A jet from American Eagle, a regional branch of American Airlines (AA), takes off past other AA aircraft at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, December 3, 2021.
Chris Helgren | Reuters
Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading.
Airlines — Airline stocks rose on Monday as stocks linked to the recovering economy boosted the major averages. American Airlines rose 10%, United Airlines added nearly 11%, and Delta Air Lines popped 8.6%. Alaska Air Group rallied 7%.
Cruise line and casino stocks — Norwegian Cruise Line rose 11% and Carnival rallied 10.4% as reopening plays charged higher. Las Vegas Sands gained more than 9%. MGM Resorts and Wynn Resorts rose 6.8% and 7.6%, respectively.
Kohl’s — Shares of the retailer rallied 7.6% following news that activist investor Engine Capital is recommending that Kohl’s consider either a sale of the company or a separation of its e-commerce business.
GCP Applied Technologies — Shares of GCP Applied Technologies soared more than 16% after the maker of specialty construction chemicals agreed to be acquired by French construction company Saint-Gobain for $32 per share in cash, or about $32 billion.
Lucid Group –Shares of the electric vehicle start-up dropped about 7.3% after news that the company received a subpoena on Friday from the Securities and Exchange Commission “requesting the production of certain documents related to an investigation.” Lucid is the latest EV start-up to go public via a SPAC deal to be investigated by the SEC.
Wells Fargo — Shares of Wells Fargo rallied more than 3% after Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock to overweight from equal weight. Morgan Stanley said Wells is the most asset-sensitive stock in its coverage and higher fed funds futures warrant an upgrade. The firm named Wells a top 2022 pick.
Spirit Airlines — Shares of the discount airline rallied 9% after Evercore ISI upgraded Spirit to outperform from in line. Evercore said in its upgrade that it sees “see strategic optionality as company execution and demand improve.”
MicroStrategy – Shares of the business analytics software company dropped more than 5% on the heels of bitcoin’s sell-off over the weekend. MicroStrategy holds billions of dollars‘ worth of bitcoin on its balance sheet, so the company’s stock is sensitive to fluctuations in the world’s largest cryptocurrency’s price.
Alibaba — The Chinese internet giant’s shares jumped 7.3% after the company announced a reorganization of its international and domestic e-commerce businesses. Alibaba also said it will replace its CFO.
Boston Beer — Shares of the beverage maker rose 7.6% after Cowen upgraded Boston Beer to market perform from underperform. Cowen said in its upgrade of the beer company that the valuation re-rating is likely complete.
— with reporting from CNBC’s Yun Li, Pippa Stevens and Hannah Miao.
