Equity Indexes Wrap: Solar, Cybersecurity Stocks Gain While ADM, Travel Slip
January 22, 2024 04:13 PM EST
The Dow
Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) led the index higher, gaining 2.6%. It was followed by Disney (DIS), up 2.2%.
UnitedHealth Group (UNH) rose 1.9%, rebounding from last week’s health insurance sell-off after competitor Humana (HUM) cut its full-year earnings outlook.
Home Depot (HD) fell 1.6% after Oppenheimer downgraded the stock to “perform” from “outperform,” citing the possibility of weak consumer spending amid continued inflation.
The S&P 500
J.B. Hunt Transport Services (JBHT) rose 4.5% after an upgrade from UBS analysts.
Western Digital (WDC) gained 4.1% after Morgan Stanley named the data storage company a top pick in anticipation of the firm separating its disk drive and flash memory card businesses.
Enphase Energy (ENPH) rose 3.4% after peer SolarEdge (SEDG) announced plans to lay off 16% of its staff to cut costs amid a protracted slowdown in the solar energy market.
Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM) led the index’s laggards, falling 24.4% after the agricultural commodities trader put a top executive on leave and lowered its full-year earnings outlook amid a review of accounting practices at its nutrition unit.
Travel and leisure stocks slumped, with Carnival Corp (CCL) sliding 4%, Booking Holdings (BKNG) losing 3.1%, and Caesars Entertainment (CZR) down 2%.
Tesla (TSLA) slipped 1.6% in the lead-up to its earnings, which are widely expected to take a hit from a year of aggressive price cuts, on Wednesday.
The Nasdaq 100
Synopsys (SNPS) added 4.7%, continuing to rise after announcing its acquisition of Ansys (ANSS) last week.
Cybersecurity stocks outperformed, with ZScaler (ZS) rising 4.1%, Fortinet (FTNT) up 2.9%, and Crowdstrike Holdings (CRWD) gaining 2.8%.
Netflix (NFLX) added 0.6% ahead of its quarterly earnings report tomorrow.
Gilead (GILD) tumbled 10.2% after the drugmaker said an experimental drug failed to reach the goals of a phase 3 non-small cell lung cancer treatment trial.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and PayPal (PYPL), both big winners last week, gave up some of those gains, falling 3.5% and 3.2%, respectively.
Dow Flirts With Close Above 38,000
January 22, 2024 03:18 PM EST
The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged more than 200 points Monday morning to trade above 38,000 for the first time. The index retreated at midday and traded about 20 points shy of that milestone with less than an hour left in the session.
The S&P 500 was also trading at a record high Monday after clinching its first record in over two years on Friday.
Of the indexes still to retake their post-pandemic highs, the one farthest from the mark is the small-cap Russell 2000, which on Monday traded around 1,970. It will need to rise nearly 25% to overtake its November 2021 high of 2,458.
Small caps have dramatically underperformed their large-cap peers in the last year, with the Russell 2000 up just 4.4% in the past twelve months. But they posted a strong end to the year—rising nearly 20% from their late-October lows—and are trading at a historically low valuation.
That could set the stage, said Goldman Sachs analysts in a research note Monday, for the Russell 2000 to rally 15% in the next year.
Agriculture Giant ADM’s Stock Dives on Accounting Probe, Outlook Downgrade
January 22, 2024 02:37 PM EST
Agriculture commodity giant Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. (ADM) cut its outlook for the 2023 fiscal year and put a top executive on leave after it announced an investigation into its accounting practices, sending its shares skidding more than 20% in intraday trading Monday.
The Chicago-based grain merchant on Sunday said it placed Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Vikram Luthar on leave as it investigates accounting practices and procedures in ADM’s nutrition department. The investigation was spurred by a voluntary document request from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), with which ADM said it was cooperating.
ADM also updated its outlook for 2023, saying it now expects to deliver adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $6.90, lower than the earnings “in excess of $7 per share” it forecast in October. The company is also delaying its fourth-quarter earnings report, which was due this week.
Netflix Looks to Accelerate Revenue and Subscriber Growth for Q4
January 22, 2024 01:54 PM EST
Netflix…
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