A humorous look at the companies that caught our eye, for better or worse, this week.
RONA (STAR)
Bad: Spending hours at a home-improvements store picking up supplies to build a tree fort for your kids – and then remembering you live in a condo.
Good: Owning shares of home-improvements retailer Rona.
With U.S.-based Lowe’s making a $3.2-billion offer for Rona that sent the Quebec-based company’s shares soaring, investors can afford to buy a house with a yard and pay someone else to build the stupid tree fort.
RON (TSX), $23.36, up $11.06 or 89.9% over week
MATTEL (STAR)
Is it the beginning of a recovery? Or just a dead Barbie bounce? Shares of Mattel surged after sales of long-struggling Barbie jumped 8 per cent worldwide on a constant-currency basis in the fourth quarter, reversing years of declines. With other Mattel brands including Fisher-Price and Hot Wheels also posting solid gains – and rumours of a potential merger with Hasbro floating around – this toy story might have a happy ending after all.
MAT (Nasdaq), $31.81 (U.S.), up $4.22 or 15.3% over week
GOPRO (DOG)
Novel uses for a GoPro action camera:
1) a doorstop;
2) a paper weight;
3) a really expensive chew toy for your dog.
GoPro used to be one of the hottest tech gadgets, but judging from the company’s latest results, the novelty has worn off: Revenue plunged 31 per cent in the fourth quarter – which included the crucial holiday season – and GoPro expects sales in the first quarter to tumble by more than half. GoPro investors are going home.
GPRO (Nasdaq), $9.96 (U.S.), down $1.49 or 13% over week
ALPHABET (DOG)
A-B-C-D-E-F-G, I am lo-sing more mo-ney.
Even as Alphabet, the parent of Google, posted fourth-quarter earnings that topped Wall Street estimates and sent the stock up sharply, the rally soon fizzled as investors took profits. Having briefly dethroned Apple as the world’s most valuable company, Alphabet’s turn at the top lasted all of a few days. How do you spell disappointment?
GOOG (Nasdaq), $683.57 (U.S.), down $59.38 or 8% over week
RALPH LAUREN (DOG)
That polo player in the Ralph Lauren logo? He just fell off his horse. The marketer of branded apparel and accessories posted a 4-per-cent drop in revenue for its fiscal third quarter – far below the growth of zero per cent to 2 per cent it had expected as recently as November – and cut its full-year outlook. With above-average temperatures hurting sales of winter clothing and a strong U.S. dollar keeping tourists away from the United States, the stock’s landed in the discount bin.
RL (NYSE), $87.25 (U.S.), down $25.25 or 22.4% over week