U.S. markets began the day on fairly solid footing as the Labor Department reported that 257,000 jobs were created in January, exceeding the estimates of 230,000. Average hourly earnings were up 0.5% and the unemployment rate rose to 5.7%.
But markets weakened thereafter as talks between Greece and Germany were reportedly not going very well, and Standard & Poor’s downgraded its rating on Greece from B to B-minus.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 each lost 0.3%, while the Nasdaq Composite was off by 0.4%. Financials were the strongest sector today, but they, along with all of the major sectors, still finished in the red.
Despite the overall weakness, several stocks did manage to post excellent results, including Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC), Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) and Buffalo Wild Wings (NASDAQ:BWLD). Perhaps those who made money on BAC’s stock gain were tweeting their friends to meet them at BWLD for a celebratory dinner!
Bank of America (NYSE:BAC)
Bank stocks got a boost today from the good jobs report. Investors speculated that the Federal Reserve would soon have to raise short-term interest rates, which would help the banks’ interest rate margins. BAC stock was quite strong as a result, climbing more than 3%, and also gained a boost from an upgrade from Portales Partners, which upgraded BAC stock from “sector perform” to “outperform.” No price target was given for the stock, however.
Twitter Inc (TWTR)
TWTR stock blasted up more than 16% after posting strong earnings late yesterday, and revenue that beat the estimates. However, slowing user growth and some lost users that were blamed on an Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) software bug still concerned analysts.
TWTR reported fourth-quarter EPS of 12 cents a share, 2 cents better than a year earlier and 6 cents better than the Street was expecting. Revenue was up a huge 97% to $479 million, far ahead of the estimates for $453.4 million.
The mysterious lost subscribers were blamed on Apple’s new iOS 8 software. A Twitter executive later backed off that statement somewhat, as many thought it was a bit far-fetched.
Buffalo Wild Wings (BWLD)
The restaurant chain with the spicy hot wings missed on fourth-quarter earnings estimates, but impressed analysts anyway with a 19.7% increase in annual revenue, a projected 12% rise in 2015 sales and a recent price increase. The company also expects their earnings to grow by 18% in 2015.
As a result BWLD stock was 7% higher today, hitting a 52-week high, even after posting fourth-quarter earnings of $1.07 a share, 2 cents below analysts’ estimates. BWLD stock is up about 55% since last October.
As of this writing, Ethan Roberts did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
