What happened
Roku (ROKU +0.53%). Plug Power (PLUG +11.41%). Beyond Meat (BYND 0.74%). What do a streaming TV tech company, a hydrogen fuel cell manufacturer, and a producer of meat alternatives have in common?
Not a lot, obviously. And yet, they do have one thing in common. All three stocks are up strongly in noonday trading Tuesday, with Roku shares gaining 4%, Plug Power 3%, and Beyond Meat up 3.5%.
And they're all doing it on no apparent news whatsoever.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
Scan the news headlines, and I challenge you to find anything interesting that any of these three companies are saying today. There's simply nothing specific to any of the three companies that would appear to explain their price strength today.
Nor do these companies appear to be just riding along some broad-based stock market rally. In fact, the broad S&P 500 is only up about a half a percentage point today, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq is down more than the S&P is up.
Now what
As a result, there's really not a lot I can tell you about why these stocks are going up. Sometimes there simply are no good reasons for stocks' random walk through the market. (In fact, I think someone may even have written a book about that.)
What I can tell you is this: Over the next couple of weeks, all three of these companies will be reporting their earnings to Wall Street. According to Yahoo! Finance, Beyond Meat will be first in line, reporting just one week from today on July 28. Next up will be Plug Power reporting Aug. 4, followed by Roku's report on Aug. 6.
Analysts aren't super optimistic about how any of these companies' numbers will look, predicting losses across the board. Roku is expected to lose the most money -- $0.51 per share, about six times as much as it lost a year ago. (That could prove pessimistic. I have to figure that with so many people sitting at home and watching TV throughout the pandemic, that will be good for Roku's business.)
Plug Power, which has never earned a profit before, isn't expect to change its ways this quarter either. Analysts forecast a $0.10 per share loss in the second quarter -- 25% worse than last year.
Of the three, Wall Street is perhaps most bullish on Beyond Meat. True, analysts forecast a $0.02 per share loss, but if that's the case, it'll actually be a whole lot less than Beyond Meat lost in Q2 2019 ($0.24, to be precise).
Could that be true? Could COVID-19 have given consumers a taste for faux beef? Just one week from today, we'll have our answer.
