By Peter Nurse

Investing.com -- Stocks in focus in premarket trade on Friday, December 16th. Please refresh for updates.

• Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) stock rose 5% after the software company recorded 10% growth in fourth-quarter revenues and forecast healthy first-quarter profit as demand remained strong.

• Darden Restaurants (NYSE: DRI) stock rose 0.5% after the owner of Olive Garden beat quarterly estimates and raised its 2023 outlook as customers continued to eat out.

• Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) stock rose 2% after JPMorgan upgraded its stance on the Facebook owner to ‘overweight’ from ‘neutral’, saying top and bottom-line pressures will ease in 2023.

• Maxar Technologies (NYSE: MAXR) (TSX: MAXR) stock soared over 100% after the Wall Street Journal reported that private equity firm Advent international has agreed to buy the satellite owner and operator at about $4 billion.

• General Motors (NYSE: GM) stock fell 1% after U.S. auto safety regulators formally opened a safety probe into the autonomous driving system in vehicles produced by the auto giant’s robotaxi unit Cruise LLC.

• General Electric (NYSE: GE) stock fell 1% after France’s financial prosecutor confirmed that searches were conducted at the U.S conglomerate's Belfort site as part of an ongoing probe into possible tax fraud.

• Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) stock rose 2.4% and Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU) stock rose 1% after the U.S. accounting watchdog said it has full access to inspect and investigate firms in China, removing the risk that these companies could be removed from U.S. stock exchanges.

• Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) stock fell 1.8% with the cryptocurrency exchange platform hit by more selling in the asset class on fresh doubts about the reliability of reserve figures provided by rival Binance.

• Accenture (NYSE: ACN) stock fell 1.4% after the professional services company disappointed with its second-quarter revenue forecast, even as revenue grew 5% in the quarter ending Nov. 30 as IT spending held strong.