Tuesday gave investors an explosive move to the upside, with major benchmarks generally climbing between 2% and 3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up more than 500 points at times during the session, and market participants generally attributed the bullish attitude to favorable numbers from third-quarter earnings and the broader macroeconomic environment. A report on job vacancies showed record levels of available work, and strong earnings from several key stocks in the healthcare field helped the market regain more of the ground it lost last week. Good news wasn't confined to healthcare, though, as Adobe (ADBE +0.64%), SendGrid (SEND +0.00%), and Noodles & Co. (NDLS 3.62%) were among the best performers on the day. Here's why they did so well.
Adobe sees strong growth in 2019
Shares of Adobe climbed 9.5% after the software specialist provided preliminary guidance for its 2019 fiscal year. The company expects that overall revenue growth should come in around 20% compared to fiscal 2018, with similar growth rates for its key digital media and digital experience business segments. Subscription bookings should rise at an even faster 25% rate, and Adobe expects to bring in about $1.4 billion in new net recurring revenue for the year. With the company poised to make key acquisitions, including cloud marketing software specialist Marketo, Adobe is doing its best to cash in on the huge interest in facilitating its customers' moves to embrace technological innovations like cloud computing.
Image source: Adobe.
SendGrid gets an offer it can't refuse
SendGrid stock soared 18% in the wake of the company receiving a buyout offer. The provider of email application programming interfaces found itself the target of cloud communications specialist Twilio (TWLO +0.36%), which made an all-stock offer for SendGrid worth about $2 billion in total. Under the terms of the deal, SendGrid shareholders will get 0.485 shares of Twilio stock for every SendGrid share they own, with that price representing about a 20% premium to where SendGrid closed Monday. Twilio shares lost ground after the announcement on concerns that it might have overpaid for the purchase, but SendGrid investors seem quite happy with the opportunity to join forces with a fellow potential leader in this fast-growing space.
Noodles gets upgraded
Finally, shares of Noodles & Co. gained 16%. The restaurant chain got an upgrade from analysts at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, who boosted their take on the stock from hold to buy and increased their price target by $4 to $15 per share. Noodles recently launched a low-calorie zucchini-based noodle dubbed "zoodles" as an alternative to traditional pasta, and SunTrust found that customers have seen zoodles as a potentially healthier choice, driving greater sales. At the same time, new menu items promise to drive greater interest as well. After having essentially been left for dead just a year ago, Noodles shares have now almost tripled from their lows, and further business success could produce even more gains for investors.
