It's Not All About Facebook: Here's 5 Big Trades This Friday? ~ MAKE MONEY BLOG$

5/20/12

It's Not All About Facebook: Here's 5 Big Trades This Friday?

5:15 AM

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MAKE MONEY BLOG$~While everyone in the world is trying to figure out what’s the deal with Facebook, markets continue to work and other stocks are still trading.

Among the day’s big movers we find gold, rallying as stocks fall, Spanish banks (up on short-selling ban rumors), and a couple of solid earnings reports sparking nice upward movement.

Gold staged a bit of a comeback this week. The yellow metal hasn’t had a good performance over the last couple of months, despite a sharp increase in global volatility and uncertainty. Investors are slowly moving back into the precious metal, helping spot gold rally for a third consecutive session on Friday. Gold was up 1% to $1,590.90 an ounce by 2:39 PM in New York.

This has rubbed off on some gold miners, particularly AngloGold Ashanti. The stock began to rally after billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson made positive comments on Wednesday at the annual Ira Sohn conference. AngloGold posted earnings last week, raising its EBITDA 39% to $800 million and doubling adjusted earnings to $429 million. The stock was up 6.3% to $34.59.

Moving along, Spanish banks were bouncing after a couple of horrible sessions. Banco Santander, Spain’s largest bank, was up 3.1% in New York to $5.73 on a rumored ban on short-selling in the Iberian country. The Spanish financial sector was thrust into disarray when the government bailed outBankia last week. The administration of PM Mariano Rajoy is pushing for substantial reforms as bond vigilantes turn up the heat.

Another stock that is flying high in Friday is Salesforce.com. The company run by Marc Benioff posted earnings on Thursday after the bell and beat estimates by a wide margin, despite posting a loss. Net revenue grew 38% to $695 million; Salesforce posted a net loss of 14 cents, well below the 34 cent loss expected by analysts. Shares rose 9.2% to $146.08.

Foot Locker also soared after posting solid earnings on Thursday. The stock rallied 9.7% to $30.73 on a nice bottom-line beat: earnings rose 38% in Q1 to 83 cents, well above the 74 cent estimate. Revenue rose 8.7% to $1.6 billion while sales in stores opened at least a year were up 9.7%.

Facebook’s big entrance definitely marks a new phase for the development of the internet and social media. But the world still goes around and stocks continue to trade. There’s more to the world than Facebook.

source: forbes.com