U.S. stocks soared Tuesday with some help from two marquee sectors — technology and financial services. The two largest sector weights in the S&P 500 rallied today, helping send the benchmark U.S. equity index higher by 1.37%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 1.22% while the Nasdaq Composite jumped 2%.
The financial services sector, the second-largest sector allocation in the S&P 500, is rallying as investors come to grips with the notion that the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates for the first time this year next month.
With stocks enjoying one of their best days in weeks, Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX), Toll Brothers Inc (NYSE:TOL) and Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX) were among Tuesday’s brightest stars.
Netflix, Inc. (NFLX)
Shares of Netflix rose nearly 3.2% after the company said it is becoming the exclusive pay TV host for recent content from Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS). The deal with DIS, which starts in September, also gives NFLX access to content from Marvel, Lucas Films and Pixar.
NFLX and DIS have previously had smaller content-sharing partnerships, but the deal announced today is seen as a serious threat to NFLX competitors, including Hulu.
The NFLX deal with DIS starts with movies released this year, meaning any DIS films released in 2015 and earlier will not be included on NFLX.
Toll Brothers Inc (TOL)
Homebuilder Toll Brothers jumped 8.7% on volume that was more than quadruple the daily average in what was the stock’s best day in three years after the company said quarterly revenue surged 31%. TOL said fiscal second-quarter orders rose 3.2% to 1,993 units.
For its fiscal year ending Oct. 31, TOL expects to sell 5,800 to 6,300 homes. That compares with a previous forecast from TOL of 5,700 to 6,400 homes.
In the most recently completed quarter, TOL earned 51 cents a share, beating analysts’ estimate of 46 cents. TOL said revenue was $1.12 billion, which beat the Wall Street estimate of $1.04 billion.
Xilinx, Inc. (XLNX)
Shares of semiconductor maker Xilinx surged 5.7% on more than quadruple the average daily volume a day after the company’s analyst day.
Analysts did not appear overwhelmed by the XLNX analyst day, but some noted XLNX’s dominate position in the field programmable gate array (FPGA) space could make the company an attractive takeover target.
A report out Tuesday said XLNX has already received a $15 billion takeover from an unidentified suitor. XLNX reiterated fiscal 2017 revenue growth of 4% to 8%.
At the time of this writing, Todd Shriber did not own any of the aforementioned securities.
