Trending tickers: The latest investor updates on Nvidia, Alibaba, Novavax, Ryanair and Diageo

Yahoo

19-05-2025

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia (NVDA), revealed details around a number of announcements on new technologies on Monday at the Computex tech expo in Taipei, Taiwan.
This included showcasing Nvidia Isaac GR00T-Dreams, which the company described as a blueprint that helps generate large amounts of synthetic motion data that physical artificial intelligence (AI) developers can use to teach robots new behaviours.
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In addition to its robotics capabilities, Nvidia unveiled its new NVLink Fusion offering, which allows customers to build custom servers using Nvidia's Grace CPU and a third-party AI chip paired with Nvidia's various server infrastructure offerings.
Nvidia shares were down 2.5% in pre-market trading on Monday, though the stock has seen a stronger performance more recently and is up 29% over the past month.
Last week, Huang said during an investment forum in Saudi Arabia — which was attended by US president Donald Trump and other Big Tech CEOs — that the chipmaker will ship its semiconductors to Saudi Arabian artificial intelligence company Humain for its massive data centre plans.
Hong Kong-listed shares in Alibaba (9988.HK) fell 3% on Monday, following a report over the weekend that the Trump administration had raised concerns about a potential deal between the Chinese tech giant and iPhone-maker Apple (AAPL).
The New York Times reported on Saturday that the White House and congressional officials have been scrutinising Apple's plan to strike a deal with Alibaba to make its AI available on iPhones in China.
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Spokespeople for the White House, Alibaba and Apple had not responded to Yahoo Finance UK's request for comment at the time of writing.
The report further weighed on Alibaba shares, which dropped last week after the company's earnings missed estimates.
Fourth-quarter revenue of 236.45 billion yuan was below analyst expectations of 237.24 billion yuan (£24.57bn), according to a Reuters report. Adjusted earnings of 12.52 yuan per American Depositary Share also just missed estimates of 12.94 yuan.
Shares in biotechnology company Novavax (NVAX) surged 17% in pre-market trading on Monday, after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved its Covid-19 vaccine, albeit with certain conditions.
In a letter issued on Friday, the FDA said that the vaccine was approved for people aged 65 and over, and those aged 12 and over if they had at least one underlying condition that put them at high risk of severe illness from Covid.
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According to a CNN report, Novavax CEO John Jacobs said in a statement on Saturday: "Market research and US statistics indicate that older individuals and those with underlying conditions are the populations most likely to seek out COVID-19 vaccination seasonally.
"This significant milestone demonstrates our commitment to these populations and is a significant step towards availability of our protein-based vaccine option."
Shares in Ryanair (RYA.IR) were up 4.3%, on the back of the budget airline's full-year results.
Ryanair posted revenue of €13.44bn (£11.31bn), which was up 4% on the previous year, while profit after tax of €1.6bn was down 16%.
Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell (AJB.L), said: "Companies often find some extraordinary language to avoid stating the bare facts. Ryanair says consumer spending pressure and a drop-off in online travel agent bookings 'necessitated repeated price stimulation'. In plain English, it had to cut prices to get bums on seats.
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"Further headwinds for Ryanair are the problems at Boeing which are limiting its growth efforts and have forced consistent downgrades to its passenger growth targets," he said. "The airline is confident it can catch up on this missed growth but, in the current environment, investors would be forgiven for exercising some healthy scepticism."
However, Mould said that profit was towards the "higher end of expectations and the company feels sufficiently confident about the outlook to unveil a substantial share buyback."
On the London market, Diageo (DGE.L) shares were flat after the drinks maker said that it expected to take a hit of $150m (£112m) from tariffs.
In its third quarter results, released on Monday, Diageo posted a 2.9% increase in net sales to $4.4bn and reiterated its guidance for the full-year.
In addition, the company said it was launching a $500m cost savings programme over three years.
"Investors were braced for a bad quarter from Diageo yet the drinks giant has managed to pull a rabbit out of the hat," said AJ Bell's Mould.
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"Sales were driven by a mixture of volume and prices, with Diageo benefiting from wholesalers stocking up ahead of tariffs. That suggests the next quarter might not be as good if some of its sales have effectively been brought forward."
Mould said that Diageo seemed "remarkably calm about tariffs", despite the guidance of a $150m impact.
"It's no surprise to see the announcement of a new cost-saving programme, and it's talking the market's language by chatting about cash flow targets," he added. "These are the kind of things that excite investors and get them fired up, but there's a big difference between saying you'll do something and actually achieving it.
"Diageo has a big job to win back the market's favour after a difficult few years and it could be a long road to recovery."
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