Check out the companies making headlines before the bell. Alaska Air Group — Shares popped 1% after the airline carrier resumed its operations late Sunday. Thanks to an IT outage, Alaska Airlines had grounded all of its flights for around three hours. Block — The fintech stock surged 10% as it prepares to officially join the S & P 500 before the opening of trading on July 23. Block will replace Hess, which has been acquired by Chevron. Pinterest — Shares of the social media company jumped more than 5% after Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak upgraded the stock to overweight from equal weight. Nowak highlighted Pinterest’s attractive valuation along with “GPU enabled investments and budding engagement and monetization improvements” as the key reasons for his new rating. Dollar Tree — Shares added 2% upon an upgrade to overweight from equal weight at Barclays. Analyst Seth Sigman said he expects a “cleaner growth story” ahead. Target — The big box retailer saw shares fall more than 1% in premarket trading after Barclays downgraded the stock to underweight from equal weight. The Wall Street firm expects that sales at Target will continue to underperform without a bigger strategic shift. Domino’s Pizza — Shares popped nearly 4% after the pizza chain reported second-quarter same-store sales that were up 3.4%, beating LSEG estimates of a 2.2% increase. This marked the first U.S. sales beat in five quarters. The company’s revenue came in at $1.15 billion, in line with expectations, while its earnings missed consensus estimates. Cleveland-Cliffs — The steel manufacturer gained 7% after posting a second-quarter loss of 50 cents per share, which was narrower than 74-cent loss analysts polled by LSEG were expecting. The company’s $4.93 billion revenue came in as expected. Verizon — The telecommunications stock rose 5% after posting second-quarter earnings of $1.22 per share on revenue of $34.5 billion. Analysts were expecting earnings of $1.18 billion on $33.74 billion in revenue, according to LSEG. Sarepta Therapeutics — The biotech stock tumbled 8% after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced following Friday’s close that it was pulling its support for Elevidys, a gene therapy developed by Sarepta used to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy, after another patient death. Shops such as Leerink Partners, Mizuho and Needham soon downgraded the stock. Invesco — Shares added 2% after TD Cowen upgraded the investment management firm to a buy rating from hold. Analyst Bill Katz called Invesco’s Friday announcement that it was requesting to migrate its QQQ exchange-traded fund to an open-end fund structure from a unit investment trust a “game changing event.” — CNBC’s Yun Li and Pia Singh contributed reporting.
