Why Investors Are Buzzing about SM Energy, Oasis Petroleum, Tile Shop, eBay, and Facebook

Tile Shop Hldgs, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTS) shares have surged by 7.4% after the company reported earnings of $0.10 per share on revenue of $78.6 million for the third quarter, beating profit estimates by $0.02 per share and meeting top-line expectations. Sales grew by 8.6% on the year, as comparable stores sales growth amounted to 5.7%. Gross margin for the period stood at 70.2%, down from 70% a year earlier. The company expects full-year earnings of $0.45 to $0.47 per share, versus the Street’s estimate of $0.45. while sales outlook of $324 million to $324 million is relatively in line with analysts’ expectations of $325.98 million. At the end of June, 21 funds tracked by us held shares of Tile Shop Hldgs, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTS), compared to 18 funds a quarter earlier.

Although Mark Zuckerberg’s company is technically competing against it with ‘Marketplace’, eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) has chosen to be practical and avail itself to Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)‘s billion-plus user base. According to Bloomberg, eBay is testing ShopBot, a personalized shopping assistant designed to seem like a regular human customer service representative powered by artificial intelligence, on Facebook’s Messenger platform. Ebay Chief product officer R.J. Pittman commented: “We’re going to where our users are, versus letting it all play out on Ebay.com and our mobile app”. If the initiative is successful, Facebook could have a new functionality for its app that it could later charge money/enact a fee on. Facebook would also better diversify itself away from advertising. eBay, meanwhile, could realize substantially more revenues from another sales channel. Among the funds we track, 58 investors held shares of eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) and 148 funds were long Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) at the end of June.

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