After Hours Summary: Trump has no intention to fire Powell, according to multiple news reports; PEGA +23.6%, SAP +8.9%, MANH +8.2%, TSLA +3.7% higher on earnings; ENPH -11.4%, PKG -6.1% lower on earnings
After Hours Gainers:
Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: PEGA +23.6%, SAP +8.9%, MANH +8.2% (also replenishes buyback authorization to $100 mln), CASH +5.4%, TSLA +3.7%, STLD +3%, VBTX +3% (also increases dividend), RRC +1.5%, COF +1% (also reports March card metrics), CB +0.5%, HAFC +0.4%, EQT +0.3% (also to acquire upstream and midstream assets of Olympus Energy for $1.8 bln), NBHC +0.1%, ASR +0.1%
Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: GOGL +2.6% (CMBT and GOGL to merge), MET +1.2% (increases dividend), TOI +1.1% (expands partnership with Helios), GRAL +0.9% (to present new data on Galleri), SOC +0.6% (files $1.5 bln mixed shelf securities offering), NEOG +0.6% (releases presentation materials primarily related to its Petrifilm product line), HL +0.4% (its Libby Exploration Project in Montana was included in Trump's March 18 announcement of advancing critical mineral projects), OTIS +0.1% (increases dividend)
After Hours Losers:
Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: ENPH -11.4%, PKG -6.1%, WFRD -3.5% (also names new CFO), ISRG -1.8%, BKR -1.2%, ADC -0.5%, PFSI -0.2%
Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: OKLO -10.2% (Sam Altman to step down as Chairman), BMY -5.6% (topline results from Phase 3 ARISE Trial), SRAD -4.8% (announces launch of 23 mln share offering by selling shareholders and concurrent share repurchase; also guides Q1 revs above consensus), CMBT -2.8% (CMBT and GOGL to merge), PROP -1.8% (files $500 mln mixed shelf securities offering), MRNA -0.3% (Trump administration might cancel COVID-19 vaccine recommendation for kids, according to Politico), WNC -0.2% (strategic partnership with UP.Labs)
Vladimir Putin offers to halt Ukraine invasion along current front line
US floats recognition of Russian annexation of Crimea as peace plan efforts continue
Vladimir Putin has offered to halt his invasion of Ukraine across the current front line as part of efforts to reach a peace deal with US President Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Russian president told Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, during a meeting in St Petersburg earlier this month that Moscow could relinquish its claims to areas of four partly occupied Ukrainian regions that remain under Kyiv’s control, three of the people said.
The US has since floated ideas for a possible settlement that includes Washington recognising Russian ownership of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, the people added, as well as at least acknowledging the Kremlin’s de facto control over the parts of the four regions it currently holds.
The proposal is the first formal indication Putin has given since the war’s early months three years ago that Russia could step back from its maximalist demands to end the invasion.
But European officials briefed on US efforts to end the war cautioned that Putin would probably use the apparent concession as bait to lure Trump into accepting Russia’s other demands and forcing them on Ukraine as a fait accompli.
“There is a lot of pressure on Kyiv right now to give up on things so Trump can claim victory,” one of them said.
Ukrainian officials are due to meet European and US officials in London on Wednesday to discuss the latest proposals. However, Witkoff and US secretary of state Marco Rubio have pulled out of the meeting, according to US and European officials. Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg is still expected to attend. Putin’s foreign policy adviser said on Tuesday that Witkoff would visit Moscow later this week, according to Russian newswires.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, told the FT: “Tense work is under way. We are talking to the Americans. The work is difficult and takes a lot of time, so it is difficult to expect immediate results, and the work cannot be done in public.”
Trump posted on social media on Sunday that he hoped Ukraine and Russia would “make a deal this week” and then “start to do business with the United States of America, which is thriving, and make a fortune!”
The US floated ideas the White House hopes could form the outlines of a possible deal at a meeting in Paris last week with European and Ukrainian officials. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that he had not received a proposal from Trump outlining specific steps towards ending Russia’s war. But he said that once a ceasefire was in place, he would be ready for direct talks with Putin.
“There are signals, ideas, discussions, but it isn’t an official proposition,” Zelenskyy said. If such an official proposition came, he said, “we will answer”.
Senior Ukrainian officials told the FT that they were amenable to some of the ideas floated by Trump and his team without specifying which in particular. The US proposals include deploying a European peacekeeping contingent in Ukraine as well as a separate, non-Nato military force to help monitor a ceasefire along a demilitarised zone spanning the entirety of the more than 1,000km frontline.
The force would work jointly with Ukrainian and Russian forces monitoring the armistice on their respective sides of the so-called line of contact.
Under a potential deal, Ukraine would pledge not to retake Russian-occupied territory by force, while Russia would agree to halt its army’s slow advance.
It is unclear whether Trump has asked Ukraine to formally recognise Russia’s annexation of Crimea. But Zelenskyy reiterated his position on the Black Sea peninsula on Tuesday, saying that: “Ukraine will not recognise the occupation of Crimea. It’s our territory, the territory of the people of Ukraine, there is nothing to discuss here.”
Russia has also rejected some of the US suggestions, including a military presence for Nato countries in Ukraine.
But people familiar with the matter said Putin would potentially be prepared to give ground on his previous demand for full control over the four frontline Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia — if the US made broader geopolitical concessions to Moscow, such as recognising its control of Crimea and barring Ukraine from joining Nato.
Though Putin introduced constitutional amendments in 2020 barring Russia from relinquishing claims to any of its territory, Konstantin Remchukov, a Kremlin-aligned newspaper editor, claimed in a column published on Sunday that Moscow could end the fighting once it had driven Ukraine’s forces out of Kursk — a Russian region Kyiv partly took last year but which the Kremlin said on Saturday was now “99.5 per cent” under its control again.
“When they liberate the last half a per cent, then the troops can stop wherever they are when the news reaches them,” Remchukov wrote in Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
“It is thought Trump understands this, thanks to Witkoff. And it is hoped this will all happen by April 30 so he can proudly declare that he got his peace mission done in the first 100 days of his presidency.”
Putin declared the annexation of the four south-eastern Ukrainian provinces at a lavish ceremony in the Kremlin in September 2022, even though Russia controlled none of them in full at the time. Russia still does not fully control any of the four regions, although it has held the regional capitals of Donetsk and Luhansk since its first covert invasion of eastern Ukraine with the use of local proxy forces in 2014.
Though Russia retreated from some of the territory it occupied in autumn of 2022, Putin said last year that he would not accept any peace deal unless Ukraine withdrew its troops from the front lines and gave Russia full control over the four provinces — including Zaporizhzhia city, a 700,000-strong industrial town that Russia has never held, but regularly attacks.
Previous Russian demands for a peace deal have included a pledge from Ukraine to remain neutral and abandon its Nato aspirations, recognition of Russian claims over annexed territories, Western sanctions relief and a reduction of Nato forces in member states close to Russia.
A State department spokesperson said they could not comment on the “substance of the negotiations”.
Hedge fund Elliott turns up heat on BP with demand for deep spending cuts
US activist discloses 5% stake and warns pivot back to oil and gas does not go far enough
Elliott Management is pressing BP to increase its free cash flow by an additional 40 per cent through deep cuts to spending, as the activist investor upped its stake in the energy group to more than 5 per cent and sharpened its criticism of the company.
The US-based hedge fund has told BP that the “fundamental reset” outlined by the oil and gas group’s chief executive Murray Auchincloss in February does not go far enough and presented an alternative plan, according to people familiar with discussions.
Elliott is urging BP to shift its focus from growing its oil and gas business to prioritising a target of $20bn in annual free cash flow by 2027, according to people familiar with discussions. This represents a 40 per cent increase on the target implied in February when BP revealed its pivot away from renewables and a more than doubling of its “adjusted” free cash flow of $8bn last year.
“Murray has taken 18 months to come up with a three-year plan that’s neither ambitious nor urgent,” said a person familiar with Elliott’s thinking. “Time is not on BP’s side here, with the macroeconomic environment and with investor patience running out. The continued underperformance of BP makes it open to a takeover.”
BP announced on Tuesday that Elliott had increased its stake to just over 5 per cent, worth about £2.8bn, putting its shareholding on a par with Vanguard, the company’s second-biggest investor. BP shares have fallen by about 18 per cent since the new strategy was announced, reducing its market value to £57bn.
The hedge fund believes BP has a route back to a higher valuation if it can be more disciplined in its spending, reducing capital expenditure to $12bn a year rather than the $13bn to $15bn range set out by the company, the people said. Elliott also thinks BP could make $5bn of cost savings beyond its current target.
The activist also believes BP should sell its solar and offshore wind power businesses, and that there is room to cut spending across its oil and gas business because its future oil resources are sufficient. “In the oil and gas bit of the business, it is not about chasing growth, it is about being disciplined in investing,” said the person familiar with Elliott’s thinking.
Elliott has complained that management did not acknowledge the roots of the company’s problems, which go beyond the strategic pivot away from renewables, the people said.
“Management’s diagnosis was it was all about vibes and atmospherics. Elliott’s diagnosis is that it’s also about how poorly they have executed over the past few years, how they have let costs build up. It is an execution story,” a person familiar with Elliott’s view said. They added there was reason to believe there should be wider changes in BP’s personnel beyond the planned departure of Helge Lund, the chair.
A quarter of BP shareholders voted against Lund’s re-election at the company’s annual meeting last week, reflecting investor frustration at the underperformance.
Examples of its poor capital discipline at BP included the overspending at its Tortue LNG project in Senegal and the high costs that partner Devon Energy citied when it withdrew from a shale oil joint venture in the US, the people said. They also said excessive spending at BP’s $4bn US biogas business was risky given the fuel’s dependence on federal tax credits and uncertain market prospects.
BP and Elliott declined to comment.
Warren Buffett Timed His Apple Stock Sale to Perfection. What’s Next?
Berkshire Hathaway’s huge cash pile has investors wondering what he’ll buy and when
When Warren Buffett hosts “Woodstock for Capitalists” 11 days from now, he’ll have replaced one pesky question with another.
Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B -2.18%decrease; red down pointing triangle is sitting on more cash than any company in history, including its own, at about $318 billion. Much of it piled up the old-fashioned way, in a steady stream from the conglomerate’s subsidiaries and investments. That got turbocharged last year when Berkshire sold a large chunk of its stock portfolio—notably shares of Apple AAPL -1.94%decrease; red down pointing triangle.
The gigantic bet dating to 2016 had made some investors nervous. Now that the iPhone maker has lost $1 trillion, or a quarter of its value, since its December peak, Buffett looks prescient.
But is his massive cash-hoard part of a grand plan to swoop in and buy stocks cheaply now that a possible bear market looms? And does Buffett anticipate tariff-induced chaos getting so bad that Berkshire can earn another bonanza bailing out blue chip companies, as he did during the financial crisis?
First it helps to understand why he probably sold. Berkshire’s large Apple stake, which it began building in 2016 to some investors’ discomfort, had become massive—probably the most lucrative single-stock investment of all time. Berkshire’s paper gains when it began selling were around $110 billion.
It wasn’t the first time Buffett’s investors second-guessed his bet on what already seemed like a fully priced stock. Between 1988 and 1994, Berkshire made what was then its largest ever portfolio investment in Coca-Cola KO -0.32%decrease; red down pointing triangle. By 1998 it had appreciated tenfold, trading at 45 times earnings. Buffett said years later that he regretted not lightening his position.
“It was a really wonderful business that sold at a very silly price.”
He heaped similar praise on Apple and its chief executive, Tim Cook, but the Coke experience probably influenced his thinking.
“I would be surprised if it didn’t come to mind for him,” says Adam J. Mead, a New Hampshire money manager and Buffetologist who is the author of “The Complete Financial History of Berkshire Hathaway.”
With markets wobbling and a recession possible, Berkshire’s cash pile has reassured its investors, helping it beat the S&P 500 by nearly 25 percentage points this year. When and how will it be invested? That is complicated.
“His opportunity set is pretty small,” says investing newsletter writer Alex Morris, author of “Buffett And Munger Unscripted.” With the conglomerate’s market value over $1 trillion, it takes a lot to move the needle.
Back in 2009 Berkshire made its largest-ever acquisition, agreeing to pay $26 billion for Burlington Northern Santa Fe, then America’s largest railroad by revenue. Today that would be less than a tenth of his cash hoard and just 2.5% of Berkshire’s value.
Two possibilities Morris raises: Buying the remainder of longtime holdings Coca-Cola or American Express AXP -3.50%decrease; red down pointing triangle and taking them private, which would run around $280 billion or $130 billion, respectively.
What about the sort of lucrative lifelines Berkshire extended to blue chips Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Dow Chemical during the financial crisis, should similar opportunities arise?
“They’d have to be significantly larger to make a dent,” says Morris.
One troubling interpretation of his cash hoard is that Buffett knows something about the tariff-hit economy we don’t. That is almost certainly true.
“He’s getting real-time information” through companies in his wide-ranging conglomerate, says Mead.
But it doesn’t necessarily mean he sees disaster ahead. It only tells us that the handful of securities it is worth his while to snap up—including Berkshire Hathaway stock—just aren’t priced right. And, with his Treasury bills at least yielding something now, he is getting paid to wait.
Buffett knew when to sell this time. Deciding when, and what, to buy has become much harder.