Retail stocks plagued the broader market Wednesday, sending indices lower despite rising commodities prices and a weaker dollar. The S&P 500 lost nearly 1%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite each lost slightly more than a percent.
Emerging markets benchmarks rose along with 10-year U.S. Treasurys on a day that saw the S&P 500 post its first loss in four sessions.
Stocks tanked Tuesday, but strong earnings reports sent Albemarle Corporation (NYSE:ALB), Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:EA) and World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:WWE) soaring.
Albemarle Corporation (ALB)
Specialty chemicals makers Albemarle jumped 10% on nearly quadruple the average daily volume after the company reported an adjusted first-quarter profit of $1.12 per share, easily beating the 85 cents a share analysts expected ALB to earn.
ALB’s revenue for the quarter was $865.4 million, which also easily beat the Wall Street estimate of $811.3 million. The Louisiana-based chemicals company forecast full-year EPS of $3.90 to $4.25 on revenue of $3.3 billion to $3.6 billion.
Electronic Arts (EA)
Shares of game giant Electronic Arts climbed 13.7% on almost seven times the normal turnover after the company posted fiscal fourth-quarter earnings of 50 cents a share. Analysts expected EA to earn 42 cents for the period.
EA’s revenue for the quarter was $924 million. Analysts expected EA to report sales of $889 million. For fiscal 2017, EA expects to earn $3.50 a share on sales of $4.9 billion. Analysts are expecting EA to earn $3.50 a share on revenue of $4.83 billion.
Digital net revenues saw an 18% gain from the year-ago period to $712 million on a non-GAAP basis, while packaged-good net sales dropped 28% to $212 million.
World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE)
World Wrestling Entertainment gained 3.7% on heavy volume after the company’s first-quarter earnings and revenue topped Wall Street estimates. For the first quarter, WWE earned 18 cents a share, up from 13 cents a year earlier. Analysts expected WWE to earn 13 cents per share.
WWE revenue fell to $171.1 million from $176.2 million. Analysts expected WWE to post revenue of $169.8 million.
WWE forecast second-quarter paid subscribers of 1.5 million, up from 1.29 million in the first quarter.
At the time of this writing, Todd Shriber did not any own of the aforementioned securities.
