NYSE: ABEV
Key Data Points
Ambev (ABEV 4.18%), a Latin American beer and soft-drink producer, closed Tuesday at $2.37, up 3.04% for the session. Trading volume reached 47.5 million shares, nearly 18% above its three-month average of 39.9 million shares.
Tuesday’s trading reflects a shift as the stock has trended downwards for the past week. Sentiment is mixed: Some investment firms are adding to their Ambev holdings while others say it's time to take profits. Ambev IPO'ed in 1997 and has grown 428% since going public.
How the markets moved today
The S&P 500 (^GSPC 1.52%) added 0.46% to finish at 6,910, while the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC 1.78%) rose 0.57% to 23,562. Within the beverages and brewers industry, Anheuser-Busch InBev/NV (BUD 0.99%) gained 0.88% and Molson Coors Beverage (TAP 2.85%) slipped 1.12%.
What this means for investors
Ambev's shares bounced back slightly today, though the beverage giant is still down 7.0% in the past five days. Bernstein recently downgraded Ambev from "outperform" to "market perform." While positive on the company's long-term potential, analysts raised concerns that this year's rally didn't have much further to run.
The Markets Daily reported on Squarepoint Ops' SEC 13F filing showing it had boosted its Ambev stake by over 400%. However, that's unlikely to have driven its price upwards much. At the end of the quarter, it said the firm's Ambev stake was worth $791,000 -- a tiny fraction of its almost $100 billion in total assets under management.
