Stocks were trading mostly higher Monday following the
S&P 500
‘s third-consecutive losing week.
Nvidia
‘s earnings report this week will be a highlight as will remarks from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell at the central bank’s annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo.
These stocks were making moves Monday:
Palo Alto Networks
(ticker: PANW), the cybersecurity, topped fiscal fourth-quarter earnings expectations, and its profit forecast for the first quarter also beat estimates. Palo Alto said Friday it expects first-quarter billings of $2.05 billion to $2.08 billion, up 17% to 19%. The company’s fiscal 2024 forecasts for adjusted earnings and billings also were better than expectations. The stock was rising 15% and was the best performer in the
S&P 500.
Fellow cybersecurity stocks also were trading higher, with
CrowdStrike
(CRWD) up 4.9% and
Zscaler
(ZS) up 4.3%.
Napco Security Technologies
(NSSC), which makes electronic security equipment and wireless communication devices for intrusion and fire alarm systems, was falling 45% after saying it identified errors related to the calculation of cost of goods sold and inventory for each of the first three quarters of fiscal 2023. Napco said inventories were overstated and cost of goods sold was understated “resulting in overstated gross profit, operating income and net income for each period.”
AMC Entertainment
(AMC) fell 24% ahead of the movie-theater chain’s planned stock conversion. The conversion of AMC Preferred Equity units will result in the trading of a single AMC common share class and is part of the company’s battle to eliminate debt.
Nikola
(NKLA) was falling 22% after the electric truck maker said it “may incur significant expenses” from the voluntary recall of more than 200 of its EVs and “there can be no assurance as to when we will be able to resume production of our BEV trucks.” Separately, the company announced plans to offer $325 million in senior convertible bonds in a registered direct offering.
Earthstone Energy
(ESTE) was rising 13% after
Permian Resources
(PR) agreed to acquire the energy company in an all-stock transaction valued at about $4.5 billion. Permian shares gained 0.1%.
U.S.-listed shares of
XPeng
(XPEV) were rising 9.6% to $16.42 after analysts at BofA raised their recommendation on the Chinese electric-vehicle maker to Buy from Neutral and lifted the price target to $22 from $16.30. The stock fell 4.3% on Friday after reporting second-quarter earnings and issuing solid third-quarter guidance.
EV giant
Tesla
(TSLA) was rising 6.1%. The stock has dropped for 13 out of the past 14 days. Analysts at Baird placed the company on its list of “best ideas” after second-quarter earnings.
Nvidia
(NVDA) was up 6.4%. Expectations are riding high for the chip maker’s earnings on Wednesday. The chip maker has found itself a key beneficiary of the investing frenzy over artificial intelligence.
Broadcom
(AVGO) rose 4.1% and
VMware
(VMW) gained 5.1% after the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority cleared
Broadcom
‘s acquisition of the cloud infrastructure company.
Write to Joe Woelfel at [email protected]
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