Picking up where they left off yesterday, the bulls were fully in charge again on Wall Street, with a rally that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average climb by more than 400 points on the day. It was another round of pre-holiday celebration following the Federal Reserve’s most recent announcement that they will be patient in raising interest rates.
For the first time in several days, the direction of stocks decoupled from the price of crude oil, which fell more than 3% today. Meanwhile, the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq each ripped off gains of more than 2%. Among stocks leading the bullish charge today were Oracle Corporation (ORCL), Groupon Inc (GRPN) and Rite Aid Corporation (RAD).
Oracle Corporation (ORCL)
ORCL stock rose more than 10% on the back of yesterday’s late-afternoon earnings report that saw them earn 69 cents for the fiscal 2nd quarter, beating estimates by a penny. Quarterly sales were up 3% year-over-year, and major progress was made within its cloud computing division. Cloud revenue surged 45% to $516 million, and by doing so, ORCL has now convinced the Street that it can compete with other companies in the cloud genre. The Street actually shrugged off a 2% decline in profits.
ORCL stock, which closed today at $45.35, is now at its highest level since the year 2000.
Groupon Inc (GRPN)
GRPN stock finished up by more than 8% on 30 million shares traded, adding to its big gains from Wednesday, following comments from Omega Advisors CEO Leon Cooperman that GRPN stock is “mispriced” (i.e. undervalued) by 40% to 50%. Cooperman added that it’s a turnaround play, although it is not one of Omega’s major positions. However, it should be noted that Omega Advisors bought about 8.8 million shares of GRPN in the third quarter.
Rite Aid Corporation (RAD)
RAD stock took a giant leap forward on Thursday, gapping up 12% on heavy volume of 99.8 million shares after the drugstore chain announced third-quarter earnings that beat the Street’s view and raised its full-year outlook. Analysts had expected 5 cents per share, but RAD’s earnings were up 150% to 10 cents per share. Revenue of $6.69 billion also bested expectations of $6.64 billion, and the company raised its earnings outlook for the full year to a range of 31 cents to 37 cents. Wall Street was looking for 31 cents.
Today’s strong performance put RAD stock above the 200-day moving average for the first time since August.
As of this writing, Ethan Roberts did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
