The bulls made a respectable effort at digging the market out of the hole it started in today, but when all was said and done, the S&P 500 finished the day at 2,063.59, down 0.65%, on relatively little news.
Unfortunately for owners of H & R Block Inc (NYSE:HRB), United Natural Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:UNFI) and Qualcomm, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM), the market wasn’t nearly as lenient. Here’s what went wrong for each one.
H & R Block Inc. (HRB)
Third-quarter earnings season isn’t quite over yet, as owners of H & R Block learned the hard way today. HRB shares fell 7% after the company reported a fiscal Q2 loss that was even bigger than the one analysts had predicted.
All told, H & R Block lost 51 cents per share on revenue of $128 million last quarter, versus analyst estimates for a loss of only 48 cents per share of HRB and a top line of $132.1 million. Sales rolled in bigger than the year-ago revenue total of $112 million, though the year-over-year loss widened from the loss of 41 cents per share booked in the second fiscal quarter of last year.
Clearly expenses were up, but H & R Block specifically noted costs associated with a bank divestiture and a capital restructuring.
Qualcomm, Inc. (QCOM)
Did Qualcomm actually unfairly muscle chipmaker Icera — now part of NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) — over the past few years by paying a smartphone and tablet maker to not use any Icera chips? Maybe, or maybe not, but the truth was irrelevant today. QCOM shares fell nearly 6% on Tuesday, as the court of public opinion wasn’t taking any chances that Qualcomm actually did what the antitrust arm of the European Union said it did.
Simultaneously, Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission has launched an official investigation of QCOM on concerns that its patent licensing agreements made with Taiwanese partners may also violate fair trade laws.
United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI)
Last but not least, the growing headwind that Whole Foods Market, Inc. (NASDAQ:WFM) has been facing has now become a problem for United Natural Foods.
United Natural Foods, a wholesale grocery supplier to Whole Foods Market, reported disappointing earnings after the market closed on Monday. Specifically, the company earned 63 cents per share on sales of $2.02 billion, versus estimates of a profit of 67 cents per share of UNFI and revenue of $2.08 billion. Though it was only the first fiscal quarter of the year, the company went ahead and lowered its earnings and sales outlook for the current fiscal year ending in July.
Fanning the bearish flames that burned UNFI investors today was a downgrade from Barclays, from “equal-weight” to “underweight.” Along with that downgrade, Barclays analyst Meredith Adler lowered her price target on UNFI from $51 to $39.
UNFI closed 16% lower on Tuesday, at $36.91.
As of this writing, James Brumley did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
