10 Firms Kick Off Monday Leading Gains

The stock market kicked off the week’s trading on a positive note, with all main indices finishing in the green territory, as economies took a pause from their tariff war, while investors breathed a sigh of relief on the February retail sales report which didn’t come worse.

According to the latest figures, retail sales rose 0.2 percent, albeit below the 0.6 percent as expected by analysts. Excluding autos, sales are up by 0.3 percent, in line with economists’ expectations.

Following the news, the Dow Jones clocked in a 0.85-percent gain, followed by the S&P 500 with 0.64 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq with 0.31 percent.

Meanwhile, 10 companies that led the rally posted modest gains as fresh company developments sparked investor buying. In this article, we have listed Monday’s 10 top performers and detailed the reasons behind their gains.

To come up with the list, we considered only the stocks with $2 billion market capitalization and $5 million in trading volume.

Stock market charts. Photo by Kaboompics.com on Pexels

10. Robinhood Markets Inc. (NASDAQ:HOOD)

Robinhood Markets grew its share prices by 7.08 percent on Monday to close at $42.02 apiece as investors took heart from news that it was officially making a foray into the betting markets platform.

In a statement, HOOD said it would integrate the predictions market hub into its application which will allow investors to trade on the outcomes of some of the world’s biggest events.

At launch, the hub will allow customers to trade contracts for what the upper bound of the target fed funds rate will be in May, as well as the upcoming men’s and women’s College Basketball Tournaments.

“We believe in the power of prediction markets and think they play an important role at the intersection of news, economics, politics, sports, and culture,” said HOOD Vice President and General Manager for Futures and International JB Mackenzie.

The prediction markets hub and corresponding contracts will initially be available across the US through KalshiEX LLC, a CFTC-regulated exchange.

9. Recursion Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:RXRX)

Recursion Pharmaceuticals rose for a second straight day on Monday, adding 7.72 percent to close at $6.84 apiece as investors repositioned portfolios while all eyes were on the ongoing NVIDIA GTC event.

It can be recalled that RXRX was one of the few companies in which giant chipmaker Nvidia Corp. invested. In a regulatory filing last month, NVDA’s holdings showed that it retained its 7.7-million holdings in RXRX, while exiting firms, including SoundHound AI.

The news represented a vote of confidence not just for NVDA but among small investors.

RXRX is a clinical-stage biotechnology company leading the space by decoding biology to industrialize drug discovery.