What’s News in Markets: Intel Spikes, Walmart Slides, Bumble Fumbles
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Hey, listeners. It's Saturday, February 22nd. 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. Kicking off another four-day trading week, Tuesday started on a high note, with the S&P 500 notching its second record high close of 2025. But

But investors are still cautious with talk of tariffs and warm inflation. And I found this really interesting. Per the latest survey from the American Association of Individual Investors, bearishness among individual traders, the percentage who expect stock prices to fall over the next six months, reached about 47% for the week ending February 12th. That's the highest since November 2023. What?

Woof. And I'm curious to know what you think. So please email me at francesca.fontana at wsj.com. I am really looking forward to hearing your two cents. All right, back to the week. On Thursday, Walmart's earnings rained on the index's parades. We'll come back to that. And the gloom stuck around with Friday's losses. On the week, the Dow and the Nasdaq each fell 2.5%.

while the S&P 500 fell 1.7%. First, let's talk Intel. Two of its chipmaking rivals are eyeing deals that would break the storied company in two.

The Wall Street Journal reported last weekend that Broadcom has been looking at Intel's chip design and marketing business, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing has its eye on controlling some or all of Intel's chip plants. And that's according to people familiar with the matter. Now, Broadcom and TSMC aren't working together, and the talks are preliminary and largely informal. But the end result could be a breakup of Intel. And if you're asking,

How did Intel go from global leader, totally dominating the chip business for decades, to an acquisition target? Well, its recent struggles include manufacturing setbacks, a costly turnaround strategy, and AI missteps. And you might remember that this isn't the first time Intel was sought after. Last September, the Journal reported that Qualcomm had made a takeover approach to the company.

And investors were clearly excited about the dual-deal possibilities this week because Intel shares surged 16% on Tuesday. And while the stock came back down to earth later in the week, it still notched a weekly gain of 5.3%. Now let's circle back to Walmart. Retail giant leading American grocer. Used to be big on smiley faces. Remember that old logo?

Well, Walmart investors weren't smiling at the company's latest quarterly report. Deal-seeking shoppers boosted shares last year, but this year it might be a different story. Walmart did post strong profit and revenue for the holiday quarter, but it gave weaker-than-expected guidance for the year ahead. This jolted investors and had ripple effects throughout the market on Thursday because it cast some doubt on the strength of the U.S. consumer.

Walmart shares fell 6.5% on Thursday and declined further on Friday, ending with a weekly loss of 8.9%. Finally, let's talk about love. You know, Valentine's Day is over. It's done. And so maybe it's fitting that one of the biggest losers of the week was dating app company Bumble.

Now, Bumble's been trying to turn itself around, but late Tuesday, the company forecast lower-than-expected earnings in the first quarter, disappointing investors. And it's not the only online dating stock that hasn't been so lucky in love lately. Earlier this month, rival Match, which owns Tinder, Hinge, and Okie Cupid, replaced its top executive, posted a drop in fourth-quarter earnings, and forecast sales below expectations.

Now, Bumble said it's got a plan to attract more users and improve its monetization strategy, and it's going to wind down two of its dating apps, Fruits, with a Z, you know how cool stuff gets spelled, and Official, which is spelled normally. But that did little to stop the freefall, as Bumble shares lost a whopping 30% Wednesday, and on the week, lost 38%.

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 Pierre Bien-Aimé with supervising producer Talia Arbel.

I'm Francesca Fontana. Have a great weekend, and don't forget to email me whether you're feeling bullish or bearish about the stock market. I'll see you next Saturday.