Energy and retail stocks, led by department store operators, lifted U.S. equities to another batch of all-time highs. Oil’s gain was its best in three months.
The S&P 500 rose 0.47% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average also hit a record on its way to a Thursday gain of 0.64%. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.46%.
A round of earnings reports that delighted investors sent Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA), Brinker International, Inc. (NYSE:EAT) and Macy’s Inc (NYSE:M) into the best stocks of the day club.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA)
Shares of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd soared 5.1% on more than quadruple the average daily volume after the company reported second-quarter results that beat analysts’ estimates.
For the June quarter, BABA earned 74 cents per share on sales of $4.84 billion. Analysts expected BABA to earn 63 cents a share on revenue of $4.53 billion. On a year-over-year basis, Alibaba’s sales climbed 59%.
Investors appeared excited by the company’s mobile growth, which surged 39% to 427 million users, up from 410 million users in the first quarter. “We passed an important milestone this quarter in achieving higher monetization of mobile users than non-mobile users for the first time,” said Alibaba CFO Maggie Wu.
“Alibaba said gross merchandise volume (GMV) — or the value of goods and services sold across its multiple e-commerce platforms used by businesses and individuals — topped $126 billion, up 24%, with mobile accounting for 75%,” reports Investor’s Business Daily.
BABA is the largest e-commerce company in China.
Brinker International, Inc. (EAT)
Brinker International, the operator of Chili’s Grill & Bar and Maggiano’s Little Italy, among other restaurant chains, climbed 12.2% on more than four times the usual turnover after the company fiscal fourth-quarter results that topped Wall Street estimates.
On an adjusted basis, Texas-based EAT earned $1.24 per share. Analysts expected Brinker to earn $1.23. The company also reported quarterly sales of $881.7 million, ahead of the $875.5 million analysts forecast.
Wyman Roberts, chief executive officer and president, said, “We are also encouraged by the early results of our fiscal year 2017 initiatives. The strong cash flow generation of our business model gives us confidence to increase our leverage and return additional capital to shareholders.”
For the full year, Brinker expects to earn $3.40 to $3.50 per share.
Macy’s Inc (M)
Shares of department store operator Macy’s Inc surged 17.1% on more than five times the average volume after the company reported second-quarter results that beat estimates. M also announced a round of store closures, a move investors cheered.
For the second quarter, Macy’s earned 54 cents a share on sales of $5.87 billion. Analysts were expecting a profit of 40 cents on sales of $5.75 billion. Macy’s said same-store sales declined 2%.
Macy’s also said it plans to shutter 100 stores next year as it bolsters its online footprint. That is about 14% of its locations.
At the time of this writing, Todd Shriber did not own any of the aforementioned securities.
