Homebuilders’ Run Peters Out — Tuesday’s IP Market Recap

by Marc Bastow | December 4, 2012 5:02 pm

In what’s becoming a daily holding pattern, fiscal cliff talks in Washington dominated the news once again Tuesday, keeping stocks at bay.

President Barack Obama’s proposal outlined last week calls for $1.6 trillion in new taxes, while Republicans countered on Monday with a call for $2.2 trillion in cuts through changes to Medicare, the closing of tax loopholes and tax reforms, among other things. Both sides have rejected the the other sides’ formal proposals.

The result was another day of broad losses, with the Nasdaq leading the way down 0.18% to 2,996.69, the S&P 500 off by 0.17% at 1,407.05, and the Dow lower by 0.11% to 12,951.70.

What looked to be a solid rally in homebuilder stocks on good earnings news from Toll Brothers (NYSE:TOL[1]) and higher home prices fizzled out as the day went on, with shares of Toll down more than 1%, D.R. Horton (NYSE:DHI[2]) 2% lower and Lennar (NYSE:LEN[3]) fractionally down.

Darden Restaurants (NYSE:DRI[4]) fell nearly 10% after it issued a quarterly profit warning as changes to its Red Lobster, Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse brands[5] have not improved results.

Shares of MetroPCS (NYSE:PCS[6]) slid 7.5% after reports surfaced that Sprint (NYSE:S[7]) is not likely to make a counter-offer to acquire the wireless carrier.

Still, there were a few bright spots of note.

Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX[8]) made a big move Tuesday, soaring more than 14% after signing an exclusive content deal[9] with Disney (NYSE:DIS[10]) that initially will include direct-to-video releases but later expand to first-run live-action and animated films.

Discount retailer Big Lots (NYSE:BIG[11]) shares popped more than 12% after the company posted losses that came in lower than what Wall Street analysts expected. CEO Steven Fishman also announced his retirement.

Lastly, Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL[12]) announced plans[13] late Monday to make its second-, third- and fourth-quarter dividend payments for fiscal year 2013 all in one payment scheduled for this month, and the rush to pay out dividends by year’s end continued with Coach (NYSE:COH[14]), American Eagle (NYSE:AEO[15]) and Carnival (NYSE:CCL[16]), which all announced revised dividend payout dates Tuesday.

Three Up

• Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (NASDAQ:GMCR[17]): up 7.9% ($2.97) to $40.78.
• First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR[18]): Up 7.7% ($2.11) to $29.61.
• Pandora (NYSE:P[19]): Up 5.5% (49 cents) to $9.45.

Three Down

• Pep Boys (NYSE:PBY[20]): Down 10.4% ($1.11) to $9.57.
• Gap (NYSE:GPS[21]): Down 10.3% ($3.57) to $30.94.
• Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN[22]): Down 8.5% (35 cents) to $3.76.

Marc Bastow is an Assistant Editor at InvestorPlace.com. As of this writing he did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2012/12/tuesdays-ip-market-recap-coh-orcl-aeo-ccl-pcs-big/

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