Anita Ramaswamy

HubSpot investors better hope that Google actually buys it. The marketing software company’s growth is slowing as the small businesses it caters to try to cut down their bills, and it faces mounting competition from flashy AI tools that could chip away at its business.

Jensen Huang, left, and Colette Kress. Photos by Getty; X/J.P. Morgan.

Shares in marketing software firm HubSpot jumped 8% on Tuesday after CNBC anchor David Faber said that Google plans to purchase it in an all-stock deal. Faber’s comment adds further support to earlier reports that such a deal was in the works.Those expectations have galvanized investors in Hubspot, despite a slowdown in revenue growth as its small business customers reduce spending and it

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. Photo by Bloomberg via Getty Images.

If you’re an investor who’s turned negative on Amazon Web Services because of its much-reported growth slowdown of 2023, you might want to look again. While the pioneer of cloud computing is no longer posting red-hot topline expansion numbers, growth picked up meaningfully in the first quarter. Meanwhile, its profit margins are looking healthier than ever. And it’s a good bet AWS will keep them that way, despite the big investments required by artificial intelligence products.

GitLab co-founders Sid Sijbrandij (left) and Dmitriy Zaporozhets at the company's IPO in 2021. Photo via Nasdaq

The San Francisco Databricks office. Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images.

Microsoft Chairman and CEO, Satya Nadella. Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images.

Last week’s upbeat inflation report raised hopes that the Federal Reserve will start cutting interest rates in the fall, which will be good news for pretty much every business. But companies in the business of lending money—in particular digital lending firms such as LendingClub and SoFi—may be the stocks to get the fastest lift.

In the world of online lenders, Enova International stands out. It has been growing rapidly, lending more money last year than ever before even as rising interest rates caused competitors to cut back. Meanwhile, Enova executives have repeatedly argued the company’s stock was “undervalued,” and the company has spent heavily on buying back its stock.