>>> US After Hours Summary: SG +23.6%, PBI +22.8%, DOCS +22.7%, EXPE +9.9%, CARG

After Hours Summary: SG +23.6%, PBI +22.8%, DOCS +22.7%, EXPE +9.9%, CARG +9.8%, TTD +6.2% higher on earnings; PUBM -22.7%, FIVN -13.1%, ELF -10.4%, PODD -4.9%, TRUP -2.8% lower on earnings

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: SG +23.6%, PBI +22.8% (also announces exit path for ecommerce segment), DOCS +22.7%, ADMA +19.8%, IOVA +16.5%, TARS +16.3%, EVH +14.7%, RKLB +11.1%, RXT +10.9%, ONTO +10.3%, EXPE +9.9%, CARG +9.8%, GRND +8.5%, HNST +8%, DXC +7.6%, AKAM +7%, DIOD +6.5%, BLND +6.3%, RICK +6.2%, TTD +6.2%, ATSG +5.6%, ATSG +5.6%, TTWO +5.3%, PBPB +5.3%, BE +5.2%, PARA +5.2% (also reducing its US-based workforce by 15%), RVNC +5.1%, COLL +5%, FIGS +4.7% (also authorizes new $50 mln share repurchase program), PAY +4.3%, DOCN +4.1%, NWSA +4%, PRTA +3.7%, RCUS +3.6%, LIF +3.6% (also updated its agreements with partners Arity and Placer.ai), SANA +3.4%, VRRM +3%, G +2.8%, NUS +2.7%, SOLV +2.3%, CLDX +1.9%, AMPL +1.5%, YELP +1.5%, DBX +1.4%, BTG +1.3%, WOW +1.2%, ARWR +1% (also announces $500 mln financing facility), FNKO +1% (also names new CFO), LAW +0.6%, ARLO +0.2%, DEI +0.1%, GDOT +0.1%, MTUS +0.1%, PRA +0.1%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: INOD +22.1% (files $50 mln mixed shelf securities offering), BLZE +7.3% (names new CFO), HEAR +6.6% (CFO to retire), ASTS +5.2% (first five commercial satellites arrive ahead of planned orbital launch), MP +1.9% (COO discloses the purchase of 30K shares), HZO +1.6% (MCFT will transfer the rights to its Aviara brand of luxury dayboats to HZO), GPS +0.8% (to change its ticker to GAP), STLA +0.2% (ACHR announces key terms of contract manufacturing relationship with STLA), NEM +0.2% (expanding its use of 5G networks), CNS +0.1% (reports July AUM)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: MITK -26.9%, AVD -26.9%, PUBM -22.7%, FIVN -13.1% (also to acquire Acqueon), ARRY -11%, ELF -10.4%, WEST -7.1%, ACHR -7.1% (also to launch a Los Angeles air mobility network; also announces key terms of contract manufacturing relationship with STLA), AVPT -6.2%, NTRA -6.2%, LPRO -5.5%, PODD -4.9%, GRNT -4.4%, CPRI -4.2%, SOUN -4.2%, QNST -4.1%, XENE -4.1%, WBTN -4.1%, CPK -3.6%, SMR -3.6%, TRUP -2.8%, ALRM -2.4%, KODK -2.2% (also files $500 mln mixed shelf securities offering), INDI -1.7%, SVV -1.1%, VIAV -0.8%, U -0.7% (also CFO to step down), CYTK -0.5%, TXG -0.4% (also CFO to resign, names new CFO), CENX -0.4%, AMN -0.1%, CNNE -0.1%, GILD -0.1%, REZI -0.1%, LGF.A -0.1%, FNA -0.1%

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: ZVRA -12% (commences stock offering), SCSC -11.7% (acquires Resourcive), EB -10.1% (appoints CFO to the expanded role of COO and CFO), PLMR -4.4% (1.2 mln share offering), PLMR -4.4% (files mixed shelf securities offering), ALKT -3.6% (files mixed shelf securities offering; also files for common stock offering by selling shareholders), WT -1.8% ($300 mln convertible notes offering; also reports July AUM), CLSK -1.5% (postpones JunQ earnings report), GCT -0.6% (CFO to resign)

The Information : Snowflake Looks to an AI Deal to Jump-Start Growth

Snowflake Looks to an AI Deal to Jump-Start Growth
Offering Cohere's AI models could boost revenue at Snowflake, where growth has slowed recently

The Takeaway
Snowflake is discussing a partnership with AI model developer Cohere that would allow Snowflake customers to use Cohere’s models in AI-powered applications

Snowflake had been riding high before the artificial intelligence boom. But questions about the usefulness of its data management products for AI developers—a growing source of revenue for rivals like Databricks—and a broader pullback in business software spending have sent its stock plummeting 42% so far this year.

Now, in an effort to jump-start slowing revenue growth, Snowflake is discussing a partnership with Canadian AI model developer Cohere that would allow Snowflake customers to use Cohere’s models in AI-powered applications, such as customer service chatbots or coding assistants, according to a person directly involved in the deal.

Such a deal could help Snowflake sell its products to data scientists and AI researchers, customers who have traditionally favored those of rival Databricks. That’s because Databricks’ software is specialized for machine-learning applications, while Snowflake has historically targeted business analysts at big companies who use its database products to make business recommendations.

Snowflake’s revenue growth has slowed recently. Revenue for the 12 months ended April 30 grew 33% from the same period a year earlier, down from 60% growth in the prior 12 months.

Offering access to Cohere, which specializes in building conversational AI for large businesses, could appeal to Snowflake’s customers. For instance, Cohere offers special models called embedding models that can convert business data into a format AI models can understand. With this software, Snowflake customers could more easily transform private data they store and manage in Snowflake for use in AI models.

The partnership would add to a string of initiatives by Sridhar Ramaswamy, who became Snowflake’s CEO in February, to boost the company’s AI offerings. The former Google ad tech executive previously ran Neeva, an AI-powered search engine startup that Snowflake acquired in May 2023.

This May, Snowflake bought TruEra, a startup that helps developers evaluate and monitor AI models and apps powered by large language models. And Snowflake has begun offering its customers access to open-source LLMs developed by Meta Platforms, Mistral AI and Google, as well as its in-house Arctic LLM.

This model-hosting business is nascent, though, and likely isn’t a large contributor to revenue, said Gil Luria, a senior analyst at D.A. Davidson who covers Snowflake. Given that, it’s unclear how much a potential Cohere-Snowflake partnership could boost Snowflake’s sales to AI developers.

Cohere’s models would be among the few closed-source LLMs Snowflake offers, in addition to those from Reka AI, which specializes in AI that can ingest text, images, audio and video.

Snowflake faces mounting competition from privately held Databricks, which has gained an edge by selling database management software that utilizes advances in generative AI.

Snowflake’s market capitalization shot past $120 billion in late 2021, thanks to soaring revenue from sales of software that helped businesses access and analyze data on cloud computing servers. But its core product, best suited for data that can fit neatly in data tables, proved less useful when generative AI started to transform software businesses.

In contrast, Databricks has expertise in storing and manipulating unstructured data such as images, video and audio, which are useful in training generative AI models. Many developers also use Databricks’ software to clean and format their data through a process called fine-tuning, they say. Databricks has also acquired smaller AI startups such as MosaicML and Lilac.

A Snowflake spokesperson said in a statement that the company “also offers support for unstructured data.” Cohere declined to comment.

A partnership would knit Cohere closer to Snowflake at a time when the founders of several startups engaged in the costly business of developing AI models have joined larger tech companies.

Last week, the founders of Character.AI agreed to rejoin Google in return for a licensing fee that pays back investors and employees at a price implying a $2.5 billion valuation. The deal followed two similar deals from the founders of chatbot maker Inflection AI and Adept AI.

Similar to those three startups, Cohere has a founding team that includes former Google AI researchers: CEO Aidan Gomez, who co-authored a foundational generative AI research paper, and Nick Frosst. The five-year-old company has raised $970 million from investors including Index Ventures and Tiger Global Management, and it was last valued at $5.5 billion in July.

The Toronto-based startup’s revenue has been dwarfed by that of rival model makers. In March, Cohere was generating revenue at $35 million annualized rate, while Anthropic was generating $100 million in ARR last fall and OpenAI surpassed $3.4 billion in ARR in June. (Annualized revenue typically reflects the prior month’s revenue multiplied by 12.)

WSJ : Nasdaq Has Hundreds of Penny Stocks. Now It’s Trying to Purge Them.

Nasdaq Has Hundreds of Penny Stocks. Now It’s Trying to Purge Them.
Exchange comes under pressure for allowing risky companies to remain listed through reverse stock splits

Nasdaq NDAQ 0.67%increase; green up pointing triangle is taking steps to purge itself of dubious companies whose shares trade below $1 each, following criticism that the exchange has become home to hundreds of risky penny stocks.

Proposed rule changes released by Nasdaq on Thursday could accelerate the delisting of such companies as Bit Brother, a tiny Chinese blockchain company that became an embarrassment to the exchange during the past year.

Starting in 2020, Bit Brother carried out three reverse splits to keep its share price above $1, allowing it to maintain its Nasdaq listing, even as its share price sank more than 99% after adjusting for the splits. The stock drew attention in late December when it experienced a wild surge in trading volume, fueled by individual meme-stock investors and social-media buzz.

TechCrunch : UK launches formal probe into Amazon’s ties with AI startup Anthrop

UK launches formal probe into Amazon’s ties with AI startup Anthropic

The U.K.’s antitrust regulator has confirmed that it’s carrying out a formal antitrust investigation into Amazon’s ties with Anthropic, after Amazon recently completed a $4 billion investment into the AI startup.

The news comes a week after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) revealed it was launching an invitation to comment into Google’s own ties with Anthropic, after the internet giant first invested a reported $300 million last year followed by a further $2 billion.

Founded in 2021, San Francisco-based Anthropic, which has established itself as a public benefit corporation (PBC) to set itself apart from its rivals, develops large language models (LLMs) and an associated chatbot called Claude, similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Bard. The company has raised a chunky $10 billion in its three-year history.

The ‘quasi-merger’
The AI startup goldrush has spurred Big Tech to pursue a multi-pronged approach to ensure they don’t miss out on any of the action. However, there are growing concerns that they are adopting a ‘quasi-merger‘ approach to M&A where they seek control over younger innovators through strategic investments or hiring startup founders and technical talent — anything to avoid the regulatory scrutiny that would come with a full-fledged acquisition.

The CMA is already gearing up to launch a full-scale probe into Microsoft’s close partnership with OpenAI, based on Microsoft making significant investments in the ChatGPT-maker through the years.

The regulator also revealed in April that it was carrying out initial inquiries into a triumvirate of similar deals involving Big Tech, including Microsoft’s investment in French startup Mistral AI. The CMA quickly concluded that the Mistral deal didn’t qualify for investigation under current merger regulations due to the size of the investment. However, the CMA said at the time that it was looking into Microsoft’s acqui-hire of the core team behind OpenAI rival Inflection AI, a company that Microsoft had previously invested in. Last month, the CMA said it would be extending this into a full ‘phase 1’ probe.

The third component of the early-stage enquiries involved Amazon and Anthropic, and the CMA has now concluded it will be following through with an official phase 1 investigation. This means that it has 40 working days to decide whether the investment — which Amazon has previously said doesn’t give it a majority stake in Anthropic — qualifies under merger regulations, and if it does, whether it may harm competition in the U.K.

An Anthropic spokesperson said that its “strategic partnerships and investor relationships” don’t compromise its ability to work with other companies or its corporate governance independence.

“We are an independent company,” the spokesperson said in a statement issued to TechCrunch. “Amazon does not have a seat on Anthropic’s board, nor does it have any board observer rights. We intend to cooperate with the CMA and provide them with a comprehensive understanding of Amazon’s investment and our commercial collaboration.”

The CMA will now have until early October to decide whether to greenlight the deal, or push it through to a more in-depth investigation.

>>> US Earnings/guidance movers

Earnings/guidance movers
  • Gainers: VSAT +35.57% HCAT +35.65% APPS +34.83% XMTR +33.63% XPEL +31.18% KVYO +28.55% COMM +30.04% LESL +26.81% FWRD +21.87% BYND +20.58% ASPN +18.92% ICUI +17.67% STKL +15.69% CLNE +16.39% ZG +15.66% DNUT +16.74% AOSL +13.70% NVMI +14.88% HBI +14.42% UAA +13.52% SBH +13.21% OPK +12.11% TALO +11.98% SN +11.77% YETI +10.83% METC +11.77% LFST +11.07% ZIP +9.24% JXN +10.08% LLY +10.26% FOUR +9.79% SEE +9.79% PH +9.66% CYBR +9.45% VTRS +9.42% ACVA +9.31% DGII +9.14% AZEK +9.09% DUOL +8.66% SBGI +8.61% PRVA +8.43% DCBO +7.64% MODV +7.29% WAY +6.86% TGLS +6.61% TKO +6.51% NVST +6.14% CEIX +6.11% KLIC +5.88% CSGS +5.79% SM +5.70% STAA +4.12% ASTH +6.84% ERJ +5.39% SRRK +4.67% BOOT +6.59% CF +4.95% PAR +4.96% WRBY +4.20% SPB +5.56% FOLD +4.50% DDOG +3.87% RDNT +4.59% IONQ +4.26% CXW +3.92% KW +4.25% CW +4.35% JOBY +3.56% NVEE +4.06% DCO +3.88% NRG +3.61% ATS +3.67% HUBS +1.79% BBDC +3.39% FLNC +1.73%
  • Decliners: CDLX -56.39% BMBL -37.90% FROG -30.18% EGHT -26.16% BROS -25.99% GDRX -23.75% ARHS -22.62% UPWK -19.08% FSLY -15.64% ROOT -12.88% MTW -12.33% RAMP -12.95% HPP -12.20% MNST -11.76% SONO -12.20% BLNK -11.61% MGNI -12.09% MRVI -10.99% NVAX -9.71% CARS -10.69% GH -10.07% HIMX -8.53% SEDG -9.33% WBD -9.49% GTN -9.32% MCK -9.60% HGV -8.80% HAE -8.54% IRWD -9.15% MPW -7.73% KTOS -7.27% DLB -7.15% WTS -7.12% SAVA -6.97% EQX -6.78% VITL -6.77% MODG -6.06% PAAS -5.90% WMS -5.82% NXST -5.28% ENS -4.57% BHF -4.47% ALLO -4.45% CCOI -4.38% PRMW -4.31% RYN -4.15% ASLE -4.14% SRPT -3.99% CENT -3.97% PLL -3.91% CHRD -3.89% KAR -3.74% GNK -3.36% STR -3.32% GERN -2.96% TNC -3.19% NTR -2.93% NUVL -4.11% HI -2.89% LZ -0.51% MDU -2.83% KROS -2.07% UGI -2.01% ZD -1.18% AGO -1.94% MIRM -1.10% AHH -1.92% ATO -1.32% FA -0.79% RVMD -0.56% NTLA -0.84%

>>> Embraer SA beats by $0.22, beats on revs; reaffirms FY24 revs guidance (27.0

Embraer SA beats by $0.22, beats on revs; reaffirms FY24 revs guidance (27.08)
  • Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.44 per share, $0.22 better than the FactSet Consensus of $0.22; revenues rose 15.6% year/year to $1.49 bln vs the $1.44 bln FactSet Consensus.
    • Firm order backlog of $21.1 billion in 2Q24 -- a 7-year high, up more than 20% annually.
  • Co reaffirms guidance for FY24, sees FY24 revs of $6.0-6.4 bln vs. $6.25 bln FactSet Consensus.
    • Management believes current estimates are still valid and represent evenly balanced risks and opportunities for full year operations. Commercial Aviation deliveries between 72 and 80 aircraft, and Executive Aviation deliveries between 125 and 135. Total company revenues in the $6.0-6.4 billion range, Adjusted EBIT margin between 6.5% and 7.5%, and Adjusted free cash flow of $220 million or higher.
  • Boeing Arbitration Process Update
    • As previously disclosed, Embraer has been pursuing all appropriate remedies against Boeing for damages suffered by Embraer due to wrongful termination and violation of the Master Transaction Agreement and Contribution Agreement by Boeing, including by means of arbitration proceedings initiated by both sides in connection with the termination of the Master Transaction Agreement and/or the Contribution Agreement by Boeing. Embraer expects such arbitration will be concluded in 3Q24 and it is unable to predict the outcome of the arbitration proceedings

>>> US Gapping down

Gapping down
In reaction to earnings/guidance:
  • CDLX -55.2% (also names new CEO), OM -41.8%, BMBL -41.7%, FROG -26.3%, ARHS -23.3%, BROS -22.8%, MTW -21.2%, FSLY -18.7%, SEDG -17.2%, HPP -15.6%, SONO -14%, PACB -11.8%, GDRX -11.7%, WBD -10.5%, CARS -10.4%, RYN -10.1%, PLUG -9.1%, BLNK -8.3%, SRPT -7.7%, MNST -7.3%, ELAN -7.1%, MCK -7% (also increases dividend; approves $4 bln increase to repurchase program), BRCC -6.6%, UPWK -6.5%, COLD -5.7%, AGO -5.6%, ASLE -5.2%, MODV -5.1%, KAR -5%, MGNI -4.8%, NVST -4.7%, ACDC -4.6%, HGV -4.5%, INSM -4.2%, MIRM -4%, BHF -3.9%, EQX -3.9%, HIMX -3.8%, ROOT -3.6%, MQ -3.2%, CHH -3.1%, GH -2.9%, PLL -2.8%, IRWD -2.8%, EGHT -2.7%, MLM -2.7%, STER -2.7%, UHAL -2.6%, CORZ -2.6%, QSR -2.5%, KIND -2.4%, CPA -2.4%, WMS -2.4%, JAMF -2%, RVMD -1.8%, RGLD -1.6%, NTLA -1.5%, CCOI -1.4%, RPRX -1.4%, ENS -1.1% (also increases dividend), PZZA -1%
Other news:
  • PGEN -18.6% (prices offering of 35,294,118 shares of common stock at $0.85 per share)
  • PRGS -1.9% (announces conclusion of SEC investigation into MOVEi)
  • OBDC -1.1% (OBDC and ODBE to merge, with OBDC as the surviving co)
  • MRC -1.0% (stock offering by selling shareholder)
Analyst comments:
  • CELH -4.1% (downgraded to Underperform from Neutral at BofA Securities)
  • DIN -1.3% (downgraded to Hold from Buy at The Benchmark Company)
  • PRKS -0.8% (downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman)
  • DIS -0.6% (downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Seaport Research Partners)