Market News: Best Buy, Lumber Liquidators, Salesforce.com

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The stock markets in the United States fluctuated and eventually ending the trading session higher today. The NASDAQ and S&P 500 gained 0.38% and 0.24%, respectively. The Dow Jones and Russell 2000 climbed minimally.

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The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that the sales of existing homes declined 3.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.04 million in April.

NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said, “April’s setback is the result of lagging supply relative to demand and the upward pressure it’s putting on prices.” He added that the overall data and feedback from Realtors continued to show signs of elevated levels of buying interests compared last year,

“With low-interest rates and job growth, more buyers will be encouraged to enter the market unless prices accelerate even higher in relation to incomes,” said Yun.

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Yesterday, the minutes of the meeting of the Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) showed that policy makers are unlikely to increase interest rates in June, although they expect the economy to resume a moderate growth.

Commenting on the movements of the equity markets, Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Capital Management told Bloomberg, “We’re locked in this environment where we’re more trend less than trending. There’s no impetus for stocks to sell off, but no lift from investors who want to increase the allocation in equities. Everyone is saying why now?”

Christian Gattiker, the head of research at Julius Baer Group commented, “investors in the United States are sitting on all-time highs.” He added that they are “experiencing some vertigo in a while, looking down and asking will it hold?”

Furthermore, Gattiker said, The June rate hike was off the table a long time ago, but there’s some relief the Fed acknowledged this. It’s not good enough to drive markets much higher.”

U.S. Markets

  • Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) – 18,286.67 (+0.01%)
  • S&P 500- 2,130.98 (+0.24%)
  • NASDAQ- 5,090.79 (+0.38%)
  • Russell 2000- 1,257.98 (+0.02%)

European Markets

  • EURO STOXX 50 Price EUR- 3,688.72 (+0.14%)
  • FTSE 100 Index- 7,013.47 (+0.09%)
  • Deutsche Borse AG German Stock Index DAX- 11,864.59 (+0.14%)

Asia-Pacific Markets

  • Nikkei 225- 20,202.87 (+0.03%)
  • Hong Kong Hang Seng Index- 27,523.72 (-0.22%)
  • Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 Index- 4,840.98 (+1.81%)

Stocks in Focus

The stock price of Best Buy increased nearly 4% to $35.11 per share. The electronics retailer reported better-than-expected earnings for the first quarter. Best Buy posted adjusted earnings of $0.37 per share on $8.55 million in revenue, Analysts expected the company to report earnings of $0.19 per share on $8.51 million in revenue.

The shares of Lumber Liquidators declined as much as 20% today after the company disclosed the sudden departure of its CEO. Analysts at Cantor Fitzgerald downgraded their rating on the stock to Hold due mounting legal and regulatory risks. The stock closed at $21.10 per share, down by more than 16%.

The shares of Salesforce climbed almost 4% to $72.93 per share. Today, the company launched its next-generation community cloud with innovations including targeted recommendations, lightning community builder and templates as well as Salesforce files connect for Google Drive. Yesterday, Salesforce.com reported that its first-quarter revenue increased 23% to $1.51 billion. Its non-GAAP earnings were $0.16 per share.

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