Restoration Hardware signage is displayed on a monitor of the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Feb. 24, 2017.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading:
Nike — Shares of the athletic retailer gained more than 2% after the company raised its dividend to 24.5 cents per share. This is an 11% increase from the prior yield of 22 cents, and it’s the eighteenth straight year that the company has hiked its dividend.
RH — Shares of RH surged nearly 8% after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway revealed a new stake in furniture retailer. Berkshire owned 1.2 million shares of RH at the end of the third quarter, a regulatory filing showed. The new stake in RH is worth $206.3 million as of Sept. 30, making it the fourth biggest stakeholder in RH.
Lyft — Shares of the ride hailing company rose 4% after J.P. Morgan added Lyft to its top picks list, alongside Amazon, Facebook and Netflix. The firm said Lyft’s strong third-quarter earnings and ability to take increasing share of the ride hailing market is accelerating the company’s path to profitability.
J. C. Penney — Shares of the embattled department store retailer surged 7.4% after the company posted a smaller-than-forecast loss for the previous quarter. J.C. Penney reported a loss of 30 cents per share. Analysts polled by Refinitiv expected a loss of 55 cents per share. CEO Jill Soltau said the company made “significant progress on our efforts to return JCPenney to sustainable, profitable growth.”
Applied Materials — Shares of semiconductor company soared more than 9% to a new 52-week high after reporting strong fiscal fourth-quarter earnings. Applied Materials reported earnings of 80 cents per share on revenue of $3.75 billion. Wall Street expected earnings of 76 cents per share on revenue of $3.68 billion, according to Refinitiv. The company also gave strong next quarter revenue and earnings guidance.
Nvidia — Shares of Nvidia dropped more than 2% after the graphics chipmaker signaled a weaker season for its gaming chip business in the current quarter. New Street Research downgraded Nvidia to neutral from buy, saying it was waiting for a better entry point. Nvidia reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings and revenue however. Its third-quarter earnings came in at $1.78 per share, topping Wall Street estimates of $1.57 per share, according to Refinitiv.
PG&E — Shares of PG&E surged more than 9% after U.S. activist investor ValueAct revealed a 1.4 million stake in the California utility company. PG&E is embroiled in controversy amid accusations that its equipment is responsible for some of the most destructive wildfires in California’s history. ValueAct, led by founder-CEO Jeffrey Ubben, is known for advocating for changes at the companies in which it’s invested by working with management.
– CNBC’s Maggie Fitzgerald, Yun Li, Pippa Stevens and Fred Imbert contributed to this report.