Wall Street This Week: HBO on Amazon; the State of DIY
From the country's two largest home improvement superstores checking out with fresh quarterly financials to the second-largest streaming video streaming site hoping to make a big splash with new content, here are some of the things that will help shape this week on Wall Street.
Monday -- Let's Go Shopping
Retailers have been reporting quarterly results in recent days, shedding some light on how they fared during the three-month period ending in April. Urban Outfitters (URBN) is the next mall chain to step up when it reports on Monday afternoon.
Analyst see Urban Outfitters earning 27 cents a share, down from the 32 cents a share it posted a year earlier. However, Wall Street has also underestimated the trendy apparel retailer's bottom-line prospects in each of the four quarters of fiscal 2014. It's a good sign heading into its first quarterly report of fiscal 2015.
Tuesday -- Attack of the Orange Aprons
Home Depot (HD) leads the charge with its fresh financials on Tuesday morning. The home improvement superstore chain has benefited from an improving real estate market. Homeowners are comfortable investing in sprucing up their digs again, and Home Depot is a popular starting point before taking on a makeover project.
Investors will get a great snapshot of the do-it-yourself niche this week. Rival Lowe's (LOW) reports a day later.
Wednesday -- Streaming HBO Without a Subscription
Amazon.com (AMZN) is certainly not as popular as Netflix (NFLX) when it comes to streaming video, but it's not going to stop trying. On Wednesday Amazon begins offering classic HBO shows through its Prime Instant Video platform. These are streams that can be consumed at no additional cost to existing Amazon Prime members.
Landing entire runs of older shows and older seasons of select current shows is a big catch for Amazon. It remains to be seen if HBO dealt the streaming rights to Amazon because the price was right or because it wanted to try to level the playing field against Netflix.
Thursday -- Is the Game Still on?
We have suffered through years of declining video game sales, and even the rollout of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 late last year hasn't been enough to breathe new life into moribund software sales. GameStop (GME) was able to offset the initial industry weakness by expanding its store base and cashing in on its lucrative used game resale business.
%VIRTUAL-article-sponsoredlinks%Things have started to slow lately for GameStop, but at least analyst still see modest top- and bottom-line growth when the video game retailer reports. GameStop operates more than 6,600 stores, and the small size of the stores make them a good fit in suburban strip malls and other retail areas where rent is reasonably cheap. With Microsoft recently announcing that the Xbox One will drop in price to $399 on June 9, we will see if that will finally get the industry moving again.
Friday -- Ready, Set, Run
We live in an era where physical fitness is in fashion, and it seems that a weekend doesn't go by without a charity 5k taking place. Foot Locker (FL) should be a natural beneficiary as a leading seller of athletic footwear through its 3,464 stores, including Champs Sports and its namesake mall stores.
Analysts see sales climbing 9 percent for the quarter, and profitability growing even faster.
Motley Fool contributor Rick Munarriz owns shares of Netflix. The Motley Fool recommends Amazon.com, Home Depot, Netflix and Urban Outfitters. The Motley Fool owns shares of Amazon.com, GameStop and Netflix. Try any of our newsletter services free for 30 days.
