U.S. markets traded lower today, despite some good news being reported on the economic front.
After a down month in January, the U.S. Consumer Price index (CPI) was 0.2% higher in February, which met expectations. Another positive was a Commerce Department report showing new home sales were up 7.8% to 539,000, the highest level in seven years.
Strength in the U.S. dollar, which has been causing a good deal of angst recently, was a problem again as the dollar was trading flat to slightly higher against the euro. That seemed to spoil the party for the markets in the afternoon.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 both lost 0.6%, while the Nasdaq Composite was off 0.3%. All the individual sectors were somewhat in the red today.
Despite the sluggish general market, several stocks found the winner’s circle, among them Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR), Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Abiomed, Inc. (ABMD), all which were three of today’s best stocks.
Twitter Inc (TWTR)
TWTR stock advanced 6.2% today after disclosing a new partnership with Foursquare that will allow Twitter users to add a specific location to their tweets.
Twitter users have previously been able to give general locations, but now they will be able to use the Foursquare specific location feature as well.
TWTR stock broke out of a seven-week sideways base on the news.
Netflix, Inc. (NFLX)
A pair of price upgrades pushed NFLX stock 3.1% higher today. Barclay’s raised its price target on NFLX from $400 to $450 a share while reiterating its equal weight rating.
Not to be outdone, Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. raised its price target from $450 to $500, and called NFLX the “clear winner” in the current trend of unbundling television services. Analyst Youssef Squali noted that compared with HBO Now — operated by the Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX) subsidiary — NFLX offers a much less expensive service and spends more money on providing an assortment of content.
During the first few weeks of March, NFLX stock pulled back from $480 to $419, but seems to have caught a tailwind within the past week.
Abiomed, Inc. (ABMD)
Another day and another biotech stock is running up the charts on good news. ABMD stock blistered up 18% to a new high after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved its Impella 2.5 heart pump.
The FDA had already approved Impella in 2008, but had reclassified it as a class III device, meaning it was a high-risk device that is therefore subject to more regulatory control. So that left it to ABMD to run additional clinical trials to support Impella’s safe use for angioplasty.
The present market for this device ranges from 50,000 to 150,000 patients, and should give ABMD a real boost in earnings.
As of this writing, Ethan Roberts does not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
