It was a triple-whammy on Thursday, with investors waking up to a gap-up open in the stock market today. It took The Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 to new all-time highs, as the bulls continue to flex their muscles.
Initially, stocks surged near the open, pushing higher as China and the U.S. each push to sign the phase one agreement. Both countries would like to put pen to paper on this deal and begin moving forward. For everyone else’s sake — from individual investors to entire countries caught up in the collateral damage — they’d like that too.
However, some negative trade-related headlines spooked investors later in the day, causing a bulk of those gains to disappear by the close. As we hover near all-time highs, it may not be too surprising to see the markets pull back a bit.
Movers in the Stock Market Today
Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX), voiced his favorite metric for analyzing the company’s business. That is, total subscriber viewing time, which he says is a better metric than total subscribers or total subscribers growth. Also worth mentioning is that noted short seller Citron Research is no longer bearish on the company. In fact, they’re bullish.
At its “Un-carrier” event, T-Mobile (NASDAQ:TMUS) announced it will launch its 5G network on Dec. 6. Along with the 5G launch, it will also roll out a prepaid plan at $15 per month, which includes unlimited talk and text and 2GB hi-speed data or 5GB month at $25 per month. The company also said it’s open to an extension of T-Mobile’s acquisition of Sprint (NYSE:S) and possibly even a price renegotiation.
Roku (NASDAQ:ROKU) shares took it on the chin Thursday, down over 16%. The decline comes after Roku beat on earnings and revenue expectations, and upped its full-year guidance (again).
Who sells a stock down 16% on a beat-and-raise quarter? Well, first Roku did nip its EBITDA forecast down by $5 million, as it adjusts costs from a recent acquisition, among other things. It also comes amid a general disdain toward growth stocks. Shopify (NYSE:SHOP), Twilio (NYSE:TWLO) and others have been under tremendous pressure, good quarters or not. Eventually the selling will subside, but these names are under fire right now.
Sidestepping some of that pain is Square (NYSE:SQ), which rallied 5% after reporting its third-quarter results. Earnings of 25 cents per share beat estimates by 5 cents, while revenue of $602.2 million topped estimates by $5.3 million and grew almost 40% year-over-year. That said, it’s not as if Square stock hasn’t had issues of its own. The stock is still down over 35% from its all-time highs just over a year ago.
Square and Roku were on the Top Stock Trades list from Thursday.
Heard on the Street
Citi raised Regeneron (NASDAQ:REGN) to a “buy” with a price target of $420. With shares trading near $326, the target implies upside of 28.8%.
Evercore analysts cut their price target on Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) to $25 from $42. The stock is down big after reporting earnings last month, but the target still implies downside of 13.8%.
Not as well known as Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs, but SMBC Nikko analysts were out with some initiations on Thursday. They started Micron (NASDAQ:MU) with an outperform rating and $62 price target. They also initiated coverage on Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD), assigning a neutral rating and $36 price target.
Bret Kenwell is the manager and author of Future Blue Chips and is on Twitter @BretKenwell. As of this writing, Bret Kenwell is long ROKU.
