4 stocks to watch on Wednesday: HELE, GOOG/GOOGL and more

U.S. stock index futures on Wednesday pointed to a marginally lower open, as market participants looked ahead to a busy day full of economic data and Federal Reserve speakers. Here are some stocks to watch on Wednesday:

• Shares of Helen of Troy (HELE) jumped more than 18% in pre-market trading, after the consumer brands company delivered a quarterly top- and bottom-line beat and reaffirmed its annual net sales and profit per share guidance. El Paso, Texas-based Helen of Troy (HELE) owns brands such as backpack-maker Osprey and kitchenware producer OXO, while also licensing names such as cough medicine-maker Vicks. "During the quarter, we took decisive actions toward our long-term strategic initiatives, including strengthening the core and further shaping our growth portfolio," top boss Noel Geoffroy said.
• Class A (GOOGL) and class C (GOOG) shares of Alphabet slipped about 0.4% each ahead of the opening bell. The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) late on Tuesday indicated that it was considering a possible breakup of the tech giant's units like its Chrome browser and Android operating system as an antitrust remedy. The DoJ's action comes after an August victory in a landmark antitrust case that found Google had built an illegal search monopoly. According to Bloomberg, this would mark the first stint to break up a monopoly company since a failed attempt to split up Microsoft (MSFT) in 2001.
• Class A shares of Reddit (RDDT) added more than 3% ahead of market open, after Jefferies started coverage on the stock with a Buy rating. The brokerage sees the social media company's EBITDA more than doubling in the next two years to about $450M, "driven by peer-high growth in users and a nascent opportunity to close the monetization gap to peers." Jefferies also anticipates "additional high-margin data licensing deals as expanding use-cases for Gen AI increase the value of RDDT's database of contextual content." Reddit (RDDT) is set to announce Q3 results on October 29.
• Class A shares of GitLab (GTLB) gained more than 5% in pre-market trading, after Morgan Stanley initiated coverage on the stock with an Overweight rating. The brokerage believes the consolidation in the software delivery market (or DevOps) positions GitLab (GTLB) as a major beneficiary. "After decades of fragmentation, the software delivery market is consolidating as the focus on cost and engineering productivity rises. We see GitLab as a key consolidator in a large market positioning the company as the next enterprise platform story in software," Morgan Stanley said.

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