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Check out the companies making headlines before the bell. Darden Restaurants — Shares advanced nearly 11% after the restaurant operator announced a multiyear partnership with Uber for on-demand delivery later this year. The company reported weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings and revenue, however, as its sales weakened at Olive Garden and its fine dining restaurants. NextEra Energy Partners — Shares gained 2.6% after Jefferies initiated coverage of NextEra Energy with a buy rating, saying concerns around $3.75 billion in buyouts that the energy company has to handle are already priced into the stock. DoorDash — The food delivery stock rose more than 3% after an upgrade to buy from neutral at BTIG. The investment firm said that growth still looks strong in the third quarter despite concerns about a weakening consumer. Nvidia , ASML , Arm Holdings , Micron — Several high-flying semiconductor companies rallied in premarket trading as the market digested the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut rates. Shares of AI darling Nvidia added 3.1%, while chipmakers ASML and Arm Holdings jumped 4.8% and 4%, respectively. Memory and storage solutions provider Micron Technology edged 2.5% higher. Five Below — Shares slipped 1.6% following a downgrade by JPMorgan to underweight from neutral. The bank pointed to the sales decline for a basket of products over the last several quarters and said it sees potential headwinds to 2025 due to labor costs. Coursera — The online education platform jumped 6.1% following Bank of America’s initiation at a buy rating . The bank said Coursera should see margins continuing to grow and revenue reaccelerating. Lennar — Shares of the homebuilder gained 3.5% ahead of its third-quarter earnings expected after market close. Analysts polled by FactSet are calling for earnings of $3.64 a share on revenue of $9.13 billion for the period, and for its deliveries to be 20,819 for the quarter, which is closer to the higher range of its guidance. Alibaba – Shares rose more than 4% after the Chinese e-commerce company launched more than 100 open-source artificial intelligence models and a text-to-video tool. Alibaba also said it upgraded its proprietary flagship model known as Qwen-Max. FedEx — Shares rose more than 1% ahead of the shipping giant’s first-quarter earnings report due after the bell. Analysts surveyed by FactSet called for earnings of $4.81 per share on revenues of $21.90 billion for the period. Crypto stocks – Stocks tied to the price of bitcoin climbed as the cryptocurrency gained more than 3% in a delayed reaction to the Fed rate cut Wednesday. Exchange operator Coinbase rose 4%, while bitcoin proxy MicroStrategy advanced 5%. — CNBC’s Sean Conlon, Alex Harring, Samantha Subin, Jesse Pound, Brian Evans, Sarah Min and Michelle Fox Theobald contributed reporting.
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