The stock market fell heavily into the red territory on Friday as investors sold off positions to mitigate risks from a series of macroeconomic factors.
The Dow Jones declined by 1.69 percent, the S&P dropped by 1.71 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq nosedived by 2.20 percent.
Despite the broader market downturn, ten companies gained momentum, recording price growths on a week-on-week basis.
In this article, we have listed 10 companies that performed well last week. Note that shares performances were based on closing prices last Friday, February 21, as against their prices on February 14, or a week earlier.
To come up with last week’s advancers, we considered only the stocks with $2 billion in market capitalization and $5 million in daily trading volume.
The New York Stock Exchange building. Photo by Дмитрий Трепольский on Pexels
10. The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company (NASDAQ:GT)
The Goodyear saw its share prices grow by 4.17 percent week-on-week to end at $9.98 apiece as investors cheered news of an impressive earnings performance last year.
On February 13, GT reported a sharp rebound in its net income performance for the fourth quarter and full year 2024, with adjusted net profit in the quarter ending at $76 million, a significant turnaround from the $291 million net loss in the same period a year earlier.
Meanwhile, GT swung to a net profit of $70 million, a turnaround from a $689 million net loss in 2023.
Looking at the data, GT’s stock price began to jump following the release all through February 19, before investors took profits until Friday.
9. XPeng Inc. (NYSE:XPEV)
XPeng saw a 10.4-percent jump in its share prices week-on-week, finishing at $18.4 apiece on Friday versus the $16.66 registered on February 14, as share prices traded in line with its Chinese counterparts thanks to the boom in China’s AI and electric vehicles industries.
In recent news, XPEV CEO He Xiaopeng announced that the company plans to double down on expansion plans to penetrate more countries by the end of the year.
“We are going to accelerate from the 30 countries and regions where we were present in 2024. This year, we will increase to 60 and will have established more than 300 after-sales service points worldwide,” he said.
Over the next 10 years, he said that the international markets are expected to power its sales.
The ambitious plan comes amid the European Union’s move to impose a 35.30-percent higher tariff on China-made electric cars, saying Beijing was unfairly undercutting European automakers.
8. STMicroelectronics NV (NYSE:STM)
While suffering a 2.23-percent drop from Thursday’s price, STMicroelectronics’ share price of $27.59 on Friday still marked a 12.7-percent jump from the $24.48 finish on February 14. In general, investors resorted to bargain-hunting following a rating upgrade from an investment research firm.
On Wednesday, STM received a “buy” rating from analysts at Jefferies, an upgrade from the “hold” rating previously. It also earned a 47-percent higher price target of €34 versus the €23 set previously.
According to Jefferies, the rating was based on several key expectations, including a normalization of operations following inventory correction and increased components in the upcoming iPhone 17, coupled with a rebound in industrial demand.
Other growth drivers for STM include Artificial Intelligence solutions, low-Earth orbit satellites, silicon photonics, and auto microcontroller units (MCU).
7. Compass Inc. (NYSE:COMP)
Compass Inc. saw its share prices jump by 13.2 percent week-on-week to end Friday at $8.98 apiece versus the $7.93 registered on February 14 following improved earnings performance last year.
In its earnings release, COMP said net loss attributable to the company for the fourth quarter narrowed by 51.6 percent to $40.5 million from $83.7 million year-on-year, while net loss attributable to the parent for full-year 2024 shrunk by 51.9 percent to $154.4 million from $321.3 million in 2023.
Meanwhile, revenues for the quarter rose by 26 percent to $1.38 billion from $1.09 billion year-on-year, while revenues for the full year 2024 grew 15 percent to $5.6 billion from $4.88 billion.
For the first quarter of the year, the company pegged revenues at $1.35 billion to $1.475 billion, exceeding consensus of $1.335 billion.
The news propelled COMP’s stock to $10.24 each on the same day the results were released before profit-taking persisted to pull back a little on Friday.
6. GDS Holdings Ltd. (NASDAQ:GDS)
GDS Holdings increased its share prices by 14 percent week-on-week to end Friday’s trading at $44.76 versus the $39.14 finish on February 14.
Friday’s price, however, snapped a 10-day winning streak as investors began to pocket gains.
Overall, GDS’ rally was in line with the recent surge in various Chinese firms’ share prices, which have attracted investor funds from other assets amid higher growth hopes, thanks to the booming Chinese AI.
Earlier this month, City analyst Louis Tsang raised GDS’ price target to $51.2 from $25.1 previously, while maintaining a “buy” rating. The rating was based on optimism toward growing AI data center-related spending from China cloud service providers.
For this year, GDS expects revenues to settle anywhere between $9.9 billion to $10.15 billion—an outlook that was more bullish than the average analyst estimate of $9.95 billion.
5. Applied Digital Corp. (NASDAQ:APLD)
Shares of Applied Digital jumped by 16.9 percent week-on-week, ending at $10.65 on Friday versus the $9.11 on February 14 after earning a boost from Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang’s comments that investors got the wrong conclusion about DeepSeek that shook up US stocks over the past few weeks.
In addition, investor sentiment was boosted by NVDA’s recent regulatory filing which showed that APLD was one of the handful companies that it is directly invested in.
Comments and actions from NVDA, a giant chipmaker that played a pivotal role in the growth of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and whose influence extends beyond semiconductor expertise, have long been on the investors’ radar, with its investments in various technology sectors positioning itself at the forefront of the digital revolution.
4. Super Micro Computer Inc. (NASDAQ:SMCI)
Super Micro increased its share prices by 17 percent week-on-week to finish Friday’s trading at $56.07 apiece as investors gobbled up shares in the company ahead of the February 25 deadline for its delayed filings.
Investor optimism was buoyed by SMCI’s earlier announcements that it believes it would be able to file the delayed filings by the deadline—a move that is vital for the company in keeping its position from the Nasdaq.
“Supermicro continues to work diligently toward the filing of its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2024, and its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended September 30, 2024,” the company said in a statement. “Based on information currently available, the Company believes it will make such filings by February 25, 2025,” it said.
3. VNET Group Inc. (NASDAQ:VNET)
VNET’s share prices jumped by 26.4 percent week-on-week as investors gobbled up shares in the company in hopes that further advancements in China’s artificial intelligence industry would provide a further boost to its growth.
Since the emergence of DeepSeek, Chinese companies, including VNET—one of the leading data center operators in China, have been earning a boost amid expectations that any advancements in China’s AI industry would bolster business growth.
To date, various Chinese firms, including the biggest ones listed on the US stock market, have made their efforts to integrate DeepSeek into their operations.
Since the start of the month, a few days after DeepSeek’s surface, VNET already saw its share prices jump by a whopping 103 percent.
Last year, the company also signaled plans to invest heavily in AI, even earmarking a higher capital for this year to support growth.
2. Unity Software Inc. (NYSE:U)
Unity Software saw its share prices last week soar by 31.7 percent to close at $28.34 apiece as investor sentiment was buoyed by impressive earnings performance last year.
In a statement, U said its net loss attributable to the company for the fourth quarter narrowed by 51 percent to $122.7 million from $252.75 million, despite revenues declining by 25 percent to $457 million from $609 million year-on-year.
Net loss for the full year also shrunk by 19 percent to $664 million from $822 million in 2023, while revenues dropped by 17 percent to $1.813 billion from $2.187 billion in the same comparable period.
For the first quarter of the year, U expects revenues to settle between $405 million to $415 million.
1. Tuya Inc. (NYSE:TUYA)
Tuya Inc., a Chinese AI cloud platform service provider, surged by 36.2 percent week-on-week to close at $4.06 apiece on Friday from the $2.98 finish on February 14 as investors cheered news that the company kicked off the integration of its Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) platform with DeepSeek.
“By leveraging advanced technologies like natural language processing (NLP) and multimodal scene perception, TUYA is driving the transformation of smart devices into “active intelligence,” paving the way for AI applications to reach their full potential,” the company said in a statement on Thursday.
In particular, TUYA’s integration with DeepSeek would have a significant impact on the pet care industry through the synergy between its AIoT platform and DeepSeek’s multimodal AI capabilities.
“These synergies will translate into tangible pet care innovations, and further accelerate the adoption of AI-driven solutions across the pet industry,” it said.
While we acknowledge the potential of TUYA as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than TUYA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
