If one simply opened up their investing app or glanced at a financial news summary for Friday, it would look like a quiet session in the stock market today.
The S&P 500 was up less than 0.02%, in what appeared to be a sleepy trading session ahead of a three-day holiday weekend. However, it was a much different mood under the surface. With several large earnings movers, there were plenty of debates to be had on Friday.
Earnings Roundup
It has been a long time coming, but Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) shares are finally hitting new all-time highs. Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD), the Nasdaq and big tech have been doing it for months now, but Nvidia hadn’t made a new high since October 2018.
Patient investors are finally being rewarded. Nvidia beat on earnings and revenue expectations, and even after accounting for a $100 million revenue hit in fiscal Q1, the midpoint of management’s sales outlook still topped expectations. Nvidia’s charts have momentum, and so too does it business.
The company is already seeing a multitude of price target hikes following the report (with 14 calls at $300 or higher on Friday alone). The highest came from RBC and Merrill Lynch, with both targets at $350.
Roku (NASDAQ:ROKU) was a different story. The company beat on earnings and revenue expectations, as the streaming theme continues to drive growth. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Disney (NASDAQ:DIS) launching new platforms didn’t hurt, either.
Guidance was solid, but management is foregoing profits at the moment and chasing growth. While long-term investors seem okay with the plan, short-term investors and analysts are bemoaning the lower-than-expected EBITDA outlook. While shares gapped north of $150 in morning trading, the stock reversed and declined notably lower on the day, down about 7% ahead of the close.
Then there’s Canopy Growth (NYSE:CGC). The stock is ripping more than 15% after better-than-expected fiscal third-quarter results. A loss of 35 cents CAD per share beat estimates by 14 cents, while revenue of 123.76 million CAD grew 49% year-over-year and beat estimates by almost 19 million CAD.
Both Roku and Canopy Growth made our Top Stock Trades column on Friday.
Movers in the Stock Market Today
A plethora of 13F filings should be rolling in soon, but we’ve got a look at Dan Loeb’s Third Point holdings. The firm took new positions in Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Ferrari (NYSE:RACE), as well as Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW) and TD Ameritrade (NASDAQ:AMTD), which are in a takeover deal.
Also noteworthy, Loeb’s fund exited Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL), among others.
Video games sales just can’t catch a break. Sales experienced a year-over-year decline for the sixth straight month, falling 26% in January. Hardware sales struggled too, falling 35% to $129 million, while software dropped more than 30% to $311 million.
Activision Blizzard’s (NASDAQ:ATVI) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare came in at No. 2, following Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot as No. 1. Electronic Arts’ (NASDAQ:EA) Madden 20 and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order came in at No. 3 and No. 4, respectively.
SmileDirectClub (NASDAQ:SDC) plunged more than 15% following an NBC news report highlighting some customers’ problems with the company’s dental aligners. It has faced negative press in the past, drawing on some members of Congress to request an investigation about potential misleading customers.
The company has since pushed back on the report, but it doesn’t matter. Shares are getting whacked as a result.
Whoops. Bernstein analysts previously estimated that Beyond Meat (NYSE:BYND) could generate $168 million in sales with a McDonald’s (NASDAQ:MCD) partnership. After crunching some more numbers though, they took that sales figure up to a range of $227 million to $306 million.
As a result, they raised their price target to $117 from $106, while Beyond Meat stock climbed more than 3.5% on the day.
Bret Kenwell is the manager and author of Future Blue Chips and is on Twitter @BretKenwell. As of this writing, Bret Kenwell is long NVDA and ROKU.