Stock Market Today (LIVE): Zillow Wins Antitrust Lawsuit

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12:20 pm — ZG -2.8%

Zillow (Z 2.36%) (ZG 2.89%) emerged victorious as Compass (COMP 2.04%), the world’s largest real estate brokerage, dropped its antitrust lawsuit that accused Zillow of illegally restricting "coming soon" home listings. The win came a day after Zillow relaxed its rules and announced Zillow Preview, a new feature that will make pre-market listings from several brokerages, including Keller Williams and ReMax, available exclusively on its platform. The move allows Zillow to reframe the debate around transparency — it maintains that private listing networks are bad for buyers — while launching a competing feature.

11:18 am -- AYAS.F -6.89%

By Yasser El-ShimyTeam Rule Breakers

How come gold and silver prices have cratered since the Iran War started? Should they not be safe haven assets at times of global uncertainty and geostrategic turmoil? There are a couple of reasons why precious metals and mining stocks, such as Aya Gold & Silver (OTC: AYAS.F), are retreating. First, there has been a big run in precious metals prices leading to this conflict, creating a buy the rumor, sell the news kind of dynamic. Second, investors understand the Fed's hands are tied now when it comes to interest rates. The Fed must raise them to ward off or at least mitigate the immense inflationary wave that is about to hit the world thanks to the rapidly rising prices of energy, fertilizers and gases. Higher rates are bullish for the USD in the short-term against gold and other precious metals.

Finally, there is speculation that Arab Gulf countries, such as the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar, may start to sell off some of their gold reserves to compensate for tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue due to the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz. This dumping, if true, is likely to dramatically increase gold supply in the markets.

I personally view this "correction" as an opportunity to gain exposure or boost holdings either to the asset itself or to miners, as inflation is likely to produce another upcycle in the value of precious metals. In the meantime, expect a lot of volatility in the short-term.

11:35 am

By Jason MoserTeam Rule Breakers

As technology advances, cybersecurity will only become more crucial. Rather than trying to pick one winner, I'm going with several leaders. I've owned Cloudflare (NET 1.62%) for years now and on February 17th I opened new positions in Palo Alto Networks (PANW +0.28%) and Zscaler (ZS 0.34%) as I grow my exposure to the space.

It seems the questions about Palo Alto's platformization strategy have been answered; it's grown revenue 17% annually over the last three years and margins are expanding. And with over 9,400 customers across more than 185 countries, Zscaler's Zero Trust Exchange platform appears to be picking up its fair share as well. I'll add to these positions over time and hope to bring CrowdStrike (CRWD 2.10%) into the mix soon.

10:05 am — AAPL -0.40%

By Sanmeet DeoTeam Rule Breakers

The prevailing narrative (and criticism) of Apple (AAPL 0.76%) regarding the AI arms race has been that it is way behind. Its Siri platform uses old technology and is no more useful than Clippy (Microsoft's (MSFT 0.90%) original office assistant) was. The company doesn’t have its own flashy LLM model and has partnered with Alphabet (GOOG 0.64%) to use Gemini to power Siri.

However, it has a massive moat sitting in everyone’s pocket, the iPhone and the apps on it. According to AppMagic, Apple was paid $900 million in App Store fees in 2025 from generative AI apps. While this amount is speck in Apple's massive total revenue, it provides them with the opportunity to use data on iPhones together with its own chips to craft an on-device AI strategy that is significantly capital-light compared to the massive spending by its peers.

9:00 am -- BABA -6.72% in pre-market trading

By Tim BeyersTeam Rule Breakers

Poor overall results from Alibaba Group (BABA 6.95%) may be the catalyst that pushes more companies to aggressively monetize AI efforts and raise prices. Shares are down close to 5% in pre-market trading in the U.S.

AI isn't lifting Alibaba's profitability picture, yet. Net income fell 66% on a GAAP basis and 67% on a non-GAAP basis in the quarter ended on December 31. Revenue increased just 2% over the same period. (Or 9% if including recently divested businesses.)

The Chinese e-commerce giant is in the midst of a transition that should see it become a much bigger supplier of AI agents and tools in its home markets in Asia. The cost to do is getting extreme.

10:00 am — ACN +1.20%

By Andy CrossMotley Fool CIO

Accenture (ACN +4.15%) grew bookings 6% during Q2 but only 1% in local currencies, showing the challenges the world's largest digital consulting firm is facing. Sales increased 8% but 4% ex-dollar impact.

That headline hides some nice strength Accenture delivered across its Communications, Media, Tech, and Financial services groups that grew 13% in USD. But the boogeyman continues to be public (governments, agencies, etc) and health. That group fell 1% in local currencies.

If governments and hospital-like clients aren't spending, big players are. Through the first half of the fiscal year, Accenture has 74 deals with quarterly bookings of more than $100 million, up from 12 a year ago, or up 19%. And it is on pace to double AI and data center bookings from 2025.

9:35 am

Stocks opened lower, as Brent crude surged past $116 per barrel following a coordinated wave of Iranian missile and drone attacks on critical infrastructure. The strikes targeted Qatar's Ras Laffan—the world's largest LNG facility—and refineries in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, marking a severe escalation in the three-week-old conflict. This retaliatory barrage followed a strike on Iran's own South Pars gas field, prompting President Trump to threaten a "massive" U.S. response that would "blow up" Iran's remaining energy assets. With 20% of global supply already throttled by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the "war premium" is rapidly pricing in a $150-per-barrel scenario that could force central banks to pivot from rate cuts back to aggressive inflation-fighting.

8:15 am -- UBER +0.31%, RIVN +9.21% in pre-market trading

Uber Technologies (UBER 1.26%) is committing up to $1.25 billion to Rivian Automotive (RIVN +2.80%) to develop and deploy a massive fleet of 50,000 robotaxis by 2031. The deal centers on an autonomous version of Rivian's upcoming R2 platform, with an initial $300 million investment aimed at launching services in San Francisco and Miami by 2028. For Uber, the partnership adds a vertically integrated hardware play to its growing stable of autonomous partners, which includes Lucid Group (LCID +1.31%) and Amazon's (AMZN 1.30%) Zoox. For Rivian, the deal provides a critical capital infusion and a high-volume commercial channel for its in-house "RAP1" autonomy processor, just as it prepares to begin consumer R2 deliveries this spring.

8:00 am -- FIVE +6.37% in pre-market trading

By Rick MunarrizTeam Rule Breakers

Work in Wednesday night's after-hours pop, and Five Below (FIVE +10.31%) has now tripled over the past year. Q4 strengthened even beyond the initial two-month peak provided in January. Revenue rose 24% as an 8% increase in stores was turbocharged with a 15.4% pop in comps. Adjusted earnings also exceeded expectations. Five Below sees net sales and adjusted earnings slowing to 10% and 20% growth, respectively in fiscal 2026. We saw the chain start slowly last year, too. It hasn't proven mortal yet. In the meantime, CEO Winnie Park is killing it just 15 months into this gig.

7.30 am

The Dow Jones fell 1.63% yesterday, on course for its worst month since 2022, as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell flagged elevated uncertainty and the potential for higher inflation as part of the latest central bank meeting, as officials voted to hold interest rates steady in an 11-1 split.

7:25 am -- AAPL +0.54% in pre-market trading

Apple (AAPL 0.76%) is defying a cooling Chinese economy, posting a 23% surge in smartphone sales during the first nine weeks of 2026. While the broader Chinese market contracted 4% year-over-year, Apple capitalized on newly introduced government subsidies that--for the first time--include the base iPhone 17 model. This regulatory tailwind, combined with aggressive e-commerce discounting, has allowed Apple to absorb the "margin pain" of soaring memory chip costs that are currently crippling competitors. Research firm Counterpoint notes that while Android giants like OPPO and vivo are forced to hike retail prices to offset expensive semiconductors, Apple's vertically integrated supply chain is providing a tactical moat to snatch market share from cash-strapped rivals.

6:15 am -- KLAC -1.05% in pre-market trading

KLA Corporation (KLAC 0.48%) was the subject of the latest Scoreboard video.

6:00 am -- TSLA -0.53%, NVDA -0.68% in pre-market trading

Elon Musk clarified Wednesday night that his newly restructured SpaceX AI--formed from the recent acquisition of xAI--and Tesla (TSLA 3.00%) will continue to be major customers for Nvidia (NVDA 1.24%). While Tesla is actively designing its fifth-generation "AI5" chip for the Optimus humanoid and Robotaxi platforms, Musk emphasized that the company's appetite for Nvidia's data center training power remains insatiable. The billionaire also teased a forthcoming "AI6" architecture, claiming a single-chip version could soon match the dual-processor power of its predecessor. Despite Tesla's push for "edge compute" independence, the comments reassure investors that the Nvidia-Tesla partnership is secure through the 2027 rollout of the "Vera Rubin" architecture.

5:30 am -- NDAQ -0.48% in pre-market trading

Nasdaq (NDAQ 0.45%) secured a landmark victory Wednesday as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved its proposal to trade and settle certain stocks in tokenized form