Going into last weekend, stock market investors were nervous about the planned vote Sunday in Crimea on the question of breaking away from the rest of Ukraine and rejoining the Russian Federation. Yet even though the result of the vote included economic sanctions on Russia, investors celebrated the lack of military escalation, sending major-market benchmarks up more than 1%. Shareholders in Coupons.com (NYSE: COUP), Blyth (NYSE: BTH), and Trex (TREX 4.55%) fared even better with stronger gains in Monday's session.
Coupons.com climbed 13% as the newly public discount-coupon website continued to generate investor interest after nearly doubling in its first day of trading. The company's growth rate has been impressive lately, as Coupons.com seeks to profit both by allowing customers to print traditional coupons as well as offering coupon codes in a targeted version of what RetailMeNot provides to its users. With relatively few barriers to entry in the industry, though, Coupons.com could struggle to sustain its lofty valuation in the long run.
Blyth jumped 9% after reporting earnings after the market closed on Friday. Revenue at the direct-to-consumer manufacturer of candles and health and wellness products plunged 21% from the year-ago level, with the company's ViSalus weight-management division seeing fewer promoters in its multilevel marketing business model. Blyth expects to make moves to cut costs at ViSalus and provide new incentives for its promoters and customers in order to strengthen sales, but given the issues that Herbalife (HLF 2.03%) has gone through in defending its business model against criticism, Blyth might well end up having to answer some of the same allegations that Herbalife has recently faced.
Decking-material maker Trex also gained 9% on a strong day for niche home-improvement companies. Peer Lumber Liquidators (LL 5.56%) jumped 4% on news that analysts at Piper Jaffray believe that the company could do better than most investors expect due to its efforts to bring its installation services in-house. With positive sentiment throughout the market today, housing could finally see the support it has lacked lately, and that would be positive for Trex as well as Lumber Liquidators and other industry players.
