Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading: Flutter Entertainment — The sports betting stock rose more than 6% after the FanDuel parent announced a share buyback program of up to $5 billion. The company also forecasts total revenue growth of about $21 billion in 2027. Hewlett Packard Enterprise — The tech stock jumped more than 5% after Barclays upgraded the firm to overweight from equal weight. The Wall Street firm said rising demand for artificial intelligence servers will give HPE a boost, while it is bullish on the accretion from the Juniper Networks deal. HPE agreed to buy Juniper Networks for about $14 billion in a deal that is expected to close by the end of the year. General Motors , Ford — Shares of both companies slipped on Morgan Stanley downgrades, which cited worsening U.S. consumer credit and China’s increasing car production capacity as taking away from the automakers’ market share. General Motors shares fell 5.7% after analyst Adam Jonas downgraded the stock to underweight from equal weight, while Ford slipped 4.3% after he lowered his rating to equal weight from overweight. Bilibili — U.S.-listed shares of the Chinese internet stock slid 2.6%, giving up some gains after Tuesday’s 17% rally. JPMorgan named the stock a top pick among Chinese-based digital entertainment stocks on Tuesday. Bank of America — Shares lost nearly 1% after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway sold another chunk of his shares in the bank. The moves bring his total sales to about $9 billion since mid-July and his stake to 10.5%. KB Home — The homebuilder fell nearly 5% after posting weaker-than-expected fiscal third-quarter earnings. KB Home reported $2.04 in earnings per share, or 2 cents short of consensus estimates, according to analysts surveyed by LSEG. KB Home’s year-over-year housing gross margin also fell. Progress Software — Shares popped 13% after the software application firm posted fiscal third-quarter adjusted earnings of $1.26 per share on revenue of $178.7 million. Analysts had expected $1.14 in earnings per share on revenue of $176.2 million, according to FactSet. Cintas — Shares moved 2% higher. Cintas raised its guidance for the 2025 fiscal year. It expects earnings to range between $4.17 and $4.25 per share for the year, up from its prior guidance of $4.06 to $4.19. The workplace uniform company sees revenue of $10.22 billion to $10.32 billion for fiscal 2025, compared to its prior guidance of $10.16 billion to $10.31 billion. Trump Media & Technology Group — Shares rose more than 7% on Wednesday following a post-lockup fueled sell-off earlier in the week. — CNBC’s Sean Conlon, Yun Li, Alex Harring, Hakyung Kim, Lisa Han and Pia Singh contributed reporting.
