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Formed by a combination of JCPenney’s credit card processing unit and The Limited’s credit card bank business, Bread Financial is a provider of private-label and co-branded credit cards, loyalty programs, and marketing services. The company’s most financially significant unit is its credit card business that partners with retailers to jointly market Bread’s credit cards to their customers. The company also retains a minority interest in spun-off LoyaltyOne, which operates the largest airline miles loyalty program in Canada and offers marketing services to grocery chains in Europe and Asia.

Federated Hermes, based in Pittsburgh, is an asset management holding company with about $830 billion in AUM as of December 31, 2024. It offers equity, fixed-income, and money-market funds. The company's clients include high-net-worth individuals, registered investment advisors, pension funds, charities, and government organizations. Federated Hermes takes a relatively conservative, long-term approach to investing.

Visa Inc. operates the world's largest electronic payments network, providing processing services and payment product platforms, including credit, debit, prepaid, and commercial payments, under the brands Visa, Visa Electron, Interlink, and PLUS. Visa/PLUS is one of the world's largest ATM networks, offering cash access in local currency in more than 200 countries and territories.

U.S. stocks are higher across the board at midday on Friday, with the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq Composite, and Russell 2000 all in the green. There is a wide range, however, with the DJIA up a mere 0.05% as of this writing while the Nasdaq is higher by a solid 1.31%. Earnings reports are driving the movement in stocks, but there is some 'other' news as well. The latest PCE and Core PCE reports, released a few hours ago, were as expected, while traders also seem relieved to see that the large-one day losses brought on by DeepSeek headlines have now been mostly fully recovered. On the cautious side, President Trump's February 1 deadline for possible tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China will inject some uncertainty in the minds of investors over the weekend.