The narrow trading range among major U.S. market indexes continues as the final trading day of the week begins. As investors await stimulus relief aid to be released by the federal government, while Covid vaccines continue to ramp-up but are well off-pace of herd immunity as of yet, there is little impetus to push shares higher or lower. The Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 are all in the red to a minor degree ahead of Friday’s opening bell. Markets are on-pace for another up-week, albeit a light one.
News out of South Korea is that the largest Asian IPO since
Alibaba
BABA
is now expected:
Coupang
(CPNG), considered the Amazon meets DoorDash meets Instacart of the country, looks to be publicly traded sometime next month. The company is known for its impressive 7-hour package delivery operation, which has basically kept companies like Amazon and Alibaba from gaining a foothold in the country. SoftBank is a big investor in Coupang, and stands to make 7x its investment in the company upon going public.
Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy)-rated
American Axle
AXL
reported another big beat on its bottom line for Q4 just reported this morning. Earnings of 51 cents per share stomped the expected 30 cents in the Zacks consensus, and nearly 4x times the year-ago 13 cents per share reported. Revenues of $1.44 billion easily surpassed the $1.36 billion, swinging to positive sales growth year over year. Current-year revenue estimates of between $5.2-5.5 billion sets a new high mark, well above the $4.63 billion out analysts had been looking for.
On the other hand, Zacks Rank #4 (Sell)-rated
Dominion Energy
D
missed earnings estimates by two cents to 81 cents per share in its Q4 report, also released this morning. Revenues of $3.52 billion missed expectations by 4.1% in the quarter. This marks the second earnings miss in the past four quarters for the Atlantic Coast power giant. Shares are down a few pennies on the news, and down 1% year to date. Going back further, the stock is down 14% year over year.
It’s been a relaxed week of slightly buoyant market activity. Investors have been able to twiddle their thumbs as see modest gains across industries, as reflections on a successful Q4 earnings season settle in, with more good news to come in the quarters ahead. No major news reports of short-squeezers gripping hedge funds where it hurts, flashing visions of 400% gains in relatively forgotten stocks like
GameStop
GME
have been virtually nonexistent. Some Reddit trading in the pot stocks group, but nothing as severe as we saw in the past two weeks.
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