The S&P 500 rose 2% last week to 1,126.48, closing out a holiday-shortened week. Last week continued the so-called traditional Santa Claus rally, as markets coasted higher on light volume. Deal activity and the passage of watered-down health-care legislation in the Senate served as major catalysts for the market’s climb last week.
Pops and drops
Here are the five biggest S&P 500 upticks and five biggest S&P 500 drops of last week (measured Friday close to Friday close):
Winners on the week:
|
Company |
Percentage Gain on the Week |
|---|---|
|
SanDisk |
20% |
|
Jabil Circuit |
18% |
|
The New York Times Co. |
17% |
|
Micron Technology |
16% |
|
United States Steel |
16% |
Source: Capital IQ (a division of Standard & Poor's).
Losers on the week:
|
Company |
Percentage Loss on the Week |
|---|---|
|
Cintas Corp |
(11%) |
|
Motorola |
(6%) |
|
FPL Group |
(3%) |
|
Visa |
(3%) |
|
FedEx |
(3%) |
Source: Capital IQ (a division of Standard & Poor's).
A closer look
Shares of Jabil Circuit roared last week after the electronic-parts maker swung to a profit in its fiscal first quarter. Results topped analysts’ estimates, and the company issued a robust fiscal second-quarter outlook. Operating margins improved on cost cuts, while demand is improving from top customers such as Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems. Thomas Weisel raised its price target to $15 from $13 on the company’s earnings report and guidance. Citi and Raymond James also boosted their price targets to $19 and $18 from $16 and $15 respectively.
On the flip side, shares of Cintas took a beating last week after the largest U.S. uniform supplier delivered disappointing fiscal second-quarter results, and cautioned that analyst expectations for the current quarter were too optimistic. Cintas’ performance is contingent on job creation and the level of employment in the U.S. As my colleague, Chris Jones, writes, the company’s business probably won’t fully recover until employment fully returns. However, that speaks to macroeconomic weakness, as opposed to underlying company-specific problems. For its part, the company expects it will be some time until the job market returns to the levels of the late 1990s/mid-2000s.
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