What happened
Shares of Chewy (CHWY -2.54%) surged even though there was no news out on the online pet products seller. Instead, a blowout quarterly report from Zoom Video Communications (ZM 1.46%) seemed to be a catalyst for a slew of "coronavirus stocks" to finish higher, as investors renewed their bullishness for stocks getting a tailwind from the pandemic.
Chewy finished the session up 13.7%, while Zoom gained 40.8%.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
While Chewy and Zoom have little in common as businesses, they are among the stocks best positioned to take advantage of the crisis, which has led to a surge in videoconferencing, benefiting Zoom, whose sales more than quadrupled in the second quarter, and e-commerce as consumers have generally avoided stores for health and safety reasons.
Additionally, pet adoptions spiked early in the pandemic as Americans looked to furry friends to get them through tough times, a favorable sign for Chewy. Spending on pets tends to be recession-proof, and may be accelerating during the crisis as Americans have limited options for spending discretionary income with traditional vacations, travel, and entertainment generally unavailable.
Now what
The Zoom report also seemed to drive optimism about Chewy's own upcoming second quarter earnings report, which is due out on Sep. 10. Analysts are expecting revenue for the May-July quarter to have grown 43.4% to $1.65 billion, and are eyeing a loss of $0.16 compared to per-share loss of $0.21 in the quarter a year ago. Revenue in the first quarter jumped 46% on a surge of 1.8 million customers, boding well for its second quarter report.
