Major benchmarks rebounded on Friday as the markets absorbed a continued onslaught of quarterly reports. Stocks were further buoyed by a Commerce Department report that showed the United States’ gross domestic product (GDP) grew 2.1% last quarter, just above estimates for 2% but also slowing from 3.1% in the first three months of the year.
All told, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) gained about 0.2%, and the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) enjoyed a 0.7% jump.
As for individual stocks, Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) and Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) easily outpaced the broader market’s gains after posting better-than-expected quarterly results.
Twitter cashes in on user growth
Shares of Twitter climbed 8.9% after the microblogging social-media site announced impressive second-quarter results. Revenue increased 18% year over year to $841 million, translating into adjusted net income of $0.20 per share. Analysts, on average, were modeling earnings closer to $0.19 per share on revenue of $829 million.
Perhaps most encouraging, Twitter said its average “monetizable daily active usage” (mDAU) climbed to 139 million, up from 134 million last quarter and good for growth of 14% from 122 million a year ago.
CEO Jack Dorsey credited the strong performance to the company’s focus on mitigating malicious and “spammy” behavior on the platform, as well as leveraging machine-learning capabilities to serve more relevant content to users.
Starbucks brews up a beat
Shares of Starbucks jumped 8.9% after the global coffee chain posted strong fiscal third-quarter 2019 results. Revenue grew 8.1% year over year to $6.82 billion — well above estimates for $6.7 billion — driven both by new locations and a 6% increase in global comparable-store sales. Of note: Revenue would have risen 11% had it not been for a combination of the impact of foreign currencies and initiatives to streamline its consumer packaged goods (CPG) and food service operations to a licensing model. On the bottom line, Starbucks generated adjusted (non-GAAP) net income of $0.78 per share, up 25.8% year over year and beating estimates by $0.06 per share.
“Our two targeted long-term growth markets, the U.S. and China, performed extremely well across a number of measures as a result of our focus on enhancing the customer experience, driving new beverage innovation and accelerating the expansion of our digital customer relationships,” added CEO Kevin Johnson.
As such, Starbucks increased its full-year outlook to call for global comparable-store sales growth of 4% (up from 3% to 4% before), and adjusted net income per share of $2.80 to $2.82 (up from $2.75 to $2.79 previously).
