U.S. stocks were broadly lower today as more negative data indicated a possible economic slow down, energy was once again lagged the general market, and investors kept a wary eye on the FOMC meeting.
A number of companies, such as E I Du Pont De Nemours And Co (NYSE:DD), Cummins Inc (NYSE:CMI) and Textron Inc. (NYSE:TXT) reported EPS which beat the street estimates, but missed on revenue numbers. That trend had traders concerned, as well.
Crude oil was off nearly 2%, with prices touching $43 per barrel today on supply concerns. Despite oil’s weakness, the Dow Transports were also quite weak.
In economic news, the that Durable goods orders were down 1.2% in September, coming on the heels of a negative read in August as well. Sectors were lower across the board, except for healthcare, which was firmly in the green.
Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 were off more than 0.2%, while the slightly stronger Nasdaq was almost flat.
However, another big Wall Street merger lifted Rite Aid Corporation (NYSE:RAD) today, while Coach Inc (NYSE:
COH) and Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW) were surging for other reasons. Here’s what made them three of today’s best stocks.
Rite Aid Corporation (RAD)
RAD jumped 42% today after that Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. (WBA) is ready to acquire RAD for close to $10 billion.
Such a deal would merge the No. 2 and No. 3 pharmacy chains and enable them to lower costs and increase leverage with suppliers, as health care companies struggle to deal with more regulation from the Affordable Care Act.
The WBA-RAD deal would first have to be approved by antitrust regulators. WBA stock was up 6% on the news.
Coach Inc (COH)
COH shareholders were lining their handbags with money today after the luxury accessories manufacturer of 41 cents per share, better than the 39 cents that Wall Street was expecting, despite being down 12 cents year-over-year.
Revenue also declined 0.8% to $1.03 billion, but that drop was the smallest for COH in two years. Wall Street had estimated revenue of $1.04 billion, but forgave COH for the small miss.
COH has been underperforming the general market over the past four months, but today’s action — in which COH rose by more than 4% — looks like the start of something more promising.
Corning Incorporated (GLW)
GLW stock also had a strong day following its third-quarter earnings report. The glass maker posted adjusted earnings of 34 cents per share, which met the street’s expectations. Revenue of $2.45 billion fell short of the analysts’ view for $2.54 billion, but GLW rose more than 5% by day’s end.
Normally, meeting expectations but missing on revenue would sink a stock. But GLW stock got a boost today from the company’s announcement that it will spend $20 billion over the next four years, with half of that spent toward a buyback of GLW stock and its dividend .
The other half of the $20 billion will go toward research and development and acquisitions. The buybacks will begin with $1.25 billion this quarter. Dividends will rise by at least 10% per year until 2019.
As of this writing, Ethan Roberts does not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
