Tuesday's Premarket Winners and Losers Include Albemarle, AT&T and UPS

Investing

Published: February 1, 2022 8:10 am

The three major U.S. equities indexes closed Monday with another round of solid gains. Stocks came out hot, and even a late afternoon dip failed to derail buyers. The Dow Jones industrials closed up by 1.2%, the S&P 500 up 139% and the Nasdaq up 3.4%. End-of-the-month rebalancing appears to have taken advantage of low(ish)-priced tech stocks, with names like Tesla, Netflix and Spotify posting double-digit increases. Among S&P 500 stocks, winners outnumbered losers by more than five to one in Monday trading. All 11 sectors closed higher, led by consumer cyclicals (up 3.8%), technology (2.5%) and communications services (2.3%).

At around 7:00 a.m. ET Friday morning, S&P 500 futures traded down about 0.2%, the Nasdaq down nearly 0.2% and the Dow down by 0.1%.

Crude oil settled at $88.15 on Monday and traded down about 0.1% in early morning trading Tuesday at $88.03. The 10-year/two-year U.S. Treasury note spread ended the day at 0.61%, down two basis points from Friday’s settlement.

The ISM manufacturing index for January is due out at 10:00 a.m. ET. The consensus estimate calls for the index to come in at 57.5%, down from 58.7%. Any number above 50% indicates that the economy is expanding.

Here are the five S&P 500 stocks that closed with the biggest gains on Monday: Enphase Energy (up 13.4%), SolarEdge Technologies (12.33%), Netflix (11.13%), Tesla (10.68%) and Xilinx (8.77%).

Monday’s biggest losers among S&P 500 stocks were L3Harris Technologies (down 4.29%), Kellogg (3.46%), Citrix Systems (3.42%), CF Industries (3.14%) and Pfizer (3.02%).

The leading gainer among S&P 500 stocks in Tuesday’s premarket trading was United Parcel Service Inc. (NYSE: UPS), up by around 7.3%, at $217.00 in a 52-week range of $156.59 to $220.24. The company reported fourth-quarter earnings Tuesday morning that beat consensus estimates by 15.8%. Revenue beat estimates by about 2.4% and topped the year-ago quarter’s revenue by 11.3%.

FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) traded up about 2.4% to $251.76, in a 52-week range of $216.34 to $319.90. FedEx is basking in the halo effect of UPS’s strong earnings announcement. The company will not report its fiscal third-quarter results until mid-March.

Albemarle Corp. (NYSE: ALB) traded up about 1.4% before markets opened Tuesday, at $223.90 in a 52-week range of $133.82 to $291.48. BofA Securities lifted the company’s rating from Underperform to Neutral Tuesday morning.

Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE: FCX) traded up by about 1.0% to $37.60, in a 52-week range of $37.42 to $46.20. The copper and gold producer had no specific news, but it likely is tracking rising gold and copper futures prices.

D.R. Horton Inc. (NYSE: DHI) traded up 1.0% to $90.10, in a 52-week range of $72.57 to $110.45. The homebuilder had no specific news but added about 3.7% on Monday.

Stocks trading lower in Tuesday’s premarket session include AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), which was down by about 5% to $24.18, in a 52-week range of $22.02 to $33.88. The communications services giant will spin off its WarnerMedia business into a new company that will merge with Discovery. What was hammering the stock price in the morning was AT&T’s dividend cut, from $2.08 annually (yield of 8.25%) to $1.11. That massive yield always was going to have to go away.

Devon Energy Inc. (NYSE: DVN) traded down about 1%, at $50.11 in a 52-week range of $16.85 to $54.26. The company had no specific news.

Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. (NYSE: ARE) traded down by 2.2% in Tuesday’s premarket, at $190.55 in a 52-week range of $154.37 to $224.95. The company had no specific news.

EOG Resources Inc. (NYSE: EOG) traded down by about 1% to $110.38, in a 52-week range of $50.94 to $113.20. The high was posted Monday, and investors may think it is a little too high.

Marathon Oil Corp. (NYSE: MRO) traded down by about 0.9% Tuesday morning, at $19.36 in a 52-week range of $7.33 to $20.58. BofA Securities downgraded the ad agency’s stock last week from Neutral to Underperform with a price target of $32.