Friday saw U.S. stocks plunge, but all major markets were on the rise big-time Monday thanks to dovish sentiment from the Federal Reserve. The S&P 500 surged 1.5%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.3% and the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.7%.
Several stocks were on the move ahead of Tuesday’s bell, including Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (NYSE:APC), United Natural Foods (NASDAQ:UNFI) and Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX).
Here’s what investors and traders need to know heading into today:
Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (APC)
Anadarko shares slipped Monday as the company announced that it is buying oil and gas assets from Freeport-McMoRan Inc (NYSE:FCX).
The oil company is looking to expand its presence in offshore oil by acquiring $2 billion worth of assets from Freeport-McMoRan in the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, the latter hopes the move will help to lower its debt and streamline operations to focus on its copper production.
The agreement will net Anadarko 91 drilling blocks in the Gulf, helping the company double its oil resources to 155,000 barrels a day.
Additionally, Anadarko announced a stock offering north of 35 million shares, which will help improve the company’s cash flow to complete the deal.
APC stock was off 4% this morning, while FCX shares were off more than 1%.
Netflix, Inc. (NFLX)
NFLX shares were reversing course early Tuesday morning thanks to a downgrade from Macquarie analyst Tim Nollen.
Nollen knocked Netflix stock down to “Underperform” on worries about — surprise, surprise — competition. Specifically, Nollen has concerns about NFLX’s market penetration rates amid a host of other streaming options out on the market.
Meanwhile, he’s also worried about another persistent bugaboo for Netflix: increased content costs.
Nollen actually is bullish on Netflix long-term, but that’s little consolation to investors who have sold NFLX shares off by about 2% this morning. At the open, Netflix should find itself down by about 15% for the year-to-date.
United Natural Foods (UNFI)
UNFI was up a couple percent after releasing its fiscal fourth-quarter report Monday afternoon.
The organic foods maker topped estimates, earning 69 cents per share on an adjusted basis versus the 63 cents a share that Wall Street projected. Revenue came at $2.21 billion, falling just $10 million short of the consensus estimate.
CEO Steve Spinner commented on the company’s future, saying United Natural Foods has teamed up with quality distributors, putting it in a good position to improve sales and profitability.
For the current fiscal year, the company expects earnings to be in the range of $2.53 a share to $2.63 per share. Net sales are slated to be around $9.43 billion to $9.60 billion, ahead of the $9.40 billion estimate.
UNFI shares were up about 2% in Tuesday’s premarket trade.
