Thursday was a strong day on Wall Street, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite leading most major benchmarks higher. Favorable earnings from the leader of the social media space suggested that concerns about the misuse of its user data were overblown, which helped to lift market sentiment and spur a rebound from recent weakness. A host of other companies had good news to report as well. Domino's Pizza (DPZ 1.36%), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD -0.35%), and Alexion Pharmaceuticals (ALXN) were among the best performers on the day. Here's why they did so well.
Order up at Domino's
Shares of Domino's Pizza climbed 7% after the pizza chain reported its first-quarter financial results. Revenue jumped 17% on an 8.3% rise in comparable-restaurant sales within the U.S., showing the strength of the chain's resurgence in popularity, and earnings soared nearly 60% compared to the prior year's quarter. Domino's international segment also did well, seeing a 21% rise in sales over the year-ago period, and the company expects to keep concentrating expansion efforts overseas to bulk up its global reach. With superior metrics compared to competitors in the pizza space, Domino's continues to have a strong grip on the market.
Image source: Domino's Pizza.
AMD gets the chip off its shoulder
Advanced Micro Devices stock jumped 14% in the wake of the company's first-quarter results. The chipmaker said that demand for central processing units (CPUs) and graphics processing units (GPUs) remained strong, with demand coming from a diverse set of sources ranging from data centers and video gaming to cryptocurrency mining. In particular, AMD's lines of Ryzen CPUs, Radeon GPUs, and EPYC server chips all look like long-term winners for the company. AMD can expect to see some bumps along the way, especially if bitcoin price volatility leads to a pullback in cryptocurrency-related activity. Nevertheless, AMD has mounted an impressive comeback, and many investors see more potential upside as long as the chipmaker can keep up its momentum.
Alexion gives investors a double gift
Finally, shares of Alexion Pharmaceuticals gained 14.5%. The biopharmaceutical company said that revenue for the first quarter of 2018 rose 7% from year-ago levels, helping push adjusted earnings higher by more than 20%. Yet investors really seemed to respond well to news that a phase 3 study of its long-acting C5 complement inhibitor ALXN1210 demonstrated non-inferiority based on primary and secondary endpoints in patients with a rare blood disease called paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria. After having had bad luck with some of its pipeline candidate drugs in the past, Alexion investors were pleased to see the company score a promising win.
