Stocks on Wall Street finished mixed on Friday, slipping slightly to end a disappointing week as investors watched the ongoing talks in Washington and the latest batch of third-quarter earnings.
For the week, the Dow lost 0.9% and 0.5% respectively to break a three week winning streak. Meanwhile, it fell 1.1% and posted its first weekly loss in five weeks.
The coming week is packed with a thick string of high-profile earnings reports, important economic data, the approaching November 3 elections and ongoing stimulus talks.
Here we will highlight one stock that has proven it can successfully navigate the current uncertain market environment and another stock that is likely to suffer further losses in the coming days:
Stock to buy: Pinterest
Pinterest (NYSE 🙂 has been a standout player in the burgeoning social media space this year, benefiting from the increased traffic as people around the world flock to it. platform for sharing COVID-19 pandemic.
Since the start of the year, shares of the San Francisco, California-based social media platform are up 184%, easily outperforming the nearly 7% rise of the S&P 500 over the same period.
The stock, which has outperformed other notable names in the industry since the beginning of the year, such as Facebook (NASDAQ :), Twitter (NYSE 🙂 and Snap (NYSE :), ended at a record high of $ 53. 00 on Friday, which equates to a market cap of approximately $ 20.8 billion.
PINS, whose second-quarter results – announced in late July – are expected to report the following financial results on Wednesday, Oct. 28, after the closing bell.
The consensus calls for earnings per share (EPS) of $ 0.04, an improvement from earnings per share of $ 0.01 in the same period a year ago. Revenue is expected to grow 35% from the same period a year earlier to $ 378.9 million as users continued to have a high level of engagement even after coronavirus shutdown measures were relaxed.
As such, investors will be paying close attention to Pinterest's update regarding its global monthly active users (MAUs) to see if it can sustain its scorching growth rate. According to the latest earnings report, the company's global MAUs were at 416 million, up 39% year-over-year.
We expect Pinterest to report another quarter of blockbuster revenues as the current business environment has created a perfect backdrop for digital ad companies to thrive amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Stock To Dump: ExxonMobil
Shares of ExxonMobil (NYSE 🙂 were in the background for most of 2020 as low commodity prices and the negative impact of the economic slowdown caused by the corona virus hampered key activities.
Shares of the Irving, Texas-based oil and gas giant – which closed at $ 34.16 Friday – have lost 51% so far this year. They fell to their lowest level since 2004 during the peak of the March coronavirus sell-off. At current levels, Exxon has a market cap of $ 144.4 billion, down from its all-time high of $ 446 billion in mid-2014, when prices last traded above $ 100 a barrel.
The breathtaking collapse caused Exxon to briefly lose its title of largest US oil company by market value to rival Chevron (NYSE 🙂 in early October, the first time it was dethroned since it began as Standard Oil over a century ago.
To add insult to injury, the once iconic blue-chip stock – which had only just become the world's most valuable company in 2013 – was dropped from the Dow Jones Industrial Average on August 31 after 92 years on the key index.
Monthly chart from Exxon Mobile
Exxon reported in late July that it had failed to see expectations for both revenues and revenues amid low oil prices and reduced production in both its US and non-US operations.
The oil company then reports financial results before the US market opens on Friday, October 30. The consensus calls for a loss of $ 0.25 per share, down from $ 0.68 in earnings per share over the same period a year ago. Sales are expected to be approximately $ 45.1 billion, 30% lower than sales of $ 65.05 billion in the same quarter a year earlier.
The main question on the mind of investors is whether Exxon will take further steps to maintain its dividend. The company, which has already cut its investment budget by $ 10 billion this year, could announce further spending and job cuts in its Q3 report.
From a technical standpoint, ExxonMobil shares remain below their 50-day and 200-day moving average, which usually indicates more losses.
Taking all this into consideration, XOM's stock appears to remain under pressure in the coming days as investors brace for disappointing financial results.
