See the companies making headlines in midday trading: Rocket Lab — The space company surged 12.5%, hitting a 52-week high, after packing and shipping two Mars-bound spacecraft to Cape Canaveral, Florida, for launch. The spacecraft were designed, built, integrated and tested by Rocket Lab for the University of California Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory and NASA. Bavarian Nordic — The Danish biotech firm surged 14.8% after submitting data to the European Union’s drug regulator to extend the use of its mpox vaccine to teenagers. CEO Paul Chaplin told CNBC that expanded approval for individuals ages 12 to 17 is crucial to combating the outbreak of the latest strain of the virus. H&R Block — The tax services provider jumped more than 12% after its fiscal fourth-quarter results beat Street estimates, raised its dividend and authorized a $1.5 billion share buyback. H&R Block also released a 2025 financial outlook that reflects another year of revenue growth. Bayer — Shares of the German bioscience company surged more than 10% after it won a legal victory in its lawsuit over allegations that exposure to the weed killer Roundup caused cancer. That came on the heels of allegations that Bayer-acquired Monsanto violated state law by not adding a cancer warning to Roundup’s label. JD.com — Shares of the Chinese e-commerce provider jumped more than 8% after stronger-than-expected quarterly earnings. JD’s second-quarter earnings rose 74% year-over-year to 9.36 yuan per share, excluding items, compared with analysts polled by LSEG’s forecast of 6.07 yuan per share. The strong results were boosted by price cuts that appealed to cost-conscious consumers. Applied Materials — The semiconductor equipment maker lost nearly 2% even after posting stronger-than-expected fiscal third-quarter results. The company earned $2.12 a share on $6.78 billion in revenue. The fourth-quarter guidance also met expectations. The stock has gained 51% over the past year. Amcor — The packaging stock fell more than 3% after sales slowed in the most recent quarter. Amcor reported net sales of $3.54 billion for the quarter, down from $3.67 billion a year earlier and below the $3.57 billion analysts had expected, according to StreetAccount. Amcor saw sales decline in both its rigid and flexible segments. Coherent — Shares rose 7.5% after the electronics maker beat Wall Street expectations in its fiscal fourth quarter. Coherent earned 61 cents a share, excluding items, on revenue of $1.31 billion, above the 60 cents a share on revenue of $1.28 billion that analysts surveyed by FactSet had expected. Sphere Entertainment — Live entertainment stocks rose more than 6% on JPMorgan’s upgrade to overweight from neutral. JPMorgan said the company’s Las Vegas Sphere venue has become a “mainstay in the destination tourism market” for both travelers and artists. Sphere also said it should be able to open international venues. — CNBC’s Alex Haring, Jesse Pound, Samantha Sobin, Yun Lee and Pia Singh contributed to this report.
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