What Happened?
A number of stocks fell in the afternoon session after investors reacted to a cocktail of negative macroeconomic news, including surging oil prices and rising Treasury yields.
The 10-year Treasury note yield jumped to 4.56%, a one-year high, fueling concerns about inflation and potential interest rate hikes.
Compounding these worries, WTI crude oil prices rose to around $104 per barrel amid geopolitical tensions. The market sentiment was also dampened by a general disappointment that the recent summit between President Trump and Chinese President Xi ended without any major agreements. This combination of factors led to a broad-based sell-off, pulling major indices like the S&P 500 and Nasdaq down from their recent record highs.
The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks.
Among others, the following stocks were impacted:
Zooming In On Napco (NSSC)
Napco’s shares are somewhat volatile and have had 12 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was 6 months ago when the stock dropped 10.5% on the news that the company reported underwhelming earnings.
For its third quarter, Napco’s revenue grew 11.7% year on year to $49.17 million, surpassing Wall Street’s forecasts. Earnings per share came in at $0.34, which was also higher than the $0.31 per share that analysts had forecast.
Despite the strong report, the stock’s drop followed a significant increase in its price, which included a surge of over 87% over the previous six months and hitting a new 52-week high. This performance suggested that investors’ high expectations were already reflected in the share price before the announcement, leading to a “sell the news” reaction.
