What happened
Shares of several tech stocks have jumped today after the Senate passed a historic $2 trillion stimulus bill to help mitigate some of the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill will now move to the House, which is expected to vote on Friday, before going to President Trump if passed. Here's how these tech companies are trading as of 12:30 p.m. EDT:
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
Just as Snap was starting to put together a turnaround over the past year, enjoying renewed user growth after releasing a revamped Android version of Snapchat, the coronavirus outbreak has impacted broad swaths of the economy -- including advertising. Larger rivals Twitter and Facebook have acknowledged the adverse impacts that their respective ad businesses are facing amid the crisis as marketers pull back on spending.
Snap has not warned investors about potential impacts, but the company will undoubtedly be affected as well. The company also does not grant public investors any votes anyway. Snap is much smaller than Twitter or Facebook, putting it in a worse financial position to weather the crisis. The company burned through $305 million in operating cash flow last year while posting a net loss of $1 billion. Those were improvements from 2018, but the company's cash position ($2.1 billion) has been declining.
The retail and hospitality industries -- which are among the sectors getting decimated by lockdowns and travel restrictions -- are two of NCR's biggest operating segments, accounting for 44% of total revenue last year. As such, it's unsurprising that shares had lost around two-thirds of their value before seemingly bottoming out last week. With parts of the bill designed specifically to help those industries, that bodes well for NCR's customer base.
Oppenheimer had boosted its rating on NCR shares last week to outperform alongside a $20 price target, arguing that the stock was trading at an attractive valuation. Analyst Ian Zaffino is encouraged by the growing base of recurring revenue, and also believes that NCR's exposure to hospital end markets is actually somewhat limited. More recently, Morgan Stanley reiterated a hold rating on NCR shares yesterday alongside a $17 price target.
There hasn't been any company-specific news for Broadcom, but investors may be encouraged that China has made significant progress in containing the disease, which is allowing parts of the global tech supply chain to slowly re-awaken. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing is Broadcom's primary contract manufacturer, and the tech company's chips are often destined for products assembled within China.
