What’s News in Markets: Salesforce AI Boost, New Five Below CEO, American’s Card Deal
05:35 Share

Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on an elegant Viking longship with thoughtful service, cultural enrichment, and all-inclusive fares. Discover more at viking.com. Hey listeners, it's Saturday, December 7th. I'm Francesca Fontana for The Wall Street Journal, and this is What's News in Markets, our look at the biggest stock moves of the week and the news that drove them. Let's get to it.

Welcome back and welcome to December. So just to recap, the S&P 500 and the Dow both ended last week in records and capped November as their best month of 2024. So how did the market start December? Well, it seems like stocks really put their best foot forward in the first trading week of the month. A big theme was the latest reads on the economy and what kind of interest rate decision we can expect ahead of the Fed's policy meeting next week.

Friday's jobs report showed that the labor market is still in pretty good health, but not good enough to forgo a rate cut. Rate cuts are generally good for stocks, so as you might expect, the indexes mostly moved higher on that.

Earlier in the week, we saw some big crypto moves. On Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump picked Paul Atkins to run the Securities and Exchange Commission. Atkins has questioned the SEC's crackdown on crypto firms, and he's expected to ease oversight on those companies. So after the announcement, Bitcoin rallied and exceeded $100,000 for the first time.

Wednesday also saw some big gains in tech, led by Salesforce. But I'll come back to that in a bit. Now let's look at the indexes, which all hit daily records throughout the week. The Dow had a weekly loss of less than 1%, while the Nasdaq gained about 3.3%, and the S&P rose 1%. ♪

Let's zoom in on some discount retail stocks: Dollar Tree and Five Below. The two made some noteworthy moves this week, reporting strong quarterly results and some executive shakeups. First, Dollar Tree, which also owns the Family Dollar chain.

Dollar Tree raised its annual sales guidance and announced that its finance chief will be stepping down, adding that the departure isn't due to a disagreement on operations or policies. Dollar Tree shares rose 1.9% Wednesday, but ended the week with a gain of under 1%. Then we had Five Below. It raised its annual guidance after strong Black Friday sales helped fuel a jump in quarterly sales. And the company had its own C-suite news to announce.

Forever 21's chief executive, Winnie Park, will be its new leader. On Thursday, Five Below shares surged 10%, ending the week with a gain of more than 20%. Circling back to Salesforce, the cloud software company also reported earnings this week, and you could say its stock was on cloud nine following the results.

Salesforce raised its annual revenue outlook and posted third-quarter sales that beat analysts' expectations. Why? AI. Chief Executive Mark Benioff said that a new artificial intelligence offering introduced in September was at the heart of the strong performance. That offering is AgentForce. Clever name. Salesforce, very clever.

which gives customers access to AI quote-unquote agents that can automate certain functions. Salesforce was one of the big gainers on Wednesday, leading tech stocks higher. Its shares jumped 11% during the session and held on to most of that ground, notching a weekly gain of nearly 10%. All right, it's that time of year again when everyone's booking their holiday flights and when many people reach for their airline credit cards. Well, American Airlines had some credit card news that sent its shares flying.

The carrier chose Citigroup as its exclusive credit card provider for the next 10 years, saying that the deal will help boost payments by 10% a year. That also means the end of American's agreement with its second card issuer, Barclays. Now it's all Citi, which will take over Barclays' portfolio of American Airlines credit cards and begin transitioning cardholders in 2026. Investors are hoping that the deal will help American catch up with its more profitable competitors.

Meanwhile, the company also gave a stronger-than-expected financial outlook. So investors were over the moon, and American Airlines shares jumped 16% Thursday. And on a weekly basis, the stock gained about 20%.

And now you know what's news in markets this week. You can read about more stocks that moved on the week's news in The Score, my column in the Wall Street Journal's Exchange section. Today's show was produced by Anthony Bansi with supervising producer Talia Arbel. I'm Francesca Fontana. Have a great weekend and see you next Saturday. ♪