Stocks - Domino's, Unilever, Hershey Fall in Premarket on Low Visibility

By Geoffrey Smith 

Investing.com -- Stocks in focus in premarket trading on Thursday, April 23rd. Please refresh for updates

• Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) stock rose 1.3% after the pharma giant reported better than expected quarterly profit thanks and raised the top end of its full-year guidance.
• Lilly said it had profited from customer stockpiling of medicines as lockdowns cast doubt over their availability. It said its diabetes treatment Trulicity benefited particularly from this trend.
• Domino’s Pizza (NYSE:DPZ) stock fell 1.0% after the chain forecast a 7.1% like-for-like increase in the U.S. in the first four weeks of the current quarter. International sales will fall 3.2%, however.
• Lockdown orders have led to a surge in business food delivery groups.
• Domino’s pulled its two- to three-year outlook, saying it couldn’t tell what the long-term impact of the virus on consumer behavior would be.
• Anglo-Dutch giant Unilever (LON:ULVR)'s ADRs (NYSE:UL) were down 1.9% after the consumer giant said sales stagnated in the first quarter. Rising sales of hygiene-related products such as Dove soap were neutralized by a sharp drop in demand for discretionary items such as ice cream.
• The company also pulled its guidance for 2020, citing – as with Domino’s – that it couldn’t predict the long-term impact on customers.
• Another company to warn of poor visibility ahead was Hershey (NYSE:HSY). Hershey stock fell 3.0% after missing earnings expectations, although organic sales still grew in the first quarter.
• Las Vegas Sands (NYSE:LVS) stock rose 11.8% despite a collapse in its Macau business in the first quarter, after Las Vegas’ mayor Carolyn Goodman pushed to reopen the strip – albeit against the wishes of Nevada’s Governor. Wynn Resorts (NASDAQ:WYNN) stock also rose 7.1% while MGM Resorts (NYSE:MGM) stock rose 3.1%.
• Union Pacific (NYSE:UNP) stock rose 4.0% after the railroad operator said it had enough liquidity to see it through a prolonged downturn in freight loads. It expects a 25% drop in the current quarter. First-quarter volumes and earnings held up better than expected thanks to product mix.
• The Blackstone Group (NYSE:BX) stock rose 2.6% after the alternative asset manager reported a 4% rise in distributable earnings for the quarter. Writedowns on its real estate and private equity portfolios, at 21.8%, weren't noticeably worse than the 20% drop in the S&P 500 in the quarter.
• Target (NYSE:TGT) stock fell 5.9% to a two-week low after warning that higher staff costs and a shift in consumer habits towards lower-margin, essential products will hurt quarterly products. More positively, it said digital sales had increased fourfold from a year ago.