Wall Street is waltzing into the green this morning on upbeat U.S. retail and employment data. In June, many retailers saw a rise in their same-store sales. At the same time, private hiring rose by 157 thousand, more than double the 68 thousand jobs expected. This positive news is pushing many retail- and customer service-oriented stocks to 52-week highs, including Apac Customer Service (NASDAQ: APAC), Bebe Stores (NASDAQ: BEBE), and Coffee Holding Co (NASDAQ: JVA).
There are only a handful of stocks touching 52-week lows this morning, including Forest Oil Corp (NYSE: FST), Lender Processing (NYSE: LPS), and Biomimetic Therapeutic (NASDAQ: BMTI).
A detailed analysis is presented below.
Stocks hitting 52-week highs:
Apac Customer Service (NASDAQ:: APAC): The call center and customer service support company has lifted over 55% so far this morning on news investment firm JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) is buying Apac for $470 million in cash.
Bebe Stores (NASDAQ: BEBE): The women’s apparel and accessories store is up over 13% in morning trading on strong fiscal fourth-quarter sales. Revenue for the period rose 7% to $122.4 million.
Coffee Holding Co (NASDAQ: JVA): The wholesale coffee roaster and distributor has perked up more than 11% this morning. The stock has been on a strong uptrend since early June and seems to be riding higher on technical momentum.
Stocks hitting 52-week lows:
Forest Oil Corp (NYSE: FST): The North American oil and natural gas producer has cooled about -14.5% this morning. Yesterday, the company lowered its second-quarter guidance, due to plant downtime in Texas and flooding on its south Louisiana property. The company now expects average sales volumes between 333-337 million cubic feet equivalent per day. This represents a production drop of 7 million cubic feet equivalent per day. In response the Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) cut the stock’s rating from “buy” to “underperform”.
Lender Processing (NYSE: LPS): The mortgage processing services lender and provider has lost -3% so far this morning on news that CEO Jeffrey S. Carbiener resigned, due to health reasons.
Biomimetic Therapeutic (NASDAQ: BMTI): The biotechnology company that develops regenerative protein therapeutic products for the treatment of musculoskeletal injuries has retreated about -2.5% in morning trading. The stock is down on news that a class action lawsuit has been filed against the company for presenting false or misleading product statements.
As of this writing, Deborah O’Malley did not own a position in any of the stocks named here.
