Stock Market Today: Boeing, Tesla Tumble on More Worries

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Tech was slugged, while the broader indices tried to stop the flow of selling on Thursday. Everything from Ford (NYSE:F), to Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) to Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) was weighing on investor sentiment in the stock market today.

stock market today

With a huge chunk of the market reporting earnings this week, investor focus on the Fed seems to be fading. That’s particularly true with four stocks — Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) — reporting after the close. They represent almost 7% of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA:SPY) and more than 22% of the PowerShares QQQ ETF (NASDAQ:QQQ).

In early after-hours trading, all but Amazon are up rather significantly.

Given this, you can see why next week’s Fed announcement isn’t in focus. However, it will surely be something to focus in a few days.

Winners in the Stock Market Today

Not everything was under pressure on Thursday. In fact, several stocks put together strong moves. Even though World Wrestling Entertainment (NYSE:WWE) missed revenue expectations, earnings topped estimates. This sent shares ripping higher, climbing by more than 8% on the day.

Nokia (NYSE:NOK) isn’t a name we discuss too often, but after shares rallied 10% on the day it’s worth looking at. The company beat on top- and bottom-line estimates and reiterated its full-year guidance. The results already drew an upgrade too, with Raymond James analysts going from an outperform rating to a strong buy. They also set a price target of $7.50, implying more than 30% upside.

After some disappointing data on Wednesday after the close, Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY) was again under more selling pressure. The stock fell about 4% in after-hours trading, which would have made new 52-week lows if it opened there this morning.

However, the company reported a top- and bottom-line earnings beat Thursday morning, as revenue rose 10% year-over-year. Management also bumped its full-year earnings guidance. Apparently ~10 times current earnings and a 3.8% dividend yield is too attractive to turn down for investors. The rally is also giving a lift to Celgene (NASDAQ:CELG), which is in the midst of being acquired by BMY in a cash-and-stock deal.

Finally, Crowdstrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) shares are up 6% and hitting new all-time highs. The recent IPO was one of our top picks as a breakout trade last week and it’s on to even higher prices now. The company beat on earnings and revenue expectations, sending shares higher. However, the stock did back off some of its earlier gains, perhaps as the guidance midpoints were a bit light compared to consensus expectations.

Today’s Losers

On a day where the Nasdaq shed 1% and the Russell fell 1.2%, there’s no shortage of losers to pick from.

Boeing (NYSE:BA) was one of the larger standouts, even though it fell “just” 3.7%. The stock is below vital support, as airlines continue to delay putting the plane back into use. Making matters worse, Boeing said it will not bid on the Pentagon’s $60 billion program.

That leaves Northrop Grumman (NYSE:NOC) as the sole bidder, and shares jumped 3.4% in response. The contract is for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program, and Boeing said it believes NOC has an unfair advantage to win the bid. However, some analysts argued that costs and missed income due to the 737-MAX debacle is the real reason for not pursuing such a large contract.

David Einhorn, one of the better short-selling hedge fund managers out there, is apparently targeting corporate debt. The well-known investor is shorting junk and investment-grade corporate debt. While it’s thought to be a hedge against his bullish holdings, it does raise a few eyebrows about what he must think for low-grade corporate credit.

Tesla’s Results

Pivoting to one of Einhorn’s short holdings is Tesla. The stock plunged 13.6% on the day after the company missed on both profit and revenue expectations. The stock setup is pretty simple from this point, given that resistance has shown up exactly where we expected it to.

Non-GAAP automotive margins slid to 18.9% in Q2, down from 20.2% in Q1 and 20.6% year-over-year. That’s not too surprising given the higher mix and lower selling price of the Model 3 vs. the Model S and X. More than 81% of Q2 deliveries consisted of the Model 3, according to Tesla.

While Tesla did not generate a profit — losing over $400 million — it did generate more than $600 million in free cash flow and ended the quarter with $5 billion in cash. It didn’t help sentiment that long-time c-suite member, CTO and co-founder JB Straubel is stepping down from his post.

Bret Kenwell is the manager and author of Future Blue Chips and is on Twitter @BretKenwell. As of this writing, Bret Kenwell is long AMZN, GOOGL and CELG. 

Bret Kenwell is the manager and author of Future Blue Chips and is on Twitter @BretKenwell.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2019/07/stock-market-today-boeing-tesla-tumble-on-more-worries/.

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