This week, Wall Street seems like an elevator that can’t decide which direction it should go as mixed earnings reports keep investors guessing.
Despite another handful of good earnings reports from larger-cap stocks, it was a sour GDP that set the markets off to a poor start from which they never fully recovered. The Commerce Department reported that GDP expanded at just a 2.6% annual rate, well down from the 5% GDP expansion in Q3.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 175 points this morning, tried to rally midway through the afternoon, but then completely fell apart to finish lower by 1.49%. The S&P 500 lost 1.29%, and the Nasdaq was a shade better, but still off by 0.93%.
Despite the broad move lower, a few individual names naturally headed higher. By Friday’s end, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), Visa Inc (NYSE:V) and Amazon.com, Inc. (Nasdaq:AMZN) had secured spots as some of the day’s best stocks.
Google Inc (GOOG)
Despite a disappointing fourth-quarter earnings report of $6.88 a share that missed the analysts’ target of $7.12 a share, and revenue of $18.1 billion that also missed the analysts’ forecast of $18.45, GOOG stock still rose nearly 5% today.
That’s because the company reassured analysts on a conference call that their missed earnings were due to currency fluctuations, and that the company will cut spending in 2015 (because share price matters to them).
Visa Inc (V)
V stock was “everywhere you want to be” today. The payments technology company charged up 3% higher after posting EPS of $2.53 per share, better than analysts’ forecast of $2.50. Visa has now bested earnings forecasts for five straight quarters. EPS were up 15% from the previous year. Revenue of $3.38 billion was up 7.2% year over year, but was below the Zacks estimate of $3.43 billion.
Visa also announced a 4-for-1 stock split, effective March 19.
Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN)
Amazon blew the roof off the analysts’ fourth-quarter estimates of 19 cents per share, instead announcing on Thursday evening that it earned 45 cents per share. The stock gapped up more than 13% today on 22.2 million shares.
Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated raised their price target from $340 to $380, and maintained their outperform rating on AMZN stock. Similarly, Jefferies Group LLC (NYSE:JEF) raised their price target from $380 to $400, and Benchmark from $350 to $425. Prior to today’s big surge to $354.63, AMZN stock had been trading sideways since last May. Today’s big move should have some legs going forward.
As of this writing, Ethan Roberts did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
