pre-market action, even after reporting fiscal second quarter results and guidance that topped Wall Street's estimates by a wide margin.
Shares have jumped more than 46% year-to-date and more than 350% over the past year. For the period ending February 26th, Micron said it earned an adjusted $12.20 per share, as revenue soared 196.4% year-over-year. Analysts had expected the company to earn an adjusted $8.66 per share on $19.74 billion in revenue.
Looking ahead to the second quarter, Micron said it expects to earn between $1875 and $1955 per share on an adjusted basis, while revenue is expected to be between $32.75 billion and $34.25 billion.
Chapter 2: What factors contributed to Swarmer's 1,000% stock surge?
Analysts had expected the company to earn an adjusted $11.29 per share on $23.66 billion in revenue. Seeking Alpha analyst Julia Ostian said the magnitude of the guidance compared to the estimates is practically unheard of. She goes on to say the shortage isn't getting better.
In fact, companies believe it could continue through 2030, even though just a few months ago, 2027 looked like a more realistic timeframe for an improvement. Shares of AI drone software company Swarmer have jumped 1,000 percent in just two days, marking the strongest U.S. stock debut in nearly a year.
The two-day rally reflects rising investor interests in defense and autonomous low-cost weapon systems. Shares closed up 77 percent to $55 on Wednesday, after closing up 520 percent on Tuesday. Steve Sosnick, the chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, told Bloomberg that you're pretty much hitting some of the most important buzzwords in the market right now.
He goes on to say that anything with artificial intelligence clearly gets people's attention.
Chapter 3: What did Trump say about Israel's attack on Iran's gas field?
And as we are literally engaged in drone warfare, drone defense companies are clearly another exciting field. The rally brings the company's market value to nearly $680 million after its initial public offering. Swarmer does not manufacture drones, but its AI technology can be used to deploy and coordinate drone swarms, like a flock of birds.
Its platform has been used in Ukraine with more than 100,000 real-world missions in active combat since April of 2024, according to a regulatory filing. President Trump said late Wednesday that Israel was behind the attack on Iran's South Pars gas field. Trump also said Israel would not make any more attacks on Iranian facilities in South Pars, but warned that the U.S.
would attack those facilities if Iran acted against Doha. The president wrote on Truth Social that the United States knew nothing about this particular attack and the country of Qatar was in no way, shape or form involved with it, nor did it have any idea that it was going to happen. Israel has not publicly claimed responsibility for the South Pars attack.
Chapter 4: How is the U.S. responding to cybersecurity threats after recent attacks?
According to the Wall Street Journal and Axios, Trump knew of Israel's plan to attack the Iranian part of the world's largest natural gas deposit in advance and supported it. Iran shares the South Pars field with Qatar, a close U.S. ally. Have a look at a few other articles that are trending. The U.S. urges firms to strengthen its Microsoft tool security after the striker's cyber attack.
The SEC approves a NASDAQ plan for tokenized stock trading and settlement. And LaBooBoo is heading to the big screen as PopMart teams up with Sony Pictures. LaBooBoo. On our Catalyst Watch for today, notable investor events include an investor meeting for Viatris, investor day events at Landbridge Company and Hillman Solutions, as well as a financial analyst day at Box.
Chapter 5: What does the SEC's approval of tokenized stock trading mean for investors?
On Wall Street at this early hour, Dow, S&P and Nasdaq futures are in the red. Crude oil is up 2.6% at $98 a barrel. Bitcoin is down 1.2% at $70,000. Gold is down 2.2% at $47.11. The FTSE 100 is down 1.7% and the DAX is down 2.2%. Five below is on our list of the biggest movers of the day pre-market.
Five is up 8% after the retailer posted a strong Q4 beat, with revenue rising 24.5% year-over-year to $1.73 billion, and comparable sales jumping 15.3%, well above expectations. And a few items on today's economic calendar at 8.30 a.m., jobless claims. Also at 8.30 a.m., the Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index. And at 10 a.m., new home sales.
Chapter 6: What are the biggest stock movers and economic events to watch today?
That's it for today's Wall Street Breakfast. Thanks for listening. To take full advantage of Seeking Alpha with coverage on significant stocks and ETFs, become a premium subscriber. Check out seekingalpha.com slash subscriptions. I'm your host, Julie Morgan. Go out and make it a great day.