By Peter Nurse

Investing.com -- Stocks in focus in premarket trade on Friday, March 17th. Please refresh for updates.

• First Republic Bank (NYSE: FRC) stock fell 13% with the regional bank continuing to struggle even after a group of major banks deposited $30 billion in a vote of confidence.

• FedEx (NYSE: FDX) stock soared 11% after the delivery giant lifted its guidance after reporting third-quarter earnings that markedly beat expectations as its ongoing efforts to cut costs helped offset ongoing demand weakness.

• Merck (NYSE: MRK) stock fell 0.7% after the pharmaceutical company revealed disappointing trial results from one of its metastatic non-small cell lung cancer drugs.

• Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) stock rose 1.7% after Morgan Stanley upgraded its stance on the software company to ‘overweight’ from ‘equal-weight’, citing growing excitement around artificial intelligence.

• Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) stock fell 0.6% after the Google-owner announced a price increase for its YouTube TV subscription, citing increased content costs.

• Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) stock rose 0.6% after a filing showed the software giant has offered remedies in an attempt to gain EU antitrust approval for its $69 billion acquisition of Activision (NASDAQ: ATVI).

• Bumble (NASDAQ: BMBL) stock rose 0.9% after Citigroup initiated coverage of the online dating site with a ‘buy’ rating, expecting it to gain market share.

• Credit Suisse (NYSE: CS) stock fell 6.9% after Bloomberg reported that the lender had rebuffed a suggestion from Swiss regulators that its much larger rival UBS (SIX:UBSG) take it over.