Stocks rise to start March, Tesla climbs: Live updates – CNBC

Stocks kicked off Monday’s session in the green.

The Dow and S&P 500 each added 0.4% shortly after 9:30 a.m. ET. The Nasdaq Composite popped 0.5%.

— Alex Harring

Drinks maker Anheuser-Busch InBev looks attractive after its latest quarterly results, according to Deutsche Bank, which believes the cash king is poised for further returns ahead.

The firm upgraded AB InBev, the world’s largest brewer, to buy from hold and increased its price target by $20 to $75. That new target implies 25.3% potential upside.

“Big beer is back,” analyst Mitch Collett said in a Monday note to clients. “We believe ABI is steadily building a track record of strong delivery, despite prior exogenous challenges, that should command a higher multiple.”

Collett said AB InBev offers an “attractive combination” of exposure to early stage beer markets, digital leadership in the beer market, improving sales in the U.S. and strong cash delivery. The analyst assumes the company will return $30 billion worth of cash to shareholders during fiscal years 2026 through 2028, or roughly 25% of its market cap.

“Despite enduring a number of external challenges in recent years ABI has now delivered 13 consecutive quarters of organic EBITDA growth at or above the company’s medium term guidance of 4-8%,” Collett added.

AB InBev shares are up 19.5% this year. The company posted a 3.4% increase in fourth-quarter revenue to $14.84 billion, while LSEG analysts expected a 2.9% decline to $14.05 billion. Its total volumes declined over its full-year period, however.

— Pia Singh

These are some of the companies making notable moves in premarket trading:

• Tesla — The electric vehicle stock jumped nearly 3% after Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas named embattled Tesla a new top pick in U.S. autos, with expectations of a roughly 50% bounce in store.
• Southwest Airlines — Shares slid 2% after JPMorgan downgraded the airline carrier to an underweight rating from neutral. Analyst Jamie Baker wrote that the stock’s valuation was too high, and that he “remained convinced that Southwest’s best margin and ROIC [return on invested capital] days lie in the past.”
• Allegro MicroSystems — Shares rallied 15% after Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, said the chipmaker has drawn takeover interest from ON Semiconductor. Other potential suitors interested in expanding their automotive capabilities could also emerge, the report said. Shares of ON Semiconductor gained about 1%.

Read the full list here.

— Sarah Min

Tesla shares jumped more than 3% in Monday’s premarket after Morgan Stanley said to expect a rebound.

Analyst Adam Jonas named the electric vehicle maker as his new top pick in the U.S. autos sector. Additionally, he has an overweight rating and price target reflecting upside of more than 46%.

Tesla, 1-day

Jonas’ call comes amid a rough patch for shares, with the stock down more than 27% in 2025.

“TSLA FY25 deliveries could potentially decline YoY, creating an attractive entry point to our preferred embodied AI name,” Jonas wrote in a Sunday note to clients. “Tesla’s YTD auto deliveries have been mostly below expectations, but not particularly narrative changing. Tesla’s softer auto deliveries are emblematic of a company in the transition from an automotive ‘pure play’ to a highly diversified play on AI and robotics.”

— Alex Harring, Pia Singh

Don’t expect headwinds from U.S. tariffs to go away just yet, even after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested levies on Mexico and Canada imports could be lower than 25%, according to Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge.

“Avoiding draconian duties on Mexico and Canada would certainly be positive, but the tariff overhang is far, far from over, with a slew of announcements/actions due out over the course of this month and beyond. The China tariffs seem very likely to go into effect on Tues, and Beijing is apparently preparing a series of retaliatory steps aimed primarily at the US agricultural industry,” he said in a note.

— Fred Imbert

Wall Street analysts in January and February cut their bottoms-up, first-quarter earnings estimates for S&P 500 companies by more than the 5-, 10-, 15- and 20-year averages, FactSet senior earnings analyst John Butters wrote Friday.

First-quarter estimates dropped by a combined 3.5% in the first two months of the year, more than the five- and 10-year average decline of 2.6%, the 15-year average of 2.5% and even the 20-year average of 3.1%, FactSet said.

Analysts lowered their full-year earnings estimates by a combined 1% in January and February, larger than the 5-, 10- and 15-year average.

The hardest hit industry groups in the first quarter were Materials (-16.2%) and Consumer Discretionary (-8.8%) stocks.

— Scott Schnipper

Cryptocurrencies rallied on Sunday after President Donald Trump announced the creation of a strategic crypto reserve for the United States that will include bitcoin and ether, as well as XRP,  Solana’s SOL token and Cardano’s ADA.

Bitcoin rose 10% to $94,343.82, after dipping to a three-month low under $80,000 on Friday. Ether, which has suffered some of the biggest losses in crypto year-to-date, gained 13%. XRP surged 33% after the announcement while the token tied to Solana jumped 25%. Cardano’s coin soared more than 60%.

This is the first time Trump has specified his support for a crypto “reserve” versus a “stockpile.” While the former assumes actively buying crypto in regular installments, a stockpile would simply not sell any of the crypto currently held by the U.S. government.

For more, read our full story here.

— Tanaya Macheel