The stock market rebounded on Tuesday, making back a portion of its losses from Monday's downbeat session. The Dow was up triple digits, and broader benchmarks posted slightly more modest gains on a percentage basis as investors seemed to get more comfortable with the likely news coming from the Federal Reserve later this week. The Fed's monetary policy committee will conclude a two-day meeting on Wednesday, and most market participants expect a rate increase, but they seemed to be more confident today that future hikes might not come as quickly as feared under new Fed Chair Jay Powell. Gains in select individual stocks also helped bolster the indexes. MuleSoft (MULE +0.00%), Stoneridge (SRI 1.24%), and HealthEquity (HQY 2.33%) were among the best performers on the day. Here's why they did so well.
Will salesforce.com buy MuleSoft?
Shares of MuleSoft soared 27% on reports that salesforce.com (CRM 0.03%) might have interest in doing a deal to acquire the cloud computing application network developer. A Reuters report suggested that Salesforce might pay more than $6 billion for MuleSoft in an effort to make sure that the software-as-a-service pioneer will be able to keep up with the rapid advances in technology in the area. MuleSoft has already seen a lot of interest among investors for its ability to make networks run more efficiently even when users have a wide variety of devices and applications, and the purchase could spur a new buying spree among data analytics and cloud computing specialists.
Image source: MuleSoft.
Stoneridge gets a good review
Stoneridge stock jumped 16% after the auto parts specialist received positive comments from an analyst. A stock watcher at Stephens boosted the firm's rating on Stoneridge from equal weight to overweight, raising its price target from $26 to $32 per share. The parts company is working to move into the higher-value vehicle technology niche with items like camera monitoring systems to help commercial drivers get better visibility of traffic around their trucks. With relatively few investors following Stoneridge, Stephens thinks that the company could be a largely overlooked opportunity for those interested in vehicle tech.
HealthEquity finishes its year strong
Finally, shares of HealthEquity climbed 11.5%. The health savings account specialist reported its fiscal 2018 financial results late Monday, which included sales gains of nearly 30% and an 80% jump in net income compared to fiscal 2017. HealthEquity now sports 3.4 million members, up by nearly a quarter in just the past year, and total assets amount to $6.8 billion. The Utah-based financial specialist also said that it sees fiscal 2019 continuing some of the positive trends that it has seen over the past year. With interest in HSAs on the rise, HealthEquity is in the right place to benefit from favorable shifts in attitudes among its potential clients.
