Bad Day for Macy’s, SeaWorld: Wednesday’s IP Market Recap

by Marc Bastow | August 14, 2013 4:50 pm

What’s going on in the markets in the middle of August? Mostly nothing … and with no particular economic news of note to offset any bad earnings, stocks made their way south.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was hit hard, falling 0.74% to close at 15337.35, while the S&P 500 lost 0.52% to close at 1685.39. The Nasdaq fell 0.41% to finish the day 3669.27.

Leading the way down on earnings news was Macy’s (M[1]), which fell 4% after reporting disappointing net income[2] of 72 cents per share (vs. analyst expectations for 78 cents) and a decline in same-store sales. M lost over 4% on the day, dragging down other retailers including Target (TGT[3], -1.6%) and  Nordstrom (JWN[4], -1.1%).

SeaWorld (SEAS[5]) also fell victim to earnings woes, slipping more than 3% after announcing a $16 million loss in the second quarter after posting a $39 million profit in the year-ago period. Revenue fell 3% in the quarter as attendance dropped 9%, to 6.6 million visitors.

Farm equipment manufacturer Deere (DE[6]) tumbled nearly 2% despite posting a higher-than-expected Q2 profit[7] on strong sales of its tractors and harvesters in the U.S. Deere did warn that third-quarter revenues would be down 5% compared to last year, and lowered its full-year 2013 outlook.

On the sunnier side of the Street, Apple (AAPL[8]) continued to shine, surpassing $500 in intraday trading before falling back under — still good for a nearly 2% gain. AAPL’s move comes in the wake of super-investor Carl Icahn formally announcing his “large” stake in the company and promptly suggesting the stock could rise back to the $700[9] level should the board pushes even bigger share buybacks.

A class-action suit was filed against Microsoft (MSFT[10]) alleging that MSFT provided misleading sales data for the Surface RT tablet. Microsoft took a $900 million inventory write-off on the tablets in its last quarter. MSFT shares lost more than 1% early before rebounding to a fractional gain.

Earnings notables for Thursday include Walmart (WMT[11]), Nordstrom and Kohl’s (KSS[12]).

Three Up

• Brocade Communications (BRCD[13]): Up 15.8% ($1.09) to $7.99.
• MannKind (MNKD[14]): Up 10.6% (73 cents) to $7.59.
• Kinross Gold (KGC[15]): Up 7.2% (39 cents) to $5.78.

Three Down

• Cree (CREE[16]): Down 22.2% ($16.85) to $59.91.
• Tripadvisor (TRIP[17]): Down 9.2% ($7.41) to $73.55.
• Moody’s (MCO[18]): Down 6% ($3.50) to $65.50.

Marc Bastow is an Assistant Editor at InvestorPlace.com. As of this writing, he was long AAPL and MSFT.

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2013/08/macys-seaworld-seas-aapl-market-recap/

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