Thursday continued the stock market's recent rally, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average enjoying another triple-digit gain and certain other major benchmarks starting to approach record levels. Benign news on the macroeconomic front was the latest cause for optimism among market participants, as the latest reading on inflation showed a just-right price increase that suggested a healthy economy without putting pressure on the Federal Reserve to boost interest rates too quickly. Some individual companies' stocks saw outsize gains. Spotify Technology (SPOT 2.77%), CenturyLink (LUMN -6.20%), and ARMO BioSciences (NASDAQ: ARMO) were among the best performers on the day. Here's why they did so well.
Spotify sounds a bit better
Shares of Spotify Technology rose 5%, finally bouncing from a slide that began last week after the music-streaming service released its first quarterly results since going public. Spotify saw solid results, including a 26% jump in revenue, and it reported 170 million users and 75 million paid subscribers. But some had been nervous about slowing growth ahead, and major music labels had made moves to sell off parts of their stakes in the service. That selling pressure finally gave way to more balanced views from investors, and news that Spotify had implemented a hate-conduct policy that led to the removal of content from a popular singer seemed to resonate well with its shareholders.
Spotify founder Daniel Ek. Image source: Spotify.
CenturyLink sees big growth
CenturyLink stock jumped 7.5% in the wake of the company's first-quarter financial report. The telecom celebrated its first full quarter after having acquired Level 3, and although pro forma revenue and net income eased lower from year-ago levels, CenturyLink made impressive progress toward a full integration of the two companies. As its peers have seen, voice-related revenue has been under pressure, but growth in managed services and information technology sales are helping the company fare better than many of its peers in the telecom space. Looking ahead, a double-digit dividend yield gives investors some comfort, but the key will be for the post-acquisition CenturyLink to take full advantage of broadband and enterprise services to achieve overall growth.
ARMO gets an offer it can't refuse
Finally, shares of ARMO BioSciences soared 67%. The biotech cancer immunotherapy specialist got a buyout offer from pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly (LLY -1.00%) for a total of $1.6 billion. Under the terms of the deal, Lilly will pay ARMO investors $50 per share in cash, representing a more than $20 per share premium from where the stock closed on Wednesday prior to the offer. Interestingly, though, ARMO had traded above that level as recently as March, but its stock price sank as the hype faded following its initial public offering in January. Lilly believes that the acquisition will beef up its exposure to the promising immunotherapy space, but it would bring to a sudden end ARMO's brief history as a publicly traded company.
