Stocks fell on Friday, with both the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI 0.42%) and the S&P 500 (^GSPC -0.91%) indexes finishing lower by less than 0.25%.
Today's stock market
|
Index |
Percentage Change |
Point Change |
|---|---|---|
|
Dow |
(0.11%) |
(22.81) |
|
S&P 500 |
(0.15%) |
(3.54) |
Data source: Yahoo! Finance.
Financial stocks saw some of the heaviest trading, but the popular Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLF 1.25%) again trailed the broader market, this time with a 0.4% decline. Gold price volatility kept miners popular with traders, and the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 0.93%) rose 1.6%.
As for individual stocks, The Trade Desk (TTD -4.52%) and Nordstrom (JWN 0.48%) made big moves following the companies' quarterly earnings reports.
Image source: Getty Images.
Trade Desk's spiking growth
Advertising technology platform Trade Desk jumped 30% after posting surprisingly strong quarterly results in which sales rose 76% to $53.4 million and trounced management's February forecast that called for revenue of $43 million. Adjusted earnings also improved to $6.3 million even though the company had predicted zero profits by that metric.
Operations are benefiting from the shift by advertisers toward programmatic buying that delivers ads through a mix of digital channels, especially mobile devices. The company about tripled its mobile video and smart TV revenues while mobile in-app advertising rose 150%.
"Because of this shift to programmatic and the performance of our team," CEO Jeff Green said in a press release, "our year is off to a great start in what has historically been the most difficult quarter to predict."
Green and his executive team issued guidance for the current quarter that sees revenue clocking in at $67 million compared to consensus estimates targeting $61 million. The ad delivery specialist also raised its full-year forecast to "at least" $291 million, up from the prior prediction of $270 million. The stock surged in response to expectations that now show 43% revenue growth in 2017 rather than the 33% gains management had promised.
Nordstrom's flat results
Nordstrom's stock fell nearly 11% despite first-quarter results that met management's expectations on the top and bottom lines. Comparable-store sales dipped 0.8% to mark a slight worsening from the 0.4% decline the retailer posted for fiscal 2016. Success in its off-price division and e-commerce offerings was more than offset by a 6.4% comps slump in its core retailing stores, where revenue dipped to $1.48 billion from $1.58 billion a year ago. Nordstrom's profitability held steady at 34.3% of sales and, thanks to shrinking expenses, adjusted profit margin improved to 3.5% of sales from 2.8%.
Image source: Getty Images.
Executives said they were happy with the financial wins during the quarter but aimed to do better with respect to sales growth. "While we're pleased with our inventory and expense execution, we're not satisfied with our top-line results," company president Blake Nordstrom said in the conference call.
The retailer affirmed its underwhelming forecasts for 2017. Comparable sales will be flat, but a rising count of off-price stores should push net sales up by between 3% and 4%. Rising profits from its co-branded credit card should help profits rise, though.
Overall, those results keep the retailer on track to essentially repeat its underwhelming fiscal 2016 performance. Investors were apparently looking for evidence of a rebound instead, and so the stock declined.
