Check out the companies making headlines before the bell: Paramount Global — The media conglomerate’s stock dropped nearly 5% after Edgar Bronfman Jr. withdrew his bid for the media company. This clears a path for Skydance Media to take over Shari Redstone’s media empire. Paramount expects the deal with Skydance to close in the first half of 2025. Cava Group — The restaurant stock fell more than 8% after several corporate insiders and a major shareholder disclosed in filings that they were selling some of their holdings. JD.com — Shares of the Chinese e-commerce stock climbed about 3% after the company announced a $5 billion buyback program to run between September 2024 and August 2027. Hershey — The chocolate maker slid 1.7% on the heels of a Citi downgrade to sell from neutral. The firm said volume challenges and cocoa inflation can weigh on earnings. Trip.com — Shares of the China-based travel company jumped more than 9% on better-than-expected second-quarter results. The company reported 12.77 billion yuan in revenue on adjusted EBITDA of 4.44 billion yuan. Analysts polled by FactSet had forecast revenue of 12.76 billion yuan on 4.02 billion yuan EBITDA. Packaged-tour revenue grew 42% year over year. Apple — Shares of the iPhone maker declined 0.3% after the company announced Kevan Parekh will replace Luca Maestri as chief financial officer beginning Jan.1. Eli Lilly — Shares slipped 1% after the drugmaker released a new, cheaper version of its weight loss drug Zepbound in an effort to improve access. Heico — The aerospace and defense stock declined about 0.6% on mixed fiscal third-quarter results. The maker of airplane parts topped earnings estimates but fell short of Wall Street’s revenue expectations. — CNBC’s Alex Harring, Jesse Pound, Hakyung Kim and Yun Li contributed reporting.
