ZM - Zoom Video Communications, Inc.
| Previous Close | 84.62 |
| Open | 85.00 |
| Bid | 81.95 x 2200 |
| Ask | 83.30 x 1000 |
| Day's Range | 81.50 - 85.35 |
| 52 Week Range | 59.94 - 107.34 |
| Volume | 2,054,552 |
| Avg. Volume | 2,131,350 |
| Market Cap | 22.604B |
| Beta (3Y Monthly) | N/A |
| PE Ratio (TTM) | 2,849.31 |
| EPS (TTM) | 0.03 |
| Earnings Date | N/A |
| Forward Dividend & Yield | N/A (N/A) |
| Ex-Dividend Date | N/A |
| 1y Target Est | 95.29 |
- Yahoo Finance Video
Evaluating the current IPO market
The NYSE has hosted a number of this year's high-profile IPOs this year but Airbnb won't be one of them. Airbnb is planning its public listing for 2020. Cowen CEO & Chairman Jeff Solomon joins Yahoo Finance's Adam Shapiro, Julie Hyman, Andy Serwer, and Hennion & Walsh Asset Management President Kevin Mahn from the New York Stock Exchange to discuss the current IPO market.
- Yahoo Finance Video
WeWork will still list its shares on the NASDAQ
WeWork will be listing its shares on the NASDAQ. The company also outlined sweeping changes in its governance ahead of its trading debut, which is expected on September 23. Yahoo Finance's Adam Shapiro, Julie Hyman, Jared Blikre, and Rick Newman discuss.
- Yahoo Finance Video
Stock market news: September 9, 2019
Gains in U.S. stocks lost steam, with the three major indices ending mixed by the close of Monday’s session. Yahoo Finance's Myles Udland, Jen Rogers and Andy Serwer discuss.
- Bloomberg
IPO Best in Show Doesn't Go to WeWork, Uber or Lyft
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Many of us have been fixated on WeWork’s struggle to go public and the disastrous post-IPO stock performance of high-profile startups Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. But as has often been true in the last few years, the tale is different for the unglamorous tech companies that are running circles around their cool peers.The latest example is Datadog Inc., which helps companies monitor the health of their apps and computing infrastructure; it sold its first batch of public stock late Wednesday. If you fell asleep reading the description, let me wake you up by saying that the company’s most recent pre-IPO investors(1) have a nearly 1,100% gain on their shares in less than four years,(2)according to figures from EquityZen, a marketplace for private stock sales. The earliest Datadog stock buyers from 2011 have a nearly 50,000% gain.In a non-systematic look at more than a dozen other tech companies that have gone public in the past couple of years, the stock gain for Datadog’s pre-IPO investors is at or near the top of the leader board. Repeatedly, the less-buzzy startups like Datadog that sell cloud-subscription software to businesses have been the ones that deliver the goods for early backers. There have been exceptions, but companies like Zoom Video Communications Inc. and Slack Technologies Inc. — the coolest of the Zzzz crowd — have tended to produce strong returns for pre-IPO investors, and their public shares have typically done well, too.Investors, both public and private, love these software-as-a-service companies. Generally their technology is better than anything that came before — if there was an old-guard technology with similar functions — and once businesses use the software and stitch it together with email, calendars, information databases and other corporate systems, it can be tough to ditch. If they’re managed properly, these business software companies can grow fast and predictably.Among the tech companies that have gone public on U.S. stock exchanges since the beginning of 2018, nine of the top 10 by stock gains from their IPO price are software companies that sell to businesses, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. (No. 1 is Zscaler Inc., whose share price has more than tripled since its March 2018 IPO, despite a recent drop.)What are the lessons here? Well, not surprisingly, it may be that the consumer-oriented tech companies with lots of attention as startups may be great companies but not necessarily great investments if the hype leads to overvaluation. That’s particularly true — as in the cases of Uber, Lyft and WeWork — when public company investors are far more dubious than private investors about companies with unproven business models and unsteady financial metrics. The other lesson may be that you’re in luck if you founded a company in a sector like business software that, at least for now, is the apple of investors’ eyes. I have my doubts about how long these software-as-a-service companies can stay viable. When there is an economic downturn and companies take a hard look at what they’re spending on technology, there are going to be software bills they can live without. That swings the advantage to the big software supermarkets like Oracle, Microsoft and Amazon, which can offer companies discounts on a range of technologies. Some young business software companies are also spending big to grow in a way that may not be sustainable, and their corners of the market may not be as big as optimists expect. These young cloud software companies are also priced for growth to the point where they are vulnerable to any hiccup in customer acquisition numbers or revenue gains. That has happened recently, when companies like Zscaler, Alteryx Inc., PagerDuty Inc., CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. and New Relic Inc. reported wobbly financial results, changes in management or were just infected by worries from other companies in their sector. Still, Datadog shows the benefit of being the right kind of business at the right time. Bloomberg News reported Wednesday that Cisco Systems Inc. approached Datadog recently with a takeover offer significantly higher than the $7 billion valuation it had been shooting for in an IPO. (As of Thursday’s early stock market trades, Datadog is valued at about $11 billion, excluding the value of shares held by employees and others.)Datadog was apparently confident enough in its prospects to turn that down and opt to go public. The uncool companies truly are that cool.A version of this column originally appeared in Bloomberg’s Fully Charged technology newsletter. You can sign up here.(1) Those investors include Iconiq Capital, the investment fund that has managed money forMark Zuckerberg of Facebook and other affluent people and institutions in Silicon Valley and beyond. Other stock buyers included Index Ventures, OpenView Ventures, Amplify Partners and Contour Ventures, Datadog announced in early 2016.(2) I will say that it's unusual for tech startups these days to go public without selling stock or doing other cash collections in the four years before an IPO. Some startups can't go four weeks without needing fresh cash.To contact the author of this story: Shira Ovide at sovide@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Daniel Niemi at dniemi1@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Shira Ovide is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. She previously was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Cisco Offered $7 Billion-Plus for DataDog As Company Prepares to IPO
(Bloomberg) -- Cisco Systems Inc. approached software company Datadog Inc. in recent weeks with a takeover offer significantly higher than the $7 billion valuation it aimed for in its initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter.Datadog rebuffed the advance to pursue a stock listing because it felt it could be worth more as a public company over time, according the people, who requested anonymity because the talks were private. Talks between Cisco and Datadog are no longer active and Datadog is committed to going public, they said.A representative for Cisco declined to comment. Datadog couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.Cisco rose less than 1% to $49.72 at 10:12 a.m. in New York trading, for a market value of about $211 billion. Several rivals to Datadog also gained, including New Relic Inc., up 5.8%, Splunk Inc., which rose 3.9% and Elastic NV, which rose 3.1%.Datadog raised $648 million in its U.S. IPO Wednesday, selling 24 million shares for $27 each after marketing them at $24 to $26. The listing values Datadog at $7.83 billion.Software companies that power business processes have delivered some of this year’s best IPO debuts thanks to high margins and solid revenue. Zoom Video Communications Inc. and Crowdstrike Holdings Inc. have doubled in value since they began trading and are among the ten best performing offerings this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.In 2017, Cisco succeeded in buying a company on the eve of its IPO. It acquired AppDynamics Inc. for $3.7 billion right before the data analytics company was set to price its listing.(Updates share prices in fourth paragraph, details about IPO in fifth.)\--With assistance from Crystal Tse.To contact the reporters on this story: Liana Baker in New York at lbaker75@bloomberg.net;Gillian Tan in New York at gtan129@bloomberg.net;Ian King in San Francisco at ianking@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Goldstein at agoldstein5@bloomberg.net, Liana Baker, Matthew MonksFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- InvestorPlace
IBM Stock: It’s All About Red Hat
Enterprise software has been one of the most notable bright spots in the tech world. Just look at some of the recent IPOs which have soared in value from companies like Zoom Video Communications (NASDAQ:ZM) and Elastic (NYSE:ESTC) But even mature firms, like Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE), have rejuvenated their businesses.Source: JHVEPhoto / Shutterstock.com And then there is IBM (NYSE:IBM). The company whiffed on the cloud. It also whiffed on mobile. And even in AI (artificial intelligence) - in which IBM has invested for a long time - the results have been mixed.The irony is that IBM should have been a huge beneficiary of these trends. It has a trusted brand, a global footprint (it has 60 datacenters across the world) and a massive customer base. But unfortunately, the company did not adapt quickly enough.InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips * 7 CBD Stocks to Buy That Are Still Worth Your Investment Dollars The Good News for IBM StockDespite all its problems, IBM is still healthy from a financial standpoint, as it continues to generate substantial cash flows. The company also has incredibly talented employees.More importantly for IBM stock, the company has made critical moves to restructure its operations. Specifically, it has eliminated jobs and unloaded non-core assets, while also retooling its software to keep up with the competition.But I think the most consequential point is that the company has been willing to make big bets, as shown by its $34 billion mega-acquisition of Red Hat.True, there is a good deal of irony in this deal. When Linux and other open-source software platforms emerged in the 1990s, IBM's reaction was to fight back - and hard.But it was a losing battle. Open-source software has become a critical part of companies' arsenals. So with the Red Hat deal, IBM has become the leader of the space.There are clear benefits to open-source software. Specifically, adoption of it can be rapid because the technology is free and it's continuously being updated by developers.Red Hat has been able to leverage its technology to create an extensive platform that enables a hybrid cloud environment. Because of security, privacy and regulatory concerns, larger companies need to combine different, i.e. hybrid, options when it comes to the cloud. For example, they can utilize a mix of private and public clouds. Among the companies that provide public cloud infrastructure are Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL, NASDAQ:GOOG) and MSFT. As a result of this need for flexibility, the flexibility of the open-source model, for the most part, has proven to be spot-on.As part of IBM, Red Hat will benefit from the tech giant's tremendous distribution capabilities. What's more, the cloud opportunity is still massive. IBM believes that the typical enterprise has only transitioned 20% of its data to the cloud.Here's what the Senior Vice President and Chief Analyst of research firm IDC , Frank Gens, said about the acquisition of Red Hat: "As organizations seek to increase their pace of innovation to stay competitive, they are looking to open source and a distributed cloud environment to enable a new wave of digital innovation that wasn't possible before. Over the next five years, IDC expects enterprises to invest heavily in their journeys to the cloud, and innovation on it. A large and increasing portion of this investment will be on open hybrid and multicloud environments that enable them to move apps, data and workloads across different environments."In other words, the deal has the potential to generate growth for IBM and should help make Big Blue a major player in cloud computing. That should definitely be positive for IBM stock. The Bottom Line On International Business Machines StockI can understand why there is lots of skepticism regarding the bull case on IBM stock. Consider that, over the past five years, IBM stock price has fallen 2%.But I think the Red Hat deal will be a game changer that will get IBM stock back on track. In fact, investors are already more upbeat on the shares, as IBM stock price has jumped 25% this year.There will likely be bumps in the road for IBM stock, as acquisitions are never easy. But with the dividend yield at 4.56% - one of the highest in the tech world - and the forward price-earnings ratio standing at only 10.5, IBM does look interesting.Tom Taulli is the author of the book, Artificial Intelligence Basics: A Non-Technical Introduction. Follow him on Twitter at @ttaulli. As of this writing, he did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. More From InvestorPlace * 2 Toxic Pot Stocks You Should Avoid * 7 CBD Stocks to Buy That Are Still Worth Your Investment Dollars * 5 Stocks to Buy With Great Charts * 5 Goldman Sachs Stocks to Buy with Over 20% Upside Potential The post IBM Stock: It's All About Red Hat appeared first on InvestorPlace.
- InvestorPlace
Is Failure in Store for the WeWork IPO?
WeWork parent The We Company has delayed the office-sharing startup's initial public offering until the end of the year. It now either won't come to the public market at all, or come at such a low valuation its venture backers will take a loss. This isn't terribly unusual for 2019.Source: Mitch Hutchinson / Shutterstock.com So far in 2019 there have been 94 IPOs, and 38 of them have shown negative returns.The big winners, like CrowdStrike Holdings (NASDAQ:CRWD), Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND) and Zoom Video Telecommunications (NASDAQ:ZM), have generally come to the market prepared to make a profit. There have also been big medical winners with market caps near $1 billion, like ShockWave Medical (NASDAQ:SWAV) and Turning Point Therapeutics (NASDAQ:TPTX). Most IPOs are still hits -- but the batting average is declining like an aging slugger's.InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading TipsWeWork is distinguished by the same flaws as Uber (NYSE:UBER) stock and Lyft (NASDAQ:LYFT) stock. It's not making money, even at scale, and current investors are looking at you for a bailout. The WeWork ProblemWeWork's model is to buy lots of office space, fix it up, then sell it at retail in the form of "memberships." As I wrote in August, it's more like LA Fitness than Cloudflare (NYSE:NET), which went public Sept. 13 and is already showing a 25% return. * 7 CBD Stocks to Buy That Are Still Worth Your Investment Dollars Worse, WeWork's business model is not unique. IWG (OTCMKTS:IWGFF), founded in Belgium back in 1989, has been operating in low-cost suburban office parks for years. It came public at the end of 2016 and only proved itself this year. IWGFF stock is up 92% year-to-date.The difference is that IWG has a market cap of $4.8 billion. WeWork was initially seeking a market cap of $47 billion. Worse, WeWork needs the $3 billion it was trying to raise in order to secure the $6 billion line of credit in order to keep operating.The business model is based on a myth of young workers with startups signing up for prestige "co-working spaces" dressed up with amenities they like. In fact, WeWork has mainly signed up established tech companies seeking contingency space like Salesforce (NYSE:CRM), Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) and Facebook (NASDAQ:FB). It's expansion insurance. CEO Adam NeumannMeanwhile t-shirted CEO Adam Neumann has come off as something of a fraud. He isn't a dweeby kid. He's a 40-year old Israeli military veteran who spent big money before earning a dime for shareholders. He tried to score $5.9 million from his own company for trademarking the word "We." This is also a mom-and-pop operation; co-founder Miguel McKelvey gets only six mentions in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Form S-1, against 20 mentions for Neumann's wife Rebekah.While portraying a handsome young family man on TV, Neumann also created a fraternity culture that drew a sexual harassment suit last year.Worse, it's clear the business model is not yet working. WeWork lost $1.9 billion in 2018, then another $904 million for the first six months of 2019, on revenue of $1.5 billion. The Bottom Line on the WeWork IPOThe real loser is SoftBank (OTCMKTS:SFTBF) and its Vision Fund. It brought $100 billion to the party in order control the technology of the future -- and it's trying to raise another $100 billion. SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son runs the fund, but the money is mostly from sovereign wealth funds in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.Son's losers, in addition to WeWork, include Uber, Sprint (NYSE:S) and Slack (NYSE:WORK), which is down more than 30% after coming public in June. Son has called his Vision Fund the ultimate disruptor, but it may be Son who turns out to be the greater fool.Dana Blankenhorn is a financial and technology journalist. He is the author of the mystery thriller, The Reluctant Detective Finds Her Family, available at the Amazon Kindle store. Write him at danablankenhorn@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @danablankenhorn. As of this writing he owned no shares in companies mentioned in this article. More From InvestorPlace * 2 Toxic Pot Stocks You Should Avoid * 7 CBD Stocks to Buy That Are Still Worth Your Investment Dollars * 5 Stocks to Buy With Great Charts * 5 Goldman Sachs Stocks to Buy with Over 20% Upside Potential The post Is Failure in Store for the WeWork IPO? appeared first on InvestorPlace.
- American City Business Journals
Zscaler stock jumps on news of partnership with CrowdStrike
Shares of San Jose-based Zscaler Inc. rose about 6 percent Tuesday after it said that its cloud-security platform will use endpoint protection technology from Sunnyvale-based Crowdstrike Holdings Inc., whose stock rose more 4 percent.
- Yahoo Finance
Uber, Lyft stock performance shows 'appetite for risk has diminished'
What happened to the much-hyped march of the unicorn IPOs?
- Simply Wall St.
Should You Be Concerned About Zoom Video Communications, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:ZM) ROE?
While some investors are already well versed in financial metrics (hat tip), this article is for those who would like...
- Barrons.com
Zoom Stock Will Rebound Because It Has a Massive Market Opportunity, Analyst Says
The recent dip in Zoom Video Communications’ share price is a buying opportunity, according to Baird.
- MarketWatch
Zoom Video stock gets a boost after Baird joins the bulls
Zoom Video Communications Inc. got a bit of love Monday amid a rough stretch for the videoconferencing stock, after Baird analyst William Power initiated coverage of the shares at outperform. "We acknowledge the premium valuation, but believe that is justified by the industry-leading growth, estimate upside potential, strong profitability and significant Zoom Phone potential," he wrote in a note to clients. Power sees architectural advantages for Zoom across the business as well as "significant growth opportunities" for the Zoom Phone business. Shares are up 2.1% in Monday trading, but they've fallen 13% over the past month. The S&P 500 is up 3.8% in that time.
- TheStreet.com
Zoom Video Jumps as Baird Initiates Coverage With Outperform Rating
Zoom Video Communications rises after an analyst at Baird initiates coverage of the video-first communications platform company with an outperform rating and stock price target of $100 a share.
- Investopedia
Cloud Computing Stocks Enter Intermediate Corrections
High-multiple cloud software stocks have entered intermediate corrections that could shake out the large supply of weak hands.
- GlobeNewswire
Zoom Named a Leader in Gartner's 2019 Magic Quadrant for Meeting Solutions
Zoom Video Communications, Inc., a provider of video-first unified communications, today announced that analyst firm Gartner has named Zoom a Leader in the 2019 Magic Quadrant for Meeting Solutions. This is the fifth time Zoom has appeared in the Gartner Magic Quadrant and its fourth consecutive time as a Leader. The criteria used by Gartner to evaluate companies selected for the Magic Quadrant include completeness of vision and ability to execute.
- TheStreet.com
Zoom Video Could Zoom in on Lower Prices Soon
For his "Executive Decision" segment of Mad Money Monday night, Jim Cramer spoke for the first time with Eric Yuan, founder and CEO of Zoom Video Communications Inc. , the video-conferencing company. ZM shares rose 8% on Friday and another 8% Monday, but still remain down 16% over the past month. Cramer reiterated his buy on Zoom Video but I want to review the charts again.
- Yahoo Finance
'WeWork has a lot of questions to answer': EquityZen CEO
WeWork needs to rethink its valuation, according to EquityZen CEO Atish Davda.
- TheStreet.com
[video]What's It Worth to You?: Cramer's 'Mad Money' Recap (Monday 9/9/19)
Jim Cramer says investors are reevaluating how much they're willing to pay for growth today and for a company's growth in the future.
- Benzinga
WeWork Considers Valuation Cut As Investors Question IPO Values
In another possible sign investors may be souring on high-priced IPO stocks, the parent of soon-to-go public WeWork is considering cutting its valuation to below $20 billion. Some investors are reportedly ...
- Bloomberg
Software Stocks Plunge as Investors Grow Wary of Valuations
(Bloomberg) -- Shares of some of this year’s highest-flying software stocks tumbled Monday as investors re-evaluate this year’s rally in light of the premium valuations their rapid revenue growth commands.Data-management software developer Alteryx Inc. plunged as much as 15%, while cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike Holdings Inc. sank 13%. They have been among 2019’s top performers, more than doubling since the start of the year. Both had revenue growth that exceeded 70% in the second quarter and trade at more than 20 times estimated sales, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The average for the S&P 500 Software Index is about 7 times.Enterprise-software companies have been among the standout gainers in the S&P 500 this year, as investors have been have been willing to pay higher prices for faster revenue expansion amid concerns about slowing global growth. They’ve also been helped by limited China exposure, which has increased their appeal amid the Sino-American trade war. Monday’s slump comes after the broader market retraced almost all of its August losses as trade and economic worries eased.“Most of the names getting hit are high-multiple names that have had impressive run ups,” said Rishi Jaluria, a D.A. Davidson analyst. “This suggests some level of profit taking.”Other notable decliners on Monday include:Fastly Inc. -16%Slack Technologies Inc. -12%MongoDB Inc. -11%Pagerduty Inc. -11%Zoom Video Communications Inc. -9.6%Okta Inc. -11%Twilio Inc. -10%Coupa Software Inc. -11%Trade Desk Inc. -11%Shopify Inc. -7.8%(Adds S&P 500 Software Index average multiple in second pargraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Jeran Wittenstein in San Francisco at jwittenstei1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Catherine Larkin at clarkin4@bloomberg.net, Richard RichtmyerFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- GlobeNewswire
HSBC Standardizes on Zoom for Enterprise Communications
SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 09, 2019 -- Zoom Video Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZM) today announced that HSBC, one of the world’s largest banking and financial services.
Motley FoolTech Stocks This Week: 2 Growth Stocks Report Earnings
Both of these fast-growing companies lifted their full-year outlooks.
Motley FoolZoom's Rapid-Fire Growth Continues
Sales are soaring as new customers adopt the platform and existing customers spend more.
- Investor's Business Daily
Own Software Stocks? CrowdStrike, Zoom Video Battle High Expectations
If you own highflying software stocks, watch today's investor reaction to earnings reports from CrowdStrike and Zoom Video. The bar may be rising for stocks trading at high multiples.
- InvestorPlace
Stock Market Today: Jobs Report Makes for Layup Rate Cut?
Despite the release of the August jobs report on Friday, it was relatively calm waters in the stock market today.We saw that the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA:SPY), SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) and PowerShares QQQ ETF (NASDAQ:QQQ) were all within 25 basis points of flat for the day.InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips Movers in the Stock Market TodayShares of Lululemon Athletica (NASDAQ:LULU) climbed more than 7.5% on Friday after the company beat on earnings and revenue expectations. It helped that comp-store sales of 11% crushed estimates of 5.2%, while management's guidance topped consensus expectations. It's no wonder LULU stock is at new highs.Zoom Video (NASDAQ:ZM) also beat on earnings and revenue, as the latter grew 95% year-over-year. Further, management guided for third-quarter earnings of 3 cents per share and revenue in the range of $155 to $156 million, easily topping estimates of a penny per share loss, and sales of $140.94 million. * 7 Stocks to Buy In a Flat Market For management's full-year outlook, they expect earnings of 18 to 19 cents per share versus expectations of just 3 cents per share. For revenue, they expect between $587 million to $590 million versus estimates of $546.73 million. In short, ZM crushed forward estimates, yet shares fell more than 6%.ZM was one of our "Top Stock Trades," along with four other notable movers from Friday.Like Zoom, CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) delivered strong headline results and better-than-expected guidance. Yet, shares shed more that 12% in Friday's session. Are valuations finally catching up to some of these hot initial public offerings?DocuSign (NASDAQ:DOCU) missed on earnings estimates, but guidance came in above consensus expectations. Thus, shares rocketed higher by more than 21% on Friday. The 52-week high of $59.90 isn't all that far away now.Up almost 5% on Friday and Canopy Growth (NYSE:CGC) is now up more than 20% from its lows six trading sessions ago. If it can maintain momentum, perhaps it can fill the gap back up toward $32. That's also where its 50-day moving average comes into play. Jobs Report, Rate CutThe non-farm payrolls report for August showed that 130,000 jobs were added to the economy, short of economists' expectations for 160,000. Bulls needed a report that was strong enough to show that the economy is okay, but not so strong that it may discourage the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates later this month.Aside from missing estimates this month, the labor figures for the previous two months were also revised lower. Hurricane Dorian won't help jobs growth this month either, although it may provide a nice boost over the next few months. On the plus side, the participation rate was strong, while wage growth topped expectations for the third time in a row.Along with midday comments from Fed Chair Jerome Powell, investors had a lot on their plate to digest on Friday.Earlier this week, we noted that the market was pricing in a 97% chance of a 25 basis point (bps) cut in the Fed Funds rate, and a 3% chance of a 50 bps cut. After Friday's news, the probability of a 25 bps cut fell to 91.2%, while the probability of no cuts jumped to 8.8%.That's certainly a notable shift, although Powell's comment that the Fed will "act as appropriate," likely signals a cut later this month. Merger Monday?Remember Symantec (NASDAQ:SYMC) stock? The name found itself making headlines earlier this summer on speculation that Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) would acquire the name. AVGO eventually agreed to acquire SYMC's enterprise business.Now though, speculation suggests that private equity firms Advent and Permira are looking to acquire the company, according to the Wall Street Journal. The deal, should one materialize, would still reportedly allow the AVGO-SYMC enterprise deal to go through. The news sets us up for a possible "Merger Monday."Symantec stock climbed more than 4% on Friday.Bret Kenwell is the manager and author of Future Blue Chips and is on Twitter @BretKenwell. As of this writing, Bret Kenwell is long AVGO. More From InvestorPlace * 2 Toxic Pot Stocks You Should Avoid * 7 Deeply Discounted Energy Stocks to Buy * 7 Stocks to Buy In a Flat Market * 10 Stocks to Buy to Ride China's Emerging Wealth The post Stock Market Today: Jobs Report Makes for Layup Rate Cut? appeared first on InvestorPlace.
