A logo of a Virgin Galactic is seen outside the building during the company’s first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on October 28, 2019 in New York City.
JOHANNES EISELE | AFP | Getty Images
Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading.
Virgin Galactic – The space company’s shares dropped 14% after a filing showed chairman Chamath Palihapitya sold his personal holdings of 6.2 million shares for about $213 million. He still owns 15.8 million shares with investment partner Ian Osborne. Palihapitiya, in a statement to CNBC, said that he plans to redirect the sale “into a large investment I am making towards fighting climate change.”
Ark Innovation — Shares of Cathie Wood’s flagship ETF dipped more than 6% as rising interest rates pressured innovation stocks. The funds top holdings were all in the red. Shares of Tesla dropped 7%, Square and Roku both lost 6% and Baidu fell 8%. CRISPR Therapeutics fell nearly 10% and Shopify retreated 7.5%.
Big Lots — The retail stock slid more than 3% after its comparable store sales results for the fourth quarter mixed expectations. The company reported comparable sales growth of 7.9%, before the 8.4% projected by analysts, according to FactSet. The company did not provide full-year guidance, citing uncertainty around the pandemic and government stimulus. Earnings per share did beat expectations, based on estimates compiled by Refinitiv.
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings — Shares of Norwegian dropped 14%, underperforming other struggling cruise names, after the company announced another share offering. The company is selling about 47.6 million shares for $30 per share. Norwegian said it plans to use the funds to repurchase debt.
Cisco Systems — Shares of Cisco Systems rose more than 3% after JPMorgan upgraded the stocks to overweight from neutral. “We are upgrading CSCO shares to Overweight on a combination of Enterprise IT spending recovery tracking ahead of expectation, on-track transformation to subscriptions, as well as still inexpensive valuation following underperformance to peers,” the firm said.
Nikola — Shares of the electric truck maker dropped more than 7% after JPMorgan downgraded the stock to neutral from overweight. The Wall Street firm said the “good news” is already prices into Nikola’s stock.
Gap — Shares of the apparel retailer jumped more than 6% after the company said it’s predicting a bounce back to sales growth in 2021 as more consumers return to stores. Gap reported fourth-quarter sales that came below estimates amid the pandemic, but it swung to a profit, thanks to its efforts to sell more merchandise at full price and progress it made shuttering underperforming stores.
Oracle — The tech stock jumped 7% after Barclays upgraded the company to overweight from equal weight, saying it sees “accelerating growth” that will drive “multiple expansion.” Barclays cited “an improving cloud mix and a better IT spend environment” as factors to drive Oracle shares higher.
Hibbett Sports — The sports retailer’s stock fell more than 5% on the back of mixed fourth-quarter results. The company logged earnings per share of $1.40 on revenue of $367.8 million. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected earnings per share of $1.37 on revenue of $380.9 million. For 2020, however, Hibbett touted a record year thanks in part to a surge in online sales.
IMAX Corp. — Imax shares jumped 11% after the company said it expects better results this year with consumers returning to theatres. The jump comes despite the theatre operator reporting mixed fourth-quarter results, with the company’s losses per share topping a Refinitiv estimate. However, Imax also logged a better-than-expected revenue for the quarter.
— with reporting from CNBC’s Yun Li, Jesse Pound and Rich Mendez.