Yahoo Finance Why Wells Fargo, Overstock.com, and KB Home Jumped Today
Stocks rose on Friday to extend yesterday's modest gains, though not enough to offset losses earlier in the week amid worries over ongoing global trade and tariff tensions.
But some individual companies delivered much more pronounced jumps than the broader market. Read on to learn why Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC), Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK), and KB Home (NYSE: KBH) climbed higher today.
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Wells Fargo gets a big thumbs-up
Wells Fargo stock rose 3.4% following the banking giant's announcement that its 2018 capital plan has been approved by the Federal Reserve. The plan, which covers the four-quarter period beginning in the third quarter of 2018 and ending the second quarter of 2019, allows the company to return excess capital to shareholders.
Under the plan, Wells Fargo expects to increase its quarterly dividend payout by roughly 10% to $0.43 per share. In addition, it will pursue an enormous $24.5 billion stock repurchase authorization -- more than double the $11.5 billion allocated for repurchases under last year's authorization. With shares of Wells Fargo still trading nearly 16% below its 52-week high set in late January, this big buyback appears to indicate the company believes its stock is a compelling value.
Overstock's cryptocurrency progress
Shares of Overstock.com soared 12.5% after the e-commerce retailer and cryptocurrency specialist announced a private equity firm will make a large investment in its upcoming tZERO security token offering. The company has secured a letter of intent with GSR Capital for a purchase of $160 million tZERO Security Tokens, priced at $10 per token, pursuant to a Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE).
For perspective on the relative size of this deal, Overstock also noted that in addition to GSR's commitment, as of yesterday tZERO had entered into executed SAFEs of over $168 million for security tokens from approximately 1,000 people in 30 countries.
To accommodate GSR's investment, Overstock extended its security token offering until Aug. 6, 2018.
"We are overwhelmed by the support we have received from all of our investors, and thrilled to have GSR on our team as we seek to launch the world's first security token exchange," stated tZERO CEO Saum Noursalehi. "This investment from GSR further validates tZERO's strategy to introduce blockchain to capital markets, and this partnership will accelerate our global expansion efforts."
KB Home builds a solid beat
Finally, KB Home stock popped 7.3%. The homebuilder reported stronger-than-expected second-quarter results, with revenue up 9.8% year over year to $1.101 billion, helped by a combination of a 5% increase in deliveries (to 2,717 homes) and a 4% jump in average selling prices (to $401,800). On the bottom line, that translated to a 73% increase in net income per share to $0.57. Analysts, on average, were only expecting earnings of $0.48 per share on revenue of $1.043 billion.
KB Home also ended the quarter with a backlog of 5,787 homes worth $2.24 billion -- with both metrics increasing 3% year over year -- for its highest second-quarter backlog value in 11 years.
With shares nearly 30% off their 52-week high, it's no surprise to see KB Home stock rallying in response.
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Steve Symington has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
