Wall Street Wants Office Supplies — Tuesday’s IP Market Recap

by Marc Bastow | February 19, 2013 5:29 pm

[1]U.S. markets kept up their momentum and moved broadly higher Tuesday despite some downbeat news on the housing front, as a continuation of last week’s merger news[2] and a spate of positive corporate news had investors reaching for the phones or on their computers to fill buy orders.

Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 continue to reach towards their respective October 2007 highs, with the S&P 500 closing up 0.73% at 1,530.94, while the Dow settled in for gain of 0.39% at 14,035.67. The Nasdaq proved just as resilient, finishing up 0.68% to 3,213.60.

On the merger front, office supply retailers Office Depot (NYSE:ODP[3]) and OfficeMax (NYSE:OMX[4]) revealed they are in talks to join forces, and investors reacted by driving up shares in OMX by over 21% and ODP by nearly 10%. The merger news also bolstered competitor Staples (NASDAQ:SPLS[5]) to the tune of roughly 13%.

Also on the brick-and-mortar front, Best Buy (NYSE:BBY[6]) continued a recent surge, rising over 3% on the day after saying it make its price-matching program permanent. BBY is up more than 40% year-to-date.

Meanwhile, reports indicated that Google (NASDAQ:GOOG[7]) is discussing opening up retail stores[8] to sell some of its hardware offerings. The stock moved ahead nearly 2% to hit a new intraday high of $807 before settling in at an all-time high closing price of $806.85.

Not all was well on the day, however. Healthcare stocks were adversely impacted by the announcement of a reduction in the 2014 Medicare Advantage benchmark payment rates[9], with Humana (NYSE:HUM[10]) crumbling more than 6% and United Healthcare (NYSE:UNH[11]) and Aetna (NYSE:AET[12]) declining nearly 1%.

Earnings notables for Wednesday include Sodastream (NASDAQ:SODA[13]), Dish Network (NASDAQ:DISH[14]) and Owens-Corning (NYSE:OC[15]).

Three Up

• Sunpower (NASDAQ:SPWR[16]): Up 16.9% ($1.94) to $13.39.
• Sealed Air (NYSE:SEE[17]): Up 9% ($1.75) to $21.15.
• Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA[18]): Up 6.1% ($2.24) to $39.28.

Three Down

• Hovnanian (NYSE:HOV[19]): Down 4.3% (26 cents) to $5.76.
• Genuine Parts (NYSE:GPC[20]): Down 3.8% ($2.69) to $68.75.
• Allegheny Technologies (NYSE:ATI[21]): Down 3.5% ($1.17) to $32.64.

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/2013/02/tuesdays-ip-market-recap-odp-omx-spls-goog-bby/

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