Why Are These Stocks Trending Today?

Shares of commodity capital equipment maker Joy Global Inc. (NYSE:JOY) are trending today after the company reported its latest earnings results. For its fourth fiscal quarter, Joy Global reported an EPS of $0.43 on revenue of $865.57 million, exceeding analyst earnings estimates by $0.01 per share and revenue expectations by $74.43 million. Because of the challenging commodity climate, quarterly bookings declined by 21% year-over-year to $617 million and the company cut its quarterly dividend to $0.01 per share from the previous $0.20 per share. For the full year, Joy Global Inc. (NYSE:JOY) earned $1.95 per share on net sales of $3.172 billion. Management expects 2016 adjusted earnings per share to be $0.10-$0.50 on revenue of $2.4-$2.6 billion.

The M&A rumors turned out to be true, as Heartland Payment Systems, Inc. (NYSE:HPY) and Global Payments Inc (NYSE:GPN) are indeed merging. Bloomberg previously published an article stating that Global Payments Inc (NYSE:GPN) was in talks to purchase Heartland Payment Systems, Inc. (NYSE:HPY) as card processors merge to capture more growth from online and mobile shopping. Under terms of the merger, Heartland shareholders will recieve $53.28 in cash and 0.6687 shares of Global Payments for each share of Heartland they own. Global Payments management believes the deal will yield $50 million in annual synergies in fiscal year 2017 and $125 million in annual synergies afterwards and be accretive to EPS. Heartland shares are up 11% while Global Payments shares are down 7% in morning trading.

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