Stocks in Focus: RLJ Lodging Trust (NYSE:RLJ), Western Digital Corp (NASDAQ:WDC)
Trading the news is a technique to trade equities, currencies and other financial instruments on the financial markets. Trading news releases can be a noteworthy tool for financial shareholders. Economic news reports often drive strong short-term moves in the markets, which may create trading opportunities for traders. Declarations about corporate profits, a change in administration, rumors of a merger, are events that can cause a company’s share price to move wildly up or down. Interest rates, unemployment and export rates, or the central bank’s policy shifts, can cause a deep change of an exchange rate.
Shares of RLJ Lodging Trust (NYSE:RLJ) declined -2.50% to $20.70 on Tuesday. RLJ Lodging Trust (the “Company”) (RLJ), recently declared it will report financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2017, after the markets close on August 3, 2017. The Company will also host a conference call on August 4, 2017, at 10:00 a.m. (Eastern Time).
The stock settled at $20.70 per share, after floating in a range of $20.67 to $21.19. The stock moved on high volume, traded at a volume of 3.40 million shares, as compared to its average daily volume of 1.74 million shares. The market capitalization for the company is reported at $2.79 Billion.
Western Digital Corp (NASDAQ:WDC) opened at $94.16. It reached an intraday trading high of $93.60 and closed at $94.27. Western Digital CEO Steve Milligan was in Japan on Tuesday in an effort to resolve his company’s feud with Toshiba Corp.
Milligan met with officials in senior positions at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, according to Reuters sources. The ministry is working to keep Toshiba’s semiconductor technology in Japan. It is unknown if Milligan will meet directly with Toshiba executives.
Toshiba is in a hurry to sell off its flash memory division to cover costs from a 2015 accounting scandal and huge cost overruns at a U.S. power plant construction business attained by its Westinghouse division. The company has been stymied by a legal battle with San Jose-based Western Digital, a joint venture partner in its memory chip business.
Toshiba stock shot up as much as 22 percent Tuesday, based in part on the optimism that the company will soon close a $20 billion memory unit deal. The stock also responded well to a reveal by Greenlight Capital’s David Einhorn that he has a position in the company, per Bloomberg. Shares had been down as much as 30 percent since June amid speculation that the company would be de-listed by the end of 2017 if it could not fix its balance sheet. (Source: American City Business Journals).
In other news, Western Digital Corp. (WDC) recently declared that the company plans to release its financial results for the fourth fiscal quarter ended June 30, 2017 after the close of the market on Thursday, July 27, 2017. The investment community conference call to discuss these results will be broadcast live over the Internet that day at 2:30 p.m. Pacific/5:30 p.m. Eastern.
The stock price declined -0.30 points or -0.32% at the market. The total volume traded for the day is 2.21 lower as compared to its average daily volume of 4.39 shares. The current EPS for the company has been recorded at $-1.06 and the beta value recorded by the company stands at 1.25 points.