Stock Market Today: Video Games Surge; Amazon to $4,000?

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Bears have been taking the air out of the market these past few days, as equities declined in the stock market today. After slipping 1.8% on Monday, the S&P 500 fell an additional 3.1% on Tuesday.

It’s got many investors wondering if the market has run too far, too fast. While growth has plateaued in confirmed novel coronavirus cases in the United States, the country still faces widespread economic uncertainty. The Federal Reserve is printing money as fast as it can and the public is getting restless.

A few outside factors don’t seem to help. First, earnings season is really starting to ramp up. Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) and Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) both traded lower after reporting earnings before the open. Traders have their eyes on Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX), Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE:CMG) and Snap (NYSE:SNAP), which report after the close.

Additionally, AT&T (NYSE:T), Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL), Biogen (NASDAQ:BIIB) and others report on Wednesday before the open. We previewed the NFLX and CMG charts in the Top Stock Trades column as well.

Earnings are one thing after a long stretch of volatility, but oil is another. A day after oil futures went negative for the first time in history, volatility wracked the market again. Sellers turned to the June contract, slamming the bid and sending the commodity lower by 40% at one point, below $10 per share. As the market works on a balance between supply and demand, investors can expect heavy volatility.

Heard on the Street

Citi lowered Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) to second place behind its newly appointed top pick, Marvell Technology (NASDAQ:MRVL). Analyst Atif Malik thinks the demand for 5G network paired with its “design win momentum” will keep Marvell going strong. The analyst is still bullish on both companies and maintains a “buy” rating on each.

Jefferies just raised Amazon’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) price target to a Street-high $2,800, up from $2,300, and maintains it as top large-cap pick. Analyst Brent Thill believes the company is on its way to trading at $4,000 based on a sum-of-the-parts analysis.

Robinhood named its top 10 stocks bought on its platform in March. The list includes, Inovio (NASDAQ:INO), Ford (NYSE:F), American Airlines (NASDAQ:AAL), Boeing (NYSE:BA), Carnival (NYSE:CCL), General Electric (NYSE:GE), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Disney (NYSE:DIS), Aurora Cannabis (NYSE:ACB) and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA). The company’s co-CEO stated that there was a 60% increase of buying activity in March compared to the previous month.

Movers in the Stock Market Today

AT&T’s HBO Max will launch on May 27 at $14.99 per month. Customers who already have an HBO subscription through HBO, AT&T or Charter (NASDAQ:CHTR) will have no extra charge for HBO Max. The new streaming platform will offer a variety of content, including everything from Warner Bros. movies to original series and third-party content.

The service will launch with about 10,000 hours of content to watch. It will also includes Friends, which was one of the top-watched shows on Netflix before HBO and AT&T decided not to renew their agreement.

Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND) rose 7.4% in the stock market today after it cut a deal with Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) in China. Tomorrow Starbucks will roll out its new menu, including Beyond Meat items such as Beyond Beef classic lasagna, Beyond Beef pesto pasta and a Beyond Beef spicy-and-sour wrap.

After a seven-month decline in year-over-year sales, video game sales are officially on a rebound as stay-at-home orders drive demand. Total sales came in at $1.6 billion, showing a 35% increase year-over-year. It was the best March sales figure in more than a decade. Nintendo (OTCMKTS:NTDOY) Switch doubled its sales from a year ago and set a new March record, while Sony’s (NYSE:SNE) Playstation 4 and Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Xbox One both increased sales more than 25%.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) reportedly wants to increase its iPhone production to 213 million phones through next March. Although some investors are anticipating lower demand due to the coronavirus, Apple plans on splitting the production between the iPhone SE and the new 5G phones coming in the fall.

Bret Kenwell is the manager and author of Future Blue Chips and is on Twitter @BretKenwell. As of this writing, Kenwell is long T, DIS and AAPL. 

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


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2020/04/stock-market-today-video-games-surge-amazon-to-4000/.

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