Stock Market Today (LIVE): Adobe CEO Steps Down; Iran and Oil Turmoil Spells A Volatile Friday

📌 Top story — scroll down for more updates

This Morning’s Breakfast News

7:30 am — ADBE -7.74% in pre-market trading

Adobe (ADBE 1.43%) fell almost 8% ahead of the market open after CEO Shantanu Narayen announced he will step down as part of the broader quarterly results. Revenue and earnings beat estimates, with annualized revenue from AI-first products more than tripling.

• “I want to recognize Shantanu’s contributions as CEO and…for positioning Adobe for success in the AI-driven era”: Frank Calderino, the lead independent director, stated Narayen will stay on until after a successor has been appointed, with the process likely to take several months.
• “That should be our next billion-dollar business”: Narayen pointed to the AI-first product set as being a key profit driver. The company also reported a 17% increase in the number of monthly users across products including Acrobat and Firefly.

Top of the Morning: Build-a-Bear

7:00 am

By Morning Show host Alicia Alfiere
Team Rule Breakers

After nearly 13 years in the top job, Build-a-Bear‘s (BBW 4.42%) CEO Sharon Price John is handing the reins over to COO Chris Hurt. But before she leaves her job, it’s important to give a hat tip to the current CEO and the team that has led the company to new heights.

Sharon Price John was quoted by CNBC saying that: “When I first came in 2013, …the brand was strong…[but, the company had] …a broken business.” Today, it looks like that business is repaired.

During her earnings call sign off, Price John explained that there’s been a lot of change since 2019. The company expanded its addressable market and improved its financials. For example, its revenues improved by more than 50%, pre-tax margins expanded from about 0% to nearly 13%, and the company almost doubled its store contribution margins (store-level EBIT margin for all corporate stores). Build-a-Bear has also gone from a cash burn of about -$1.7 million in 2019 to consistently generating free cash flow. And that free cash flow was important too, because it helped the company return value to shareholders. Build-a-Brear reported that of the years, it paid out $170 million in dividends and repurchased over 4 million shares (which slashed its number of shares by about 25% from its peak).

Today’s Change

(-4.42%) $-1.92

Current Price

$41.57

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$538M

Day’s Range

$40.92 – $47.00

52wk Range

$32.55 – $75.85

Volume

239

Avg Vol

365K

Gross Margin

55.80%

Dividend Yield

2.12%

Top of the Morning: AI — Bubble or Bust?

5:30 am

By Morning Show host Jim Mueller, CFA
Team Rule Breakers

There is one blogger whom I read, Ed Zitron (“Where’s Your Ed At?”), who is rather (as in very) critical of everything to do with AI. He believes, with some evidence, that companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are losing money hand over fist and that, eventually, something major and unfortunate will happen to them.

Will that lead to a bubble burst of epic proportions? Will it take down – or severely damage – other companies? He’d argue yes, it will.

On the other side is the tremendous growth of this industry and the large amounts of investments being poured in to make it happen. There is a lot of promise in AI and some very interesting and useful applications coming out of it. Companies across the economy’s spectrum are investing in it and integrating it into their own systems and products. Will this work out? A lot of people who should know say it will.

The truth, as it often is, probably lies somewhere in between these two extremes.

ICYMI: Thursday’s Scoreboard

6:45 am — NVO +0.37% in pre-market trading

Novo Nordisk (NVO 2.05%) was the subject of the latest Scoreboard video.

Apple Trims China Fees to Head Off Beijing Probe

6:00 am — AAPL unchanged in pre-market trading

Apple (AAPL 1.93%) is lowering its App Store commission fees in mainland China following intense regulatory pressure in its second-largest market. Starting Sunday, standard fees for in-app transactions will drop from 30% to 25%, while small business rates will slide from 15% to 12%. The move follows similar antitrust concessions in the EU and U.S., but carries unique weight in China, where “super apps” like Tencent‘s WeChat and ByteDance’s TikTok dominate the digital landscape. While the shift is expected to save developers over $870 million annually, it also signals a defensive posture by Apple as it attempts to stave off a formal antitrust investigation from Beijing.

• Eroding the Moat: This fee reduction directly benefits high-grossing international developers like Duolingo (DUOL 3.79%), which generates an estimated $50 million annually from Chinese users and will see an immediate boost to its local margins.
• Strategic Submission: By timing the announcement with “World Consumer Rights Day,” Apple is likely attempting to pre-empt a public shaming by state media, a tactic previously used to force corporate apologies in the region.

Today’s Change

(-1.93%) $-5.04

Current Price

$255.76

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$3.8T

Day’s Range

$254.20 – $258.81

52wk Range

$169.21 – $288.62

Volume

3.1K

Avg Vol

48M

Gross Margin

47.33%

Dividend Yield

0.41%

Before the Opening Bell

5:15 am

Wall Street is bracing for a volatile Friday as stock futures slide following a 700-point rout on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Geopolitical tensions reached a fever pitch with fresh strikes in Tehran and explosions in Dubai, sending Brent Crude oil prices above $100 per barrel despite a record 400-million-barrel emergency reserve release by the International Energy Agency. Investors are caught in a pincer move: an energy-supply shock that threatens to reignite inflation just as the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, is due for release. With markets already at their lowest levels of 2026, the potential for “sticky” inflation driven by $1.20-per-gallon gas price jumps has effectively priced out hopes for a spring interest rate cut.

• Energy Giants on Watch: While the broader market retreats, oil majors like ExxonMobil (XOM +1.29%) and Chevron (CVX +2.70%) are seeing heightened activity as the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz puts 20% of global oil flow at risk.
• Economic Redline: Today’s PCE reading is paired with a critical revision of Q4 GDP; if growth continues to underperform while energy costs soar, the “stagflation” narrative could become the dominant market theme for the quarter.