Tesla, Qualcomm, Meta, Moderna and more

Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading.

Tesla — Shares of the electric vehicle maker jumped 6% after Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock to overweight from equal weight. Analyst Adam Jones said the firm is on the verge of a major leap in autonomous driving.

J.M. Smucker, Hostess — Smucker lost 6.2% after it agreed to buy Twinkies-maker Hostess Brands for $34.25 a share in a cash and stock transaction, valued at approximately $5.6 billion. hares of Hostess popped 19%, reaching a new 52-week high. 

Tenable Holdings — The exposure management solutions provider added 4.3% on the back of an upgrade to overweight from neutral by JPMorgan. The firm said the company should see improved fundamentals going forward.

Kenvue — Shares of the Band-Aid maker gained 3% after being upgraded by Deutsche Bank to buy from hold on Sunday. The Wall Street firm called Kenvue a high-quality company and believes the stock’s slide has created an attractive entry point. The J&J spinoff has lost 15% since going public in May.

Alibaba — The Chinese tech company shed 1.8% on the news that outgoing CEO Daniel Zhang would unexpectedly quit its cloud business. In June, the company had announced Zhang was leaving as chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group to focus on the cloud intelligence unit. 

Meta — The tech giant gained 2% after the Wall Street Journal reported Meta is developing a new AI system as capable as OpenAI’s most advanced model, and more powerful than the one it released two months ago called Llama 2. According to the report, Meta is aiming to launch the product by next year. 

Nubank – The U.S.-traded shares of the Brazilian financial firm rose nearly 6% after JPMorgan upgraded Nubank to overweight from neutral. JPMorgan said in a note to clients that Nubank should continue to gain market share in Brazil for multiple years and is trading at a “good entry point” after a recent stock price decline. 

Qualcomm — The chip stock jumped 3.5% after the company announced that it will supply Apple with 5G modems for smartphones through 2026. The continued sales to Apple will boost Qualcomm’s handsets business, and could soften the blow of potentially losing a critical customer. 

Media stocks — Shares of Disney and Charter Communications gained more than 2% as both companies are nearing a deal that would end the blackout fight between the two companies. Shares of media peers Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount also traded higher on the news, rising 2.2% and 1.9%, respectively,

AstraZeneca — The pharmaceutical company’s shares lost nearly 3% midday Monday. Per Reuters, the pullback comes after a Sunday report in the Mail saying Chief Executive Pascal Soriot privately discussed leaving the company as early as next year.

Moderna — Shares of the drugmaker fell more than 2% after it announced it is partnering with German drug developer Immatics to further cancer vaccine developments. Moderna will give Immatics $120 million in upfront cash as part of the deal.

— CNBC’s Alexander Harring, Samantha Subin, Yun Li, Jesse Pound, Michelle Fox and Tanaya Macheel contributed reporting