By coinnews 
00:00:03 Speaker A
It’s now time for some of today’s trending tickers. We are watching shares of BP and Uber. Joining me now, we’ve got Yahoo Finance senior reporter, Alexandra Canal. First up, shares of oil giant BP losing ground after posting lower than expected net profit for the first quarter. This comes days after activist investor, Elliott Management, disclosed a more than 5% stake in the company. In late February, BP announced plans to cut renewable investments as part of a turnaround plan. And taking a look at shares right now, they’re down by about 2.6% on this alley.
00:00:44 Alexandra Canal
Yes, BP undergoing a lot of strategic changes right now. You were just ticking through some of those. We have this reset away from earlier green energy ambitions, and refocus on more traditional oil and gas operations. We have leadership changes. We have the Elliott stake. So it’s a period of transition for this company. If we zero in on these results, you’ll see that we have a profit decline of 49% year over year, missing analyst expectations. The company attributed the downturn to weaker refining margins and poor performance in oil and gas trading. Now, in response to this miss, BP did announce a $500 million reduction in capital spending for 2025. That brings that number down to 14.5 billion. Company also plans to divest three to four billion in assets exceeding its previous target. And from an investor perspective, shares have not done so well year-over-year basis. We’re down about 28%, but year to date, which I think is interesting, we’re only down about 4%. So we’re outpacing the broader S&P 500, which currently has declines of around 6%. So perhaps part of that is the turnaround effort, the Elliott stake. We’ll see though if this strategic shift can hold and trickle through into the share price.
00:02:17 Speaker A
Absolutely. We’re also watching shares of Uber here this morning, too. This has been an interesting one. Uber reportedly telling all employees they will be required to work in person at least three days per week starting in June. According to a memo viewed by CNBC, the policy will apply even to workers who were previously approved to work remotely. The company also raising the requirement for its one-month sabbatical program from five years at the company to eight. Taking a look at shares of Uber here this morning, they are fractionally higher, but this is more of kind of a continuance in the RTO, the return to office policies that the financial services industry has probably been the most strict of most sectors about, but now we’re seeing this also trickle into tech companies as well.
00:03:20 Alexandra Canal
Yeah, Google is another one that’s been pushing for this RTO. Big push from upper management. They say they don’t want to be just good, they have to be great. And apparently, being in the office equals being great. Now, Tuesday through Thursdays, you can still work remote Mondays and Fridays. I do say, if you were approved to work remote and you moved your life and now all of a sudden, you’re getting asked to go back to the office, that does stink. However, we are seeing just this big push across the board. And as an employee, if these companies are reviewing their policies and they’re changing things, unfortunately, you have to play ball, or perhaps look for a new job. And think about Uber’s business as well. If you are working remote, you’re not taking Ubers as much. I know personally for me, if I need to be in the office early, if I’m feeling a little lazy, sometimes I will take an Uber to work. So fundamentally, I feel like this makes sense, but, you know, I, I get the frustration on the employee side as well.
00:04:57 Speaker A
I wonder if they still require them to drive a certain amount of hours, too. It was something that Dara Khosrowshahi, he had, when he took over the helm of CEO, it was something that he was interested in making sure that he knew the experience from the driver’s side, too. And I think that at that time, there was a little bit more of the making sure that employees also got a gauge of how the platform works, knew kind of the end-to-end experience. Of course, this is separate from RTO, but that’s just something about the internal culture. Right. Right. Which is really what the story is about here. Uh, Ali, thanks so much for breaking these down. Appreciate it. You can scan the QR code below to track the best and worst performing stocks of the session with Yahoo Finance’s trending tickers page.
00:05:23 Alexandra Canal
Right.
00:06:05 Alexandra Canal
Internal culture. Yeah.