10 Big Names With Surprising Gains

Ten stocks defied a broader market pessimism on Wednesday, boasting surprising gains amid impressive corporate earnings and strong investor optimism, among others.

Meanwhile, only the Dow Jones finished in the green, inching up 0.04 percent. The S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped by 0.24 percent and 0.67 percent, respectively.

In this article, we focus on the 10 companies that led the market rally and break down the reasons behind their gains.

To compile the list, we focused exclusively on stocks with $2 billion in market capitalization and at least 5 million shares in trading volume.

A trader cheers his market gains. Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels

10. H World Group Ltd. (NASDAQ:HTHT)

Shares of H World Group grew by 5.43 percent on Wednesday to close at $35.16 apiece as investors were impressed by its earnings performance and growth outlook for the current quarter.

In the second quarter, attributable net income increased by 45 percent to 1.5 billion yuan from 1.067 billion yuan in the same period last year, on the back of a strong performance from Legacy-Huazhu. Total revenues grew by 4 percent to 6.4 billion yuan from 6.148 billion yuan year-on-year, near the high-end guidance of 1 to 5 percent revenue growth target.

As of June 30, H World Group Ltd.’s (NASDAQ:HTHT) worldwide hotel network ended at 12,137 with rooms totaling 1.18 million. Of the total, 12,016 hotels were under Legacy-Huazhu.

Looking ahead, H World Group Ltd. (NASDAQ:HTHT) said it expects revenues in the third quarter of the year to grow by 2 to 6 percent.

9. Viking Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VKTX)

Viking Therapeutics bounced back by 5.46 percent on Wednesday to finish at $25.69 apiece as investors resorted to early bargain-hunting to take advantage of its cheap valuations.

This followed the company’s 42-percent decline on Tuesday, dragged by results of its weight loss clinical trial that saw a huge dropout rate in the number of enrollees due to mild to moderate adverse effects, including nausea and vomiting.

In a statement, Viking Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VKTX) said it registered a 28-percent dropout rate in the overall number of enrollees for the second phase of its VK2735 clinical study, sparking concerns about the drug’s tolerability.

In a call with analysts, Viking Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VKTX) CEO Brian Lian said that GI-related adverse event rates might be further reduced through lower starting doses and or slower dose escalation.

He added that the company was looking to explore it further in an upcoming maintenance dosing study.

Following the results, Viking Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VKTX) earned a “sell” recommendation from Zacks Research.