Birkenstock (BIRK) closes Thursday lower by over 7% after reporting underwhelming fiscal fourth-quarter earnings results, the German footwear brand's first since its public debut in October 2023.

In an Instagram video, Meta Platforms (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced progress in Meta's AI projects and research efforts.

Lastly, Spirit Airlines (SAVE) stock wavers in the wake of a federal judge blocking JetBlue Airways' (JBLU) takeover of the discount operator.

Yahoo Finance Live co-hosts Josh Lipton and Madison Mills report on these top stocks trending into Thursday's closing bell.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Editor's note: This article was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video Transcript

JOSH LIPTON: All right, let's get you some trending tickers as well. What's moving in today's trade? Birkenstock reporting its first results since going public. Shares sliding despite beating revenue estimates as the company's forecast disappointed, clearly, some investors.

So this one, you know, most analysts covering the name are fans, Madison, but investors not a fan of the stock, at least today. Q4 revenue beat. The company offered some targets, said the top line this year could grow as much as 18%, and it did sound like, according to reports I was reading, that was actually higher than consensus but perhaps not high enough for investors who maybe wanted more from the sandal maker.

MADISON MILLS: Yeah, the market dipped as much as 14% on this particular stock. And this did follow a recent run up in the stock, so that could have been a little bit of a selling of the news. But also investors were looking for a good first earnings print from Birkenstock following their IPO, and that's not what they got today.

The CEO also said that they're going to put more money into beefing up production, improving factories. But when I hear that, I hear more costs passed on to my friends who are buying Birkenstocks.

Having said that, though, the CEO actually addressed that, saying he's not worried consumers that are buying from Birkenstock have pricing power, purchasing power. So the company therefore has some power to wiggle the pricing with a little bit of inflation there.

JOSH LIPTON: We were talking there too. We were actually talking yesterday about how this one was primed for volatility. You mentioned that, right? So maybe not too much of a shock or the kind of swings you're seeing in today's trade.

MADISON MILLS: Yeah, and those margins a headwind to come.

Speaking of margins, let's take a look at a company doing well. Shares of Meta trading higher today. The social-media giant providing an update on its efforts. CEO Mark Zuckerberg taking to social media to comment on the massive compute infrastructure plans to support the company's AI roadmap. Take a listen.

MARK ZUCKERBERG: By the end of this year, we're going to have around 350,000 Nvidia H100s or around 600,000 H100 equivalents of compute if you include other GPUs. We're currently training Llama 3, and we've got an exciting roadmap of future models that we're going to keep training responsibly and safely too.

MADISON MILLS: So training responsibly and safely being the key terms there. I have to say I was a little bit triggered by his announcement coming on Instagram after what happened with the SEC and X last week, but I guess we're going with this not being a deepfake video of Mark Zuckerberg here.

But again doubling down on AI, right, talking about bringing major AI research efforts from FAIR and GenAI closer together. This makes sense. We're continuing to see this across the board here. And also he did mention they're excited about progress on their AI-centric computing devices like Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses. These guys just keep going after things they want me to put on my head, and I'm fascinated by it-- Vision Pro, Meta Glasses.

JOSH LIPTON: Yeah.

MADISON MILLS: I don't get-- it messes with the eye makeup. I'm not fully sure they're doing the market research on the ladies here, but they continue to be excited about it.

JOSH LIPTON: It's interesting because it's how investors, you know, looking to obviously play the AI trend, and they've piled into Microsoft. They've piled into NVIDIA. But another one they've looked to has been Meta as many clearly think it's a smart way to play this theme, and Zuckerberg has, you know, in the past already talked about how the technology is improving recommendation systems and user feeds.

MADISON MILLS: Sure.

JOSH LIPTON: That stock was a monster in 2023, but we've had smart analysts on here who say it still looks attractive, even at these levels. Earnings coming up, by the way, February 1, so I'm sure we'll get more info and insight from Zuck--

MADISON MILLS: Mark your calendar.

JOSH LIPTON: --at that point about this.

Meanwhile, take a quick look here at shares of Spirit Airlines, still under pressure here. The airline reporting-- reportedly examining restructuring options. That's according to the "Wall Street Journal."

Although then we had another headline drop here, Madison, saying that Spirit is actually looking at options to refinance its debt. It's not considering restructuring. That's according to Reuters, citing sources. So some conflicting headlines and articles here today.

Obviously the company's stock has been hit after a judge blocked that merger with JetBlue. Fitch weighed in this week too, said its credit profile was under pressure as it was facing some refinancing risk. Other issues-- competition, labor costs.

One big name entering the drama, by the way, we have to mention. Dave Portnoy, Barstool Sports fame, announced he bought the stock, and then, bang, we get this headline. Initial reports saying Spirit was considering restructuring. The stock drops hard. Although, yes, it finished down today but well off its lows, so maybe the Portnoy effect.

MADISON MILLS: Yeah, it's interesting because in a post he talked about how this was one of the initial stocks that he invested in when he started his day trading, and it went up at that time when Berkshire was pulling out of the name. So he felt like he was rah-rah over Warren Buffett on that front. Getting back in this name this time around, but as soon as he got into it, like you said, Josh, the stock continued to tank. That stock is down a whopping 70% just since that judicial ruling. That was this week. I mean, this is not a good week for Spirit Airlines here.