With nothing explicit to suggest they shouldn’t, and inspired by a fantastic reading on the Michigan Sentiment Index, stocks continued to rally on Friday. The S&P 500‘s close of 2,259.53 was not only 0.59% better than Thursday’s last trade, but it was a record high close as well.
The rally effort didn’t carry every stock higher with it, though. Swift Transportation Co (NYSE:SWFT), Duluth Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:DLTH) and Newmont Mining Corp (NYSE:NEM) still managed to end the day oddly deep in the red.
Here’s the deal.
Newmont Mining Corp (NEM)
Most gold mining stocks ended the day rather deep in the red, with Barrick Gold Corporation (USA) (NYSE:ABX) losing 2.9% of its value, and Goldcorp Inc. (USA) (NYSE:GG) off by 2.4%. Newmont Mining was the worst of the worst though, with NEM falling 3.2%, quelling a feeble turnaround effort.
The prod for the pullback from NEM and its peers was the 1.0% tumble in the price of gold, which stemmed from the 0.5% improvement in the value of the U.S. dollar. In that gold is priced in dollars and gold-miners are highly levered to gold prices, even a small shift in the price of gold can have a huge impact on the companies that mine it.
It wasn’t just gold miners the rising dollar upended, however. Most commodity names took one on the chin on Friday. The biggest of the large-cap losers was ArcelorMittal SA (ADR) (NYSE:MT). The 6.4% dip MT shares suffered made the meltdown from NEM look tame.
Duluth Holdings Inc (DLTH)
While owners of NEM and other gold miners had it tough on Friday, they didn’t have it as tough as Duluth Holdings owners had it. DLTH was sent a stunning 23% lower after the company failed to meet last quarter’s revenue estimates, and poured salt in the wound with a miserable outlook for the quarter currently underway.
In its third fiscal quarter of the year, Duluth Holdings earned a penny per share on sales of $67 million. Analysts, however, were calling for a top line of $69 million. The company topped earnings estimates for a breakeven, but that profit was still short of the 4 cents per share of DLTH the company booked a year earlier.
The revision to the full-year outlook was even more alarming. The company now anticipates reporting 2016 revenue of between $360 million and $370 million, versus analyst estimates of $380.1 million. Those same analysts were also planning on a profit of 70 cents per share of DLTH, but Duluth Holdings only expects to report a 2016 bottom line of between 52 and 60 cents per share.
Swift Transportation Co (SWFT)
Last but not least, Swift Transportation gave up 7.7% of its value on Friday after issuing an earnings warning for the full year. The transportation outfit now foresees a profit of between $1.20 and $1.30 per share, versus analyst estimates of $1.32. The first quarter of the year isn’t expected to be so hot either. Swift Transportation projects it will report adjusted per-share income of between 13 and 18 cents per share.
Rival Knight Transportation (NYSE:KNX) fell 6.4% in sympathy.
As of this writing, James Brumley did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
