The new trading week certainly got started on a bullish foot, with more bad news from China leading traders to conclude that stimulus was in the cards, setting up a very strong open. The longer investors thought about it though, the less enthused they became. By the time the closing bell rang, the S&P 500 was up a mere 0.05%, finishing the day at 1,881.33.
It could’ve been worse, however … you could have owned Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR), Bank of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC) or Petroleo Brasileiro SA Petrobras (NYSE:PBR). These three names finished the day with pretty serious losses. Here’s what investors need to know.
Twitter Inc (TWTR)
As if Twitter needed any other headaches to deal with, reports of global outages sent TWTR shares down about 7% on Tuesday. That brings the pullback since the late-October peak to a stunning 46%, with no end in sight.
The degree of disruption wasn’t clear, though the outage was significant enough in the U.S. and Europe that the company made an official statement (though if it didn’t provide specific details), and big enough for the media to take the story and run with it.
Truth be told, were it any other company, the service outage wouldn’t have been noteworthy, nor would that company’s stock have suffered the way Twitter shares did. TWTR, however, is a company and a stock with more problems than it seems to be able to solve at this time, and even the slightest gaffe can turn into big trouble in a matter of minutes.
Bank of America Corp. (BAC)
Based just on the numbers alone, investors could make a pretty bullish case for Bank of America today. The bank earned 28 cents per share last quarter, up from 25 cents a year earlier, and versus expectations for a profit of only 26 cents per share.
But, during the conference call, CFO Paul Donofrio made a point of saying, “Although the U.S. economy is improving slowly, revenue growth remains challenging,” and then proceeded to detail the reasons why shareholders should be worried.
Viewing the glass as half empty rather than as half full, investors pushed BAC 1.5% lower for the session.
Petroleo Brasileiro SA Petrobras (PBR)
Petroleo Brasileiro SA Petrobras — better known just as Petrobras — has once again earned a spot on the daily “worst three” list, though for the same reasons it has been here so many times of late … weak oil prices and political/economic turmoil in Brazil, where it’s based.
Today’s 1.2% dip in crude oil prices certainly didn’t help, but there’s little doubt that a dire report from the IMF posted this morning took the bulk of the toll on PBR today. Namely, the report opined that Brazil won’t see economic growth again until 2018 or later.
Petrobras is state-controlled and partially state-owned, and the country’s recent political scandals have implicated the oil giant as well. PBR simply seems to become a riskier play by the day, sending shares down nearly 8% on Tuesday.
As of this writing, James Brumley did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
