By Joe Woelfel, Elsa Ohlen, and Nate Wolf

Stocks ticked lower on Monday with a number of key retailers, including Walmart, scheduled this week to issue quarterly earnings reports, and ahead of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's speech Friday at the policy symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

These stocks were moving Monday:

Dayforce jumped 27% after Bloomberg reported that private-equity firm Thoma Bravo was in talks to acquire the HR management software company. The deal could close in the coming weeks, the report said, which cited people familiar with the matter. A sale price wasn't disclosed. Dayforce and Thoma Bravo didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Barron's.

UnitedHealth was up 2.4% after shares of the health insurer jumped 12% Friday for their best daily percentage gain since March 24, 2020, when they rose 13%, according to Dow Jones Market Data. UnitedHealth rose 21% last week, the stock's best weekly performance in more than 16 years. Boosting the stock was the disclosure that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway had purchased roughly 5 million shares in the company, worth about $1.6 billion.

Novo Nordisk rose 4.7% in U.S. trading after the Danish drugmaker said its weight-loss medicine Wegovy was approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat liver disease. The company also said it would begin selling its Type 2 diabetes treatment Ozempic directly to consumers at $499 per month, half the U.S. list price of the medicine.

GoodRx Holdings, meanwhile, jumped 41% as the prescription medication platform announced it would partner with Novo Nordisk to offer both Wegovy and Ozempic pens for $499 per month.

Soho House rose 15% to $8.80 after confirming a report from The Wall Street Journal that it would be taken private in a deal led by hotel-group MCR and its Chief Executive Tyler Morse. Stockholders will receive $9 a share in cash. The offer values Soho House at about $2.7 billion, including debt.

Intel fell 2.8% after it rose almost 24% last week, the chip maker's best weekly performance since January 2000, according to Dow Jones Market Data. A report from Bloomberg said the Trump administration was in talks to have the U.S. government potentially take a stake in Intel. On Monday, Bloomberg reported the U.S. was discussions to take a stake of about 10% in Intel.

Solar stocks rose, building on big gains Friday. First Solar was up 11% and Sunrun climbed 9.8%. Enphase Energy rose 4.2%. The Trump administration released new guidance on clean energy tax credits Friday that were better than feared for solar companies.

Meanwhile, Nextracker, which makes equipment and software that allows solar panels to track the movement of the sun, rose 11% to $67.48 after the stock was upgraded to Buy from Neutral with a $74 price target at Guggenheim. "Of all the subsectors in energy transition impacted by Friday's surprise release of updated safe-harbor rules from the [Internal Revenue Service], we think that tracker companies are positioned to benefit the most," the analysts wrote in a research note.

Duolingo rose 13% after KeyBanc Capital Markets upgraded the stock to Overweight from Sector Weight and Citi Research initiated coverage of the language-learning platform with a Buy rating. Investors' fears about generative artificial intelligence encroaching on Duolingo's market have been overblown, the analysts agreed.

TeraWulf was up 11%, extending its rally from Friday as Alphabet's Google raised its stake in the company. Google will provide an incremental $1.4 billion backstop to help fund the expansion of TeraWulf's Lake Mariner data center campus in New York. Google, in exchange, will receive warrants to buy 32.5 million shares of TeraWulf.

Earnings reports are expected Monday from Palo Alto Networks, Fabrinet, and XP Inc.

Reports are expected later in the week from Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe's, Target, TJX Cos., Medtronic, Keysight Technologies, Viking Holdings, Amer Sports, XPeng, Toll Brothers, Analog Devices, Baidu, Estée Lauder, Intuit, Workday, Ross Stores, Zoom Communications, and BJ's Wholesale Club.

Write to Joe Woelfel at joseph.woelfel@barrons.com

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August 18, 2025 14:25 ET (18:25 GMT)

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