Fiserv Slides as Trump Taps CEO to Head Social Security

52 minutes ago

Fiserv (FI) shares fell Thursday morning after president-elect Donald Trump named the financial services company’s CEO Frank Bisignano as his nominee to lead the Social Security Administration.

Trump called Bisignano a "business leader, with a tremendous track record of transforming large corporations" in a Truth Social post announcing the nomination.

In a statement Thursday, Fiserv said Bisignano will continue as CEO until an eventual confirmation hearing takes place. Lead Director Doyle Simons said succession planning has “always been a priority” for the company’s board, and said it will follow a previously existing succession plan to name a new CEO assuming he is confirmed.

The Fiserv CEO has previously served in executive roles at Citigroup (C) and JPMorgan (JPM) before a tenure at another financial tech company, First Data. He joined Fiserv through its merger with First Data, serving as COO of the combined company following the 2019 merger and becoming CEO in 2020.

Fiserv shares were down more than 4% Thursday morning, but still more than 50% above where they started the year.

–Aaron McDade

American Airlines Stock Soars on Citi Credit Card Deal

1 hr 18 min ago

Shares of American Airlines Group (AAL) soared Thursday morning after the carrier announced it had signed a new, exclusive credit card partnership with Citigroup (C), which will be taking over Barclays’ (BCS) share of the portfolio.

American Airlines and Citi, who have partnered on credit cards for more than 37 years, inked a 10-year extension with the bank "becoming the exclusive issuer of the AAdvantage co-branded card portfolio in the U.S. in 2026." Up until now, American Airlines has issued cards with both Citi and the British bank Barclays.

"The agreement creates an innovative alignment between the Citi ThankYou and AAdvantage card programs and is designed to drive incremental value for both companies and produce a significantly expanded loyalty and rewards offering for AAdvantage members and Citi-branded cardmembers," the companies said. 

American Airlines stock was up 13% recently, trading at its highest level since mid-2023.

Citigroup shares were up about 1%.

–Aaron Rennie

Five Below Jumps on Naming of New CEO, Outlook Boost

2 hr 10 min ago

Shares of Five Below (FIVE) are soaring more than 13% in premarket trading after the discount retailer announced a new CEO and raised its outlook for the year, noting “solid” Black Friday sales.

On Thursday, Five Below announced it had appointed Forever 21’s Winnie Park as its new CEO. The company had announced the sudden departure of its CEO Joel Anderson in July, while lowering its sales guidance.

The company now projects net sales for the year to be in the range of $3.84 billion to $3.87 billion, assuming an around 3% drop in comparable sales. That compares with the forecast previously of $3.73 billion to $3.80 billion in net sales assuming an around 4% to 5.5% decrease in comparable sales.

Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) are expected to be in the range of $4.78 to $4.96 versus the range of $4.35 to $4.71, previously.

Third-quarter results also beat estimates. Net sales of 843.7 million beat the $797.4 million estimates by analysts polled by Visible Alpha. The adjusted EPS of 42 cents also beat estimates of 16 cents each.

JPMorgan analysts noted that Five Below management had said in the earnings call that foot traffic at the stores had picked up from the middle of the second quarter, a "180 degree turn" versus the second quarter. The analysts raised their price target on the stock to $110 each from $83, but stuck with their underweight call.

The stock was up 12% at around $118 early Thursday, trading at a six-month high. Despite the gain, the stock has lost about 45% of its value since the start of the year.

–Nisha Gopalan

Bitcoin Levels to Watch as Cryptocurrency Tops $100K

3 hr 31 min ago

With bitcoin's move about $100,000, it broke above a newly formed pennant, a chart pattern that signals a continuation of the cryptocurrency’s current move higher.

A measure moved, which calculates the impulsive move higher that preceded the pennant and adds that amount to the pattern’s top trendline, projects a bullish target of $129,930.

Investors should monitor key support levels on bitcoin's chart around $90,500, $80,500 and $70,000.

Bitcoin was recently trading at around $103,000 and has gained more than 45% since the presidential election amid hopes the incoming Trump administration will adopt policies that benefit the crypto industry.

Read the full technical analysis piece here.

–Timothy Smith

Major Stock Index Futures Move Fractionally Lower

4 hours ago

Futures tied to major U.S. stock indexes were down less than 0.1% this morning, as trading gets set to kick off after stocks rose to fresh record highs on Wednesday.

Dow Jones Industrial Average Futures

S&P 500 Futures

Nasdaq 100 Futures

Take the Next Step to Invest Advertiser Disclosure × The offers that appear in this table are from partnerships from which Investopedia receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where listings appear. Investopedia does not include all offers available in the marketplace.