The bulls may have been laying low on Friday, but they certainly came out of the woodwork today. The market managed to dole out another gain on Monday, and in so doing, most indices mustered a close above some critical moving average lines that were starting to look like resistance levels. The S&P 500 finished the day at 2,102.44, up 0.52%.
For Estee Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE:EL), KKR & Co. L.P. (NYSE:KKR) and Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX) shareholders, though, Monday was much, much worse. Here’s why.
Estee Lauder Companies (EL)
The good news: Estee Lauder Companies managed to top its earnings estimates for its recently-ended fiscal fourth quarter. The bad news: That’s the only good news there was about last quarter’s numbers.
When all was said and done, cosmetics company earned 40 cents per share on $2.52 billion in sales. Analysts, however, were calling for a profit of 34 cents per share of EL stock on $2.55 billion in revenue. Either way, sales and profits were down year-over-year, by 7% and 39%, respectively. Skin care was a particular sore spot. Sales for the company’s skin care division slumped 16% on a year-over-year basis.
EL shares lost nearly 7% on the news.
Chevron (CVX)
Just for the record, Chevron was hardly the only oil name to take a sizable loss on Monday. Among the large cap names in the energy space, though, CVX did dish out the most anguish. Its 2% tumble was the worst performance among the majors, and there was plenty of volume behind the pullback.
The spark for the selloff from CVX, of course, was yet another dip in crude oil prices. Oil lost another 1.0% of its value today, moving to a close near $42.70 per barrel. At that price, crude is at prices not seen since early 2009.
CVX shareholders can blame their friends in the Far East this time around. An economic slowdown in Japan last quarter coupled with ongoing concerns that China’s economy is hitting a wall were pegged as the reasons for today’s weakness.
KKR & Co. L.P. (KKR)
Last but not least, though CVX shares have suffered in the wake of tepid oil priced, at least Chevron is still around. Some of the smaller explorers, drillers, and middlemen who aren’t as well-funded or well-shielded aren’t surviving.
Case in point? Samson Resources Corp. Samson — a sizable holding in the portfolio of energy investment fund KKR & Co. L.P. — reported today that it plans to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy approximately a month from now. The filing would virtually eliminate any lingering value Samson had to KKR, wiping away the investment company’s $4.1 billion investment made in Samson four years ago, and sending KKR shares lower to the tune of 3%.
Smason CEO Randy Limbacher said “We, like many of our peers, have not been able to overcome industry headwinds that significantly reduced our cash flows, limited our ability to reinvest in our assets and prevented us selling non-core assets as we had planned.”
As of this writing, James Brumley did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
