Don't call it a comeback

Investors love a good comeback story—not because it’s particularly heartwarming, but because they can buy a beaten-down stock for cheap and watch its turnaround fill their portfolios with profits.

So far this earnings season, we’ve already seen a few examples, including Harley-Davidson. The motorcycle maker unveiled its new and improved gameplan in its earnings call this morning, named “Back to the Bricks” (c’mon, “Revving Revenue” was right there).

The key points of the plan include rolling out affordable motorcycle models, improving operational efficiency, and growing overall market share. Management predicts that the effort will result in EBITDA margins of 10% to 12%, up from forecasts of 4% this year.

As for the company’s Q1, the results beat analysts’ low expectations by enough to rev shares 8.23% higher today. But the company is working to climb out of a years-long rut: Shares are still down 49% over the past five years, and have only climbed 5.63% over the past 12 months, seriously underperforming the S&P 500.

Three cheers

Then there’s Anheuser-Busch InBev, the maker of Budweiser, Stella Artois, and Corona. The largest brewer in the world managed to pull off a rebound quarter despite our unfortunate era of sobriety. Analysts had been expecting AB InBev to continue its downward slope, which started in 2023 when consumers started drinking and going out less thanks to an uptick in inflation. But strong beer sales in Latin America last quarter propelled it to its first sales-volumes growth in three years.

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em: Another factor driving the beer maker’s comeback was…making non-beer products. Revenue from no-alcohol beer rose 27% year over year last quarter.

Shares of the beverage maker jumped 8.73% today. “Cheers to beer,” AB InBev CEO Michel Doukeris said in a statement. But maybe “cheers to tasty fizz” would have been more fitting.

Intel-ing some good gossip

Intel, though, is enjoying the greatest victory lap of all, after shares hit an all-time high today. Sure, the chipmaker has been on a winning streak this whole year, so it’s not a rags-to-riches story in the short term. But the recovery has been a long time coming: Until last month, shares still hadn’t completely recovered from their downfall in 2000.

Today’s 12.95% rally wasn’t spurred by Intel’s strong earnings last month, but by reporting from Bloomberg that suggests the company will secure a major hardware manufacturing deal with Apple. But be warned: The report has yet to be verified by either company.

It’s truly a sign of the times that the biggest comeback of all isn’t based on solid results, but more hope and hype.—LB