Dj Research Reports - Barron'S

By Shaina Mishkin

It has been a tough few years for home buyers, but there's a glimmer of hope for 2026. Two new forecasts say home prices will rise modestly next year: Redfin expects a 1% price increase nationally, while Realtor.com sees a 2.2% gain. Both anticipate prices growing slower than wages, and mortgage rates averaging 6.3%. Redfin predicts a 3% lift in sales, while Realtor.com estimates 1.7%. ( Barron's parent News Corp runs Realtor.com.)

But location, of course, is everything. Prices in September continued to rise in Northeastern and Midwestern metros tracked by S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, and slid in Sunbelt metros like Phoenix, Dallas, and Miami. It's what S&P Dow Jones Indices' Nicholas Godec calls a "tale of two markets."

Realtor.com forecasts that 2026 prices will fall below year-ago levels in 22 of 100 metro areas. Two Florida locales, Cape Coral and North Port, lead in anticipated declines, with 10.2% and 8.9% price drops, respectively. In October, active listings in both metros were 13.3% higher than 2024, which probably fuels expectation of softer prices.

Elsewhere, prices will climb. Metros with the largest anticipated gains include some of the most affordable housing markets: Toledo, Ohio (13.1%); Syracuse, N.Y. (12.4%); and Scranton, Pa. (10.9%). October listing prices in all three areas were below $300,000, according to Realtor.com — well under the national $424,200 median.

Write to Shaina Mishkin at shaina.mishkin@dowjones.com

Last Week

Markets

Bitcoin continued to swoon, falling 6% on Monday, leading global stocks and bonds down. U.S. stocks fell, with the Dow industrials down nearly a point, then rallied amid volatility on hopes for a Federal Reserve rate cut. ADP said the economy lost 32,000 jobs in November, and late-November jobless claims fell to a three-year low. On the week, the Dow rose 0.5%, the S&P 500 0.3%, and the Nasdaq Composite 0.9%.

Companies

Walt Disney's Zootopia 2 took in $156 million in the U.S. and Canada, $400 million internationally. Regulators ordered fixes to a software glitch on some 6,000 Airbus A320s, and the company cut its 2025 delivery target. With its shares down 60% in the Bitcoin selloff, Strategy established a $1.44 billion U.S.-dollar reserve to pay preferred stock dividends and interest payments. Blackstone, Apollo Global, and KKR will participate in a Bank of England private-market stress test. Apple replaced its AI chief, John Giannandrea, with Microsoft's Amar Subramanya. The European Union opened an antitrust probe into Meta Platforms embedding AI tools in WhatsApp. The White House moved to scrap Biden-era car fuel-efficiency standards.

Deals

Netflix said it would acquire Warner Bros. Discovery's movie and TV studio and HBO MAX streaming businesses for $83 billion, including debt, beating out Paramount Skydance and Comcast...Chip maker Marvell Technology agreed to buy Celestial AI for $3.25 billion.

Next Week

Tuesday 12/9

The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for both September and October. At the end of August, there were 7.22 million job openings, and 1.02 unemployed people for every open position, the highest ratio since April 2021.

Wednesday 12/10

Adobe and Oracle report quarterly results on Wednesday, followed by Broadcom and Costco Wholesale on Thursday.

The Federal Open Market Committee announces its monetary-policy decision. The FOMC is widely expected to cut the federal-funds rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 3.5%-3.75%. The central bank also releases its quarterly Summary of Economic Projections. In the September SEP, the median projection for the federal-funds rate by year-end 2026 was 3.4%, which would imply only one more quarter-point cut, assuming that the FOMC cuts as expected at this meeting. Traders are pricing in a roughly 3% federal-funds rate by December 2026, a much more aggressive easing cycle than currently forecast by the central bank. This may be due to the dovish Kevin Hassett, currently director of the National Economic Council and the favorite to replace Jerome Powell, whose term as Fed chair ends in May.

The Numbers

4.1%

Increase in Black Friday retail sales from 2024, excluding autos, up from 2024's 3.4%, Mastercard estimated.

64%

Percentage of venture funding, roughly $161 billion, going into AI over the first nine months of 2025.

4 M

International Energy Agency's estimate of excess per-day supply of barrels of oil in 2026, a record.

$16 T

The combined wealth of the world's billionaires, up 13% since last year, from a UBS report.

Write to Robert Teitelman at bob.teitelman@dowjones.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

These reports, excerpted and edited by Barron's, were issued recently by investment and research firms. The reports are a sampling of analysts' thinking; they should not be considered the views or recommendations of Barron's. Some of the reports' issuers have provided, or hope to provide, investment-banking or other services to the companies being analyzed.

Uber Technologies — UBER-NYSE Buy — $87.57 on Dec. 3 by Gordon Haskett Recently, Uber's chief financial officer, Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah, presented at an investor conference. We continue to be impressed by management's ability to lay the groundwork for sustainable long-term growth drivers and the company's ability to manage insurance costs in a variety of ways. On the autonomous-vehicle front, we remain bullish on the company's strategy and continue to see Uber as a beneficiary of growing robo-taxi adoption.

Over the long term, we believe that Uber has multiple levers in place to continue driving double-digit percentage growth (membership, new mobility offerings, focus on less dense/penetrated markets where a large percentage of the population lives).

Furthermore, with 1) plenty of runway ahead to further grow advertising revenue, which should largely flow through to the bottom line, and 2) a sizable repurchase authorization, we see the shares offering a compelling value. Target price: $122.

American Eagle Outfitters — AEO-NYSE Hold — $20.83 on Dec. 2 by TD Cowen Third-quarter 2025 was better than expected, with overall comps up 4% vs. Street's 2.7%, and fourth-quarter 2025 guide exceeded expectations, with comps in the range of 8%-9% vs. Street's 2%. The holiday season is off to a strong start, but we monitor consumer sentiment and spending as well as inventory management. We remain at Hold as we look for the durability and longevity of recent momentum. Target price: $23.

GitLab — GTLB-Nasdaq Buy — $39.60 on Dec. 3 by BTIG GitLab posted mixed fiscal third-quarter result, with decent upside on revenue and a downtick in current remaining performance obligations/bookings. In addition, the company guided fiscal fourth-quarter 2026 in line with prior expectations. Most notably, GitLab posted revenue of $244.4 million/24.6% year over year, about 2% ahead of our estimate of $239 million/ 21.9% (Street $239.3 million). While positive, CRPO growth decelerated to 28% in fiscal third quarter versus 31% in fiscal second quarter and 34% in fiscal first quarter.

Similarly, CRPO bookings growth slowed to 19% from 23% last quarter. Lastly, the fiscal fourth-quarter revenue guide $251.5 million/19% Y/Y was in line with Street and prior expectations. On the call, management sounded upbeat about early interest in the Duo Agent platform and the potential for artificial intelligence to expand GitLab's addressable market long term.

However...there is still some uncertainty around the timing of new go-to-market initiatives to drive improved new logo wins. And some questions remain on the potential for self-managed customers to upgrade in order to take advantage of the Duo Agent platform. Target price: $52.

Apple — AAPL-Nasdaq Outperform — $283.10 on Dec. 2 by Evercore ISI App Store revenue growth deaccelerated in November, with revs growing 6% Y/Y versus 8% last quarter....We estimate that the App Store represents about 20% of Services revenue and believe that faster-growing Services segments (Apple Pay, iCloud, Licensing, etc.) could help offset slower App Store growth in the December quarter. Target price: $300.

CrowdStrike Holdings — CRWD-Nasdaq Neutral — $516.55 on Dec. 2 by Guggenheim CrowdStrike Holdings reported a solid fiscal third quarter, exceeding consensus estimates of both revenue and annual recurring revenue, or ARR, and raised fiscal 2026 revenue guidance by $24 million at the midpoint. We estimate that adjusted new ARR grew 46%, although this was on easier outage-affected year-ago comps, and business momentum as measured by a two-year stack of new ARR growth also improved in the quarter. Adjusted new ARR growth excludes contribution from acquisitions of low-single digit millions, which we assume is about $4 million....

We were impressed by the numbers put up this quarter by the company. Management remained optimistic on its future opportunities with its Next-Gen SIEM, Cloud, Next-Gen Identity, and Endpoint solutions as well as the growing popularity of its Falcon Flex model....

The smoke is slowly starting to clear, and the path for growth is becoming more apparent, but with shares trading at 23 times enterprise value/next 12 months recurring revenue and 72 times our EV/NTM free cash flow, we remain Neutral.

GoDaddy — GDDY-NYSE Perform — $128.31 on Dec. 3 by Oppenheimer We attended GoDaddy's annual investor dinner, and came away incrementally positive on management's strategy to improve attach and monetization with Airo AI. GoDaddy demoed the AI app builder, agentic workflows for core small and midsize customers, and Airo for WordPress professionals. Management indicated that agentic functionality will sit behind a paywall with monetization via subscription tiers. Equally important, management emphasized that managing AI costs will be a priority....

Management continues to drive productivity within the Care organization utilizing AI to oversee everyday support tickets, while limiting human involvement on revenue-generating/retention interactions.

To be considered for this section, material should be sent to Research@barrons.com.

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

By Francesca Fontana

The Score is a weekly review of the biggest stock moves and the news that drove them.

Warner Bros. Discovery

Netflix struck a $72 billion deal to buy Warner Bros., beating out Paramount and Comcast — and shocking Hollywood.

The acquisition would combine the largest global streaming service with the company behind HBO Max, the Superman and Harry Potter movies and hit TV shows such as "Friends." Warner plans to split its cable networks off into a separate company before the deal closes.

Like Netflix, Comcast was pursuing the studios and HBO Max business, while Paramount had sought to buy the entire company, including cable networks such as CNN, TNT and TBS.

Paramount had argued that a deal with Netflix wouldn't be blessed by antitrust regulators. President Trump's advisers are concerned about the deal, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Warner Bros. Discovery shares gained 6.3% Friday.

American Eagle Outfitters

American Eagle soared after posting strong quarterly results, boosted by the clothing brand's latest marketing campaigns.

The company's momentum has been boosted by its latest celebrity collaborations — including its controversial campaign with "Euphoria" actress Sydney Sweeney, and its ads with Martha Stewart and football player Travis Kelce.

Chief Executive Jay Schottenstein said they have attracted new customers and driven increased traffic, especially in its digital channel.

The company said the holiday shopping season is off to a strong start, and raised its same-store sales guidance for the current quarter and full year.

American Eagle shares jumped 15% Wednesday.

Dollar General

More higher-income shoppers are looking for bargains at dollar-store chains.

In their latest quarterly reports, discount-store operators Dollar General and Dollar Tree both reported the trend, as new customers skewed more affluent.

Dollar Tree said roughly 3 million more households shopped at its stores during the recent quarter compared with the same period a year earlier. Of those shoppers, approximately 60% came from higher-income households, or those earning over $100,000 annually, Chief Executive Mike Creedon said.

Both companies also lifted their annual outlooks. Dollar General said its fourth-quarter sales are off to a strong start, despite the pause in federal government funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Dollar Tree shares rose 3.6% Wednesday, while Dollar General shares surged 14% Thursday.

Boeing

Jet-making rivals Boeing and Airbus are experiencing a reversal of fortunes, with Airbus stumbling for the first time in years as Boeing regains its footing.

Boeing, which had suffered from production challenges and safety concerns in recent years, told investors Tuesday it expects to generate more cash as it ramps up deliveries of its most popular aircraft.

On Wednesday, its European rival was the one announcing production delays. Airbus warned that its deliveries would fall due to a quality problem with its bestselling A320 jets, days after a separate issue on thousands of its aircraft required an urgent software fix.

Boeing shares jumped 10% Tuesday, one of the S&P 500's best performers of the day.

Salesforce

Salesforce's AI product, Agentforce, is gaining traction.

The software giant said the product — which uses large-language models to perform tasks — hit $540 million in annual recurring revenue during the third quarter. The company also raised its full-year guidance.

Chief Executive Marc Benioff told analysts Wednesday that more companies, including Williams Sonoma and SharkNinja, are adopting the AI agent to use for customer service and internal operations.

Agentforce, which launched in October 2024, has been the main focus for many investors who see it as a measure of how well Salesforce will keep up in the AI era.

Salesforce shares gained 3.7% Thursday.

Kroger

Strapped shoppers are taking a toll on supermarkets and the companies whose products fill their shelves.

Procter & Gamble Chief Financial Officer Andre Schulten warned on Tuesday of a "tougher context" for the Pampers maker's U.S. business.

He said the company's sales this quarter are affected by a more wary consumer, the government shutdown and the temporary loss of SNAP food-assistance benefits. P&G shares dropped 1.1% Tuesday.

On Thursday, supermarket chain Kroger swung to a quarterly loss and said it is working to cut costs, as it tries to manage consumers' sensitivity to rising prices while addressing its own rising expenses.

Kroger shares dropped 4.6% Thursday.

Our weekly markets news roundup is now part of the WSJ's What's News podcast. Host Francesca Fontana discusses the biggest stock moves of the week and the news that drove them. Check out What's News in Markets at wsj.com/podcasts or wherever you listen.

Write to Francesca Fontana at francesca.fontana@wsj.com.