Stocks - Tesla Soars in Premarket on Upgrade; Groupon Tumbles

By Geoffrey Smith

Stocks in focus in premarket trade on Wednesday, February 19th. Please refresh for updates.

9:05 AM ET: Barrick Gold (NYSE:GOLD) stock rose 0.8%, hitting another three-year high, after gold futures hit their highest level since 2013 on expectations that the world’s central banks will further loosen monetary policy to offset the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak on the economy.

Newmont Goldcorp (NYSE:NEM) rose 0.6% to its highest in three and a half years.

9 AM ET: Plug Power (NASDAQ:PLUG) rose another 8.9% to add to Tuesday’s 9.7% rise, as the hydrogen fuel cell company benefited from a surge of hot money being thrown at alternative energy stocks, squeezing what has been a heavily-shorted stock.

8:54 AM ET: Analog Devices (NASDAQ:ADI) stock rose 5.2%, zeroing in on an all-time high, after the company raised its dividend by 15% on the back of a better-than-expected final quarter in 2019.

8:48 AM ET: Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) stock was up 6.7% at $858.40, nearing its previous record high, after Piper Sandler increased its target price to $928 a share. That makes it the only Wall Street house to have any upside in its target price.

The company said it expects Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) to make a big success out of energy generation and storage, alongside its electric vehicle business.

Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) stock was up 0.1% after the company said it would abandon Makani, the power-generating kites business that was one of its ‘moonshot’ projects. Alphabet’s non-core ventures lost $4.8 billion last year, an increasingly expensive distraction from its main search and advertising businesses.

Devon Energy (NYSE:DVN) stock rose 1.6% after raising its production guidance for 2020 and trimming $50 million off the top end of its guidance range for capital spending this year.

Diamondback Energy (NASDAQ:FANG) stock rose 3.3% after the oil and gas producer reported better-than-expected earnings for the fourth quarter and upheld its guidance for the coming year, despite the weak start to 2020 for crude prices.

Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN) stock fell 28.2% to a new all-time low after it said it plans to stop selling merchandise by the end of the year.

Bed Bath & Beyond (NASDAQ:BBBY) stock rose 6.9% after CEO Mark Tritton promised to “de-clutter” the company’s stores. The stock is still well below its level before last week’s earnings report, however.

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