Stocks on Wall Street fell on Friday, with the S&P 500 pulling back from its recent record as disappointing corporate earnings on Thursday and worries over the economic outlook sapped investor risk appetite.
Between another batch of high-profile earnings reports from companies like Alibaba (NYSE:BABA), Roku (NASDAQ:ROKU), Cloudflare (NYSE:NET), DraftKings (NASDAQ:DKNG), Etsy (NASDAQ:ETSY), and Uber (NYSE:UBER), as well as the release of significant economic data—including the latest U.S. employment report—the week ahead is expected to be an eventful one.
Regardless of which direction the market goes, below we highlight one stock likely to be in demand in the coming days and another which could see fresh losses.
Remember though, our timeframe is just for the week ahead.
Stock To Buy: Square
Square (NYSE:SQ) will be in focus this week, as investors await the latest financial results from the digital payment processor co-founded and run by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, which is slated to report earnings on Thursday, Aug. 5 after the closing bell.
Consensus calls for earnings per share (EPS) of $0.31 for the second quarter, up 72% from EPS of $0.18 in the year-ago period. Revenue is forecast to soar roughly 160% YoY to $4.99 billion.
Beyond the top-and-bottom line numbers, most of the focus will be on the performance of Square’s booming Cash App business. The mobile payment service, which allows users to buy and sell stocks and Bitcoin, saw YoY revenue growth of 171% in Q1.
In addition, investors will also concentrate on how Square’s own Bitcoin investments fared in Q2, as well as comments from management regarding the profit and sales outlook for the current quarter and beyond.
Square, which was one of the big winners of 2020 thanks to the accelerated shift to e-commerce during the COVID pandemic, has seen its ascent slow this year, with shares climbing just 13.6%, compared to the S&P 500’s 17% gain.
SQ stock—which is still up 90.4% in the last 12 months—ended Friday’s session at $247.26, giving the San Francisco-based tech company a market cap of around $112.6 billion.
At current levels, shares of the digital payment provider remain about 13% below their recent record of $283.19 reached on Feb. 16.
Stock To Dump: Las Vegas Sands
Shares of Las Vegas Sands (NYSE:LVS), one of the world’s largest casino and resort operators, are expected to suffer another dismal week amid the impact of a resurgence in COVID-19 cases in both the U.S. and Asia.
COVID infections and hospitalizations are once again on the rise in nearly all 50 states, fueled by the spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant.
The current 7-day moving average of daily new cases soared nearly 65% from the previous week to around 66,600, the most since the end of January, according to the latest numbers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Meanwhile, in Asia, the Delta variant has also resulted in soaring cases and deaths, prompting several countries in the region to announce new pandemic restrictions and lockdowns.
Las Vegas Sands announced that it was selling its Las Vegas properties for $6.25 billion earlier this year, as it seeks to focus more on its operations in Asia, most notably Macao, and Singapore.
Taking that into consideration, Las Vegas Sands—which has seen its shares steadily collapse to new lows in recent sessions—could experience further downside volatility in the days ahead as investors react to more negative COVID-related headlines.
LVS stock closed Friday’s session at a 14-month low of $42.35, roughly 36.5% below its post-pandemic high of $66.77 reached on Mar. 3. At current levels, the casino giant has a market cap of $32.3 billion.
The company reported disappointing second quarter results on July 21, missing expectations for both earnings and revenue due to the negative impact of the ongoing COVID health crisis on global travel trends.
LVS said it lost $0.29 per share, much worse than estimates for a loss per share of $0.16, while revenue clocked in at $1.17 billion, trailing forecasts for sales of $1.39 billion.