Check out the companies that made headlines in midday trading: ENERGY EXPANSION — One of the largest independent natural gas producers saw its stock rise more than 4% on Tuesday’s jump in natural gas prices. Prices rose 25% to $3.89 per million British thermal units, the best daily pace in four years. Heating demand expected to surge due to frigid temperatures across U.S. gold stocks — Gold stocks rose as gold prices hit record highs, trading above $4,700 per ounce. IAMGOLD rose more than 15%, AngloGold Ashanti rose about 7% and Gold Fields rose 6%. Intel — Shares rose more than 5% after Seaport Research upgraded the technology stock to buy from neutral. It also has a price target of $65, implying an upside of nearly 40% from Friday’s closing price. Coterra Energy — Shares of the shale oil exploration company continued to rise, gaining another 3% on speculation that it would merge with Devon Energy. Bloomberg first reported on the potential merger on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. Devon shares rose about 2% on Tuesday. IT Hardware Stocks — Shares of IT hardware companies fell on Tuesday after Morgan Stanley downgraded the sector as it expects component costs to rise and the company’s tech spending to slow. Both Logitech and NetApp stocks were downgraded from equal weight to underweight, and their shares fell 4% and 7%, respectively. Hewlett Packard Enterprise fell 4%. Nvidia — The chipmaker led the decline in tech stocks, down about 3%, as traders cut positions in the AI giant as global trade tensions escalated following President Donald Trump’s latest tariff threat against Greenland. 3M — The maker of Post-It notes and Scotch tape fell 7% after releasing its latest financial results and full-year outlook. 3M expects full-year adjusted earnings to be in the range of $8.50 to $8.70 per share, compared with the FactSet consensus estimate of $8.64. Fourth-quarter results were mixed, beating profit expectations but falling short of revenue expectations. FASTENAL — The fastener maker fell more than 3% after reporting earnings that showed revenue and earnings were in line with expectations. Fastenal posted earnings of 26 cents per share on revenue of $2.03 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected earnings of 26 cents per share and revenue of $2.04 billion. Lululemon — Sports apparel shares fell 3% after Semaphore reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that founder Chip Wilson is seeking to remove private equity firm Advent from its board of directors in an ongoing proxy fight. — CNBC’s Michelle Fox, Lisa Han, Liz Napolitano and Fred Imbert contributed reporting.
