By Peter Nurse
Investing.com -- Stocks in focus in premarket trade on Tuesday, April 20th. Please refresh for updates.
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IBM (NYSE:IBM) stock rose 2.9% after the tech giant recorded its highest quarterly sales growth in more than two years, boosted by its bets in the high-margin cloud computing business.
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Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) stock fell 0.4% after the drugmaker reported $100 million in sales for its Covid-19 vaccine, whose use was paused by U.S. regulators last week. Still, it beat expectations for quarterly revenue and profit and raised dividend payouts to shareholders.
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United Airlines (NASDAQ:UAL) stock fell 3.1% after the airline reported a bigger-than-expected $2.4 billion net loss for the first quarter, as fuel costs rose despite demand staying weak due to the pandemic.
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Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) stock fell 3.6%, handing back some of the over 13% gains seen so far this year, despite reporting a more than threefold jump in quarterly profit, buoyed by robust demand for its Covid-19 test kits.
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Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock fell 0.1% ahead of a virtual launch event later Tuesday, at which the iPhone-maker is expected to unveil a new podcast subscription service and may show off tiny tags meant to locate lost items.
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Travelers (NYSE:TRV) stock rose 1.6% after the insurer beat estimates, raised its dividend and added $5 billion to its share buyback program, helped by strong underwriting results and improved investment returns. This comes despite winter storms that more than doubled casualty losses compared with a year ago.
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Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) stock fell 0.9% after the defense supplier disappointed with its revenue figures, despite reporting better-than-expected quarterly profits, helped by higher profits at its unit which makes ships and helicopters.
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Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG) stock fell 0.2% after the consumer products giant beat quarterly sales estimates, helped by a sustained wave of demand for soaps, detergents and other cleaning products during the pandemic. The stock is up over 6% this month.
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PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) stock rose 0.1% with the online payments service set to allow select customers of its Venmo app to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies.
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Boeing (NYSE:BA) stock fell 0.4% despite Dubai Aerospace Enterprise announcing an order for 15 737 MAX 8 jets, signaling an end to the aircraft leasing giant's pricing standoff with planemakers.
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Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) stock fell 0.7% on uncertainty surrounding the electric car maker’s Autopilot software, following a fatal crash over the weekend. CEO Elon Musk has tweeted that the Autopilot driver assistance system was not engaged, a statement seemingly at odds with police information that neither of the two people who died in the crash was sitting in the driver's seat.
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Altria (NYSE:MO) stock fell 2.7% and British American Tobacco (LON:BATS) (NYSE:BTI) ADR fell 3.1%, continuing Monday’s losses on the back of a WSJ report that the Biden administration is considering whether to cap nicotine levels in cigarettes.
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Nike (NYSE:NKE) stock fell 1.7% after Citigroup (NYSE:C) downgraded its stance on the sports apparel retailer to ‘neutral’ from ‘buy’, saying a backlash in China over comments about labor conditions in the region of Xinjiang could result in a short-term slowdown.
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Kansas City Southern (NYSE:KSU) stock soared 17% after the Wall Street Journal reported that Canadian National Railway (NYSE:CNI) plans to make a $30 billion bid for the railroad operator, an offer that represents around a 20% premium to the agreement Kansas City reached with Canadian Pacific (NYSE:CP) last month.