What happened on the stock market today? – The Motley Fool

Equities closed the week on Friday as the jobs report rose, pushing all sectors of the market higher. Emissions up have exceeded the number of those down more than 3 to one. Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^ DJI) gained almost 200 points and the S & P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^ GSPC) missed a record near a fraction of a point.

Stock Market Today

Data source: Yahoo! Finance.

As for individual stocks, Monster Drink (NASDAQ: MNST) reported strong sales while Cognizant Technology Solutions (NASDAQ: CTSH) gave a surprisingly pessimistic forecast for the year.

Monster Beverage stifles investors' thirst for growth

Monster Beverage boosted investors with strong sales in the first quarter and rising profitability, up 8.8%. Net sales increased 11.2% to $ 946 million and earnings per share jumped 26% to $ 0.48. Analysts were expecting the energy drink specialist to earn $ 0.42 per share for a business turnover of $ 914 million.

Sales growth outside the United States had a positive impact on earnings, but less than last quarter. International sales increased by 17.4% and accounted for 30% of the total as the company continues to introduce new products in local markets. In the United States, price increases offset higher input costs, keeping Monster's overall gross margin at 60.6%, while volume was up 9.7%. Net income as a percentage of sales improved 2.2 percentage points over the same period last year.

Monster shares were under pressure earlier this year when investors learned that their distribution partner Coca Cola will launch competing energy drinks. Monster disputes this as a violation of the agreement between the two companies. Its CEO, Rodney Sacks, explained at the teleconference that a decision resulting from an arbitration proceeding was expected before the end of the quarter. He added that the two companies would continue to cooperate as partners.

Cognizant radically cuts its perspectives

Just five weeks after taking office as CEO of Cognizant, Brian Humphrey was responsible for reporting disappointing results for the IT consultant, saying that "Cognizant's growth and performance during the quarter leave room for improvement. 'improvement". Investors have clearly agreed, sending shares down 11.1%. Revenues increased 5.1% to $ 4.11 billion and adjusted net earnings per share decreased 3.2% to $ 0.91. Wall Street was expecting EPS of $ 1.04 on a $ 4.17 billion business figure.

The shortfall came from Cognizant's two largest companies. Financial services revenue decreased 1.7% as a result of generally weak regional bank spending, which was partly due to mergers between clients on both sides of the acquisition. Health care operating revenues posted a disappointing 3.9% growth, also impacted by lower client spending related to merger activity.

During the teleconference, Mr. Humphrey acknowledged that the company also had performance issues and lowered forecasts for annual revenue growth of 3.6% to 5.1% relative to the previous year. at the previous range of 7% to 9%, as well as 11% at mid-term. Analysts were surprised by the size of the cuts, which explains the magnitude of the stock movement.