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Editorial Advisory Board

  • Professor Andrea M. Armani, University of Southern California
  • Ruti Ben-Shlomi, Ph.D., LightSolver
  • James Butler, Ph.D., Hamamatsu
  • Natalie Fardian-Melamed, Ph.D., Columbia University
  • Justin Sigley, Ph.D., AmeriCOM
  • Professor Birgit Stiller, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, and Leibniz University of Hannover
  • Professor Stephen Sweeney, University of Glasgow
  • Mohan Wang, Ph.D., University of Oxford
  • Professor Xuchen Wang, Harbin Engineering University
  • Professor Stefan Witte, Delft University of Technology

Potbelly (PBPB) Stock Is Up, What You Need To Know

PBPB Cover Image

What Happened?

Shares of casual sandwich chain Potbelly (NASDAQ: PBPB) jumped 3.2% in the afternoon session after the broader market rallied as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell signaled a potential interest rate cut in the near future. Speaking to economists, Powell indicated that a marked slowdown in job growth suggests a downward adjustment in the Fed's benchmark rate may be warranted. The prospect of lower interest rates, which can reduce borrowing costs for companies and stimulate the economy, sparked a broad market rally on Friday. This positive sentiment lifted stocks across various sectors, including Potbelly, as investors reacted favorably to the potential for a more accommodative monetary policy.

After the initial pop the shares cooled down to $12.68, up 2.4% from previous close.

Is now the time to buy Potbelly? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.

What Is The Market Telling Us

Potbelly’s shares are quite volatile and have had 17 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.

The previous big move we wrote about was 21 days ago when the stock dropped 4.7% on the news that a surprisingly weak U.S. jobs report and renewed fears over international trade policy fueled concerns about a slowdown in consumer spending. The July 2025 jobs report revealed that hiring slowed dramatically, with the U.S. economy adding only 73,000 new jobs—the weakest gain in over two years. Furthermore, job numbers for May and June were revised significantly lower, suggesting the labor market is weaker than previously thought. This is a critical headwind for restaurants, as a shaky job market often leads consumers to cut back on discretionary spending like dining out. Compounding the issue, the announcement of new U.S. tariffs on trading partners has heightened fears of inflation and a broader economic slowdown, prompting investors to sell shares in consumer-facing sectors.

Potbelly is up 35.3% since the beginning of the year, and at $12.68 per share, it is trading close to its 52-week high of $13.30 from February 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Potbelly’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $2,567.

Today’s young investors won’t have read the timeless lessons in Gorilla Game: Picking Winners In High Technology because it was written more than 20 years ago when Microsoft and Apple were first establishing their supremacy. But if we apply the same principles, then enterprise software stocks leveraging their own generative AI capabilities may well be the Gorillas of the future. So, in that spirit, we are excited to present our Special Free Report on a profitable, fast-growing enterprise software stock that is already riding the automation wave and looking to catch the generative AI next.

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