Stocks plunged on Tuesday as investors grappled with heightened trade tensions between the United States and China. U.S. officials have accused China of backtracking on previously agreed upon trade commitments, and President Trump renewed his threats to increase tariffs on hundreds of billions of Chinese goods from 10% to 25% as early as Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 both fell almost 2%.
Still, several individual stocks bucked the negative trend, including Henry Schein (HSIC 0.67%), Dean Foods (DF), SolarEdge (SEDG 3.13%).
Henry Schein's sparkling quarter
Shares of Henry Schein popped more than 5% -- making it the best-performing stock in the entire Nasdaq -- after the health-care products distributor announced impressive first-quarter 2019 results. Revenue climbed 3.8% year over year to $2.36 billion, translating into an 8.1% increase in adjusted (non-GAAP) earnings from continuing operations of $0.80 per share (or $120.6 million). Analysts, on average, were only expecting earnings of $0.76 per share on slightly lower revenue.
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Chairman and CEO Stanley Bergman reminded investors this is only the start of a "transition year" as the company continues the operational separation from its former animal health business.
"Throughout this transition, we believe we gained market share in both of our global Dental and Medical businesses, and are confident that Henry Schein is well-positioned for operational success over the long-term," Bergman added.
Henry Schein also raised the high end of its 2019 outlook for adjusted earnings per share by $0.04, resulting in a new range of $3.38 to $3.50, for growth of 7% to 10% from 2018.
Dean Foods makes progress
Dean Foods stock climbed as much as 10% early today, then settled to close up 5% after the dairy products company released mixed first-quarter 2019 results. The quarter didn't look encouraging: Revenue declined 9.3% to $1.795 billion, translating into an adjusted net loss of $37.7 million, or $0.41 per share. Both figures technically fell short of consensus estimates for a loss of $0.27 per share on revenue closer to $1.9 billion.
But the company was quick to point out that net loss marked a sequential improvement from the fourth quarter of 2018, including "consecutive improvements each month within the quarter."
CEO Ralph Scozzafava called it a "productive period setting the stage for the sequential improvement in our performance that we expect to achieve throughout 2019," arguing that this quarter marks an "inflection point" in its turnaround.
SolarEdge shines
Finally, shares of SolarEdge Technologies soared nearly 23% after the company posted better-than-expected first-quarter results. Revenue climbed 3% year over year to $271.9 million, while adjusted net income arrived at $32.9 million, or $0.64 per share, down from $0.87 per share in the year-ago period. But most analysts were only targeting earnings of $0.60 per share on revenue of $266.4 million.
SolarEdge founder, Chairman, and CEO Guy Sella singled out growth in Europe for the company's relative outperformance. He also noted SolarEdge completed its acquisition of SMRE to facilitate its entrance into the e-mobility market, and continued integrating its previous purchase of UPS specialist Kokam.
For the second quarter of 2019, SolarEdge expects revenue of $310 million to $320 million -- far above the $282 million most on Wall Street were expecting -- assuming solar-product revenue of $290 million to $300 million.
