Trending tickers: Nestlé, Alibaba, Tesla, Oxford Nanopore

Nestlé (NESN.SW)

Consumer giant Nestlé (NESN.SW) saw its shares lose ground on Tuesday morning after the company moved to dismiss CEO Laurent Friexe for not disclosing a romantic relationship with a subordinate.

The maker of Nescafe drinks said in a statement that the dismissal was effective immediately.

An investigation found the undisclosed romantic relationship with an employee violated Nestle’s code of conduct.

The dismissal comes exactly a year after Friexe assumed the position and a year after his predecessor Mark Schneider's unexpected departure.

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Friexe will be replaced by Philipp Navratil, a long-time Nestle executive.

Nestlé has weathered other top-level changes in the past months, with the resignation of longstanding chair Paul Bulcke, who intends to step down in 2026.

Based in Vevey, Switzerland, Nestle has been facing headwinds like other food makers, including rising commodity costs and the negative impact of tariffs.

It said in July it offset higher coffee and cocoa-related costs with price increases.

Alibaba (BABA, 9988.HK)

Alibaba (BABA, 9988.HK) shares retreated on Tuesday in Asian trading hours, dipping following a meteoric surge in the previous session as investors cheered its success in generating revenue from AI.

On Monday, the e-commerce giant's stock had rallied 19% in Hong Kong, the biggest jump in a session in three years, following a triple-digit percentage gain in AI-relate revenue. It also reported a better-than-expected increase in sales in cloud computing.

The company's cloud revenue growth was one of its standout performances, climbing 26% compared to the previous year, largely fuelled by increased demand for AI-driven services.

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Chief executive Eddie Wu described “AI plus cloud” as one of Alibaba’s two core growth engines, alongside e-commerce.

Several major brokerages, including HSBC (HSBA.L), UBS (UBS), and Jefferies, responded by raising their target prices for Alibaba stock to above $160.

Shares fell 1.5% in Tuesday's session as the wind came out of the rally.

Tesla (TSLA)

Tesla's (TSLA) stock dipped 3.5% before the US holiday weekend on Friday and looked set to continue losses when markets open on Tuesday as it reported lacklustre sales in India.

The electric vehicle maker launched sales in the region in mid-July, but has only seen just over 600 orders since that push, according to a Bloomberg News report. Bloomberg sources said the figure fell short of the company's expectations.

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Tesla (TSLA) has also struggled to maintain momentum in Europe, according to reports, with competition from China's BYD 1211 (1211.HK) alongside backlash against CEO Elon Musk.

Registrations of new Teslas in France were down 47.3% in August from August 2024, while the overall car market grew nearly 2.2%, data reported by Reuters showed on Monday. Tesla (TSLA) registrations also dipped in Sweden, Denmark and Italy.

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At close: August 29 at 4:00:00 PM EDT Advanced Chart

Oxford Nanopore (ONT.L)

Oxford Nanopore stock was among the top fallers in the FTSE 250 (^FTMC) on Tuesday morning following its first-half financials, despite reporting a robust H1.

It saw revenue growth across all regions and customer segments, it said, accompanied by improved EBITDA.

Revenue was up to £105.6m ($141.5m), a 25.6% increase year-on-year, or 28% on a constant currency basis. This growth was fuelled by demand in both research and applied markets, as well as increased adoption of its PromethION platform.

In August, news came that the biotech's co-founder and CEO Gordon Sanghera intends to step down in 2026. Sanghera has led the company for more than 20 years.

Shares in the company have fallen almost 10% in the past month and were nearly 3% lower on Tuesday.

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