Wall Street stocks fell on Friday, with a pullback from their recent record as disappointing corporate earnings on Thursday and concerns about the economic outlook undermined investors' risk appetite.
Among another set of high-profile earnings reports from companies such as Alibaba (NYSE:), Roku (NASDAQ:), Cloudflare (NYSE:), DraftKings (NASDAQ:), Etsy (NASDAQ:) and Uber (NYSE: ), as well as the release of key economic data – including the most recent US – is expected to be an eventful week in the coming week.
Regardless of which direction the market goes, below we highlight one stock that is likely to be in high demand in the coming days and another that could suffer new losses.
Remember, however, that our timetable is for the coming week only. as investors await the latest financial results from the digital payment processor co-founded and operated by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who will report earnings on Thursday, Aug. 5 after the closing bell.
Consensus calls for second quarter earnings per share (EPS) of $0.31, up 72% from earnings per share of $0.18 in the same period a year ago . Sales are expected to grow approximately 160% year-over-year to $4.99 billion.
In addition to the top-and-bottom numbers, most of the focus will be on the performance of Square's thriving Cash App business. The mobile payment service, which allows users to buy and sell stocks, saw year-on-year growth of 171% in the first quarter.
Additionally, investors will also focus on how Square's own Bitcoin investments fared in the second quarter, as well as management comments on the earnings and sales outlook for the current quarter and beyond.
Square, which was one of the big winners of 2020 thanks to the accelerated shift to e-commerce amid the COVID pandemic, has seen a slow rise this year, with shares rising just 13.6%, compared to 17% of the S&P 500 gain.
SQ shares – still up 90.4% in the past 12 months – ended Friday's session at $247.26, giving the San Francisco-based tech company a market cap of about $112.6 billion.
At current levels, shares of the digital payment provider remain about 13% below their recent all-time high of $283.19 reached on Feb. 16. ]
Shares of Las Vegas Sands (NYSE:), one of the world's largest operators of casinos and resorts, are expected to experience another bleak week as a resurgence of COVID-19 19 cases in both the US and Asia.
COVID infections and hospitalizations are on the rise again in nearly all 50 states, fueled by the spread of the highly transmissible Delta strain.
The current 7-day moving average of daily new cases rose nearly 65% ??from the previous week to about 66,600, the most since late January, according to the latest figures from the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Meanwhile, the Delta variant in Asia has also led to rising cases and deaths, leading several countries in the region to announce new pandemic restrictions and lockdowns.
Las Vegas Sands announced that it was selling its Las Vegas properties for $6.25 billion earlier this year as it seeks to focus more on its operations in Asia, specifically Macao and Singapore.
Taking that into consideration, Las Vegas Sands – whose stocks have seen a steady collapse in recent sessions to new lows – could experience further downward volatility in the coming days as investors react to more negative COVID-related headlines.
LVS shares closed Friday's session at a 14-month low of $42.35, about 36.5% below the post-pandemic high of $66.77 reached on March 3. At its current level, the casino giant has a market cap of $32.3 billion.
The company reported a disappointing second quarter on July 21, missing expectations for both revenue and revenue due to the negative impact of the ongoing COVID health crisis on global travel trends.
LVS said it lost $0.29 per share, far worse than estimates for a loss per share of $0.16, while revenue came in at $1.17 billion, lagging forecasts for $1 revenue .39 billion.
