Apple probed by antitrust group, Spirit Airlines upgraded to 'Overweight', DocuSign shares plummet

Yahoo Finance Live examines several trending stocks from today's leading industry stories, including DocuSign's Q1 earnings miss and intent to slow down hiring, a UK antitrust group probing Apple's App Store restrictions, and Spirit Airlines' shareholders voting on the proposed merger with Frontier.

Video Transcript

DAVE BRIGGS: Yikes. Time now for our triple play. All of us picks a stock in the news and on the move. And my play moving downward quickly, it's DocuSign. The company reported weaker than expected earnings for the quarter and gave disappointing guidance for fiscal 2023 as well, sending the stock into a nosedive. DocuSign did outperform, though, on revenue for the quarter, $588 million versus 581 was for the estimates.

But that did not satisfy investors nor analysts. Several downgraded the stock today. DocuSign announced that they will also have to scale back hiring in order to focus on their profits. DocuSign, DOCU is the symbol. It's actually down 80% from their 52-week high, down 52 week from their 52-week high and down 58% year to date. It has just been ugly today, falling 24%, as that nosedive looks to continue.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: And obviously, we're seeing a lot of these work from home stock, these pandemic darlings that were doing well. You know, obviously, you're not going to need DocuSign quite as much if you're back to work in person. So it'll be interesting to see how this company is going to pivot and try and bounce back from this because they're really in a tough position right now.

Well, we're going to shift gears and stay in tech now. We're going to be talking about Apple. Now the stock is actually falling, along with the broad market selloff today on that CPI data. Now Apple CEO Tim Cook sent a letter to lawmakers Friday, pressing them on passing federal privacy legislation, according to Reuters. Now it's interesting to see what the implications will be for big tech, as we saw what happened with Apple's own privacy changes pummeled Facebook stock.

Now we're also seeing that there was some excitement over Apple announcing its Buy Now, Pay Later entrants into the space. But we're also seeing some headwinds, though, from the UK. And that's over browsers and cloud gaming. Now the Competition and Markets Authority is alleging that Apple and Google's dominance in mobile ecosystems shuts out competitors, holds back the British tech sector, and of course, limits choice.

Now this is just the latest in a move for scrutiny by big tech out of Europe, but of course, Britain trying to get back its economic growth, the slowest growing growth in the OECD, apart from Russia. And that's, of course, due to the invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, Rachelle, bringing it back to Apple, I mean, we know that the EU has been cracking down on tech for quite some time. Apple obviously caught up in the crosshairs there. Depending on how this all shakes out, it could be a huge challenge not only for Apple, but for many of the larger tech giants here in the US, just in terms of what their business could potentially look like overseas.

You mentioned the fact that Tim Cook was pressing for data legislation. And we know that Apple likes to consider or they do consider themselves as one of the forefront, just in terms of comparing them to their competitors, the leader in this space. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that if they do see some sort of data legislation, it could potentially benefit Apple here. Because when you take a look at how things currently stand, it would actually play into their current privacy features and actually give them a headstart against competitors.

When you take a look at the Street's recent call, they're taking a look at Bank of America. They were out with a note on Apple earlier this week, saying that they still like Apple. They're maintaining their overweight buy rating on the stock. And they like it because they're focused on semiconductors and some of the other announcements that they made earlier this week.

All right, from tech, let's switch gears here and go to travel. Airlines, Spirit is my pick today. JP Morgan upgrading the stock to overweight, saying that it's one-- that it's a merger with one of its competitors is a, quote, "high probability outcome." As it stands right now, JetBlue and Frontier, those two companies are both vying for Spirit, making competing bids.

Now, earlier this week, Spirit did delay its shareholder vote to June 30 to allow more time to review the competing offers. A merger of Spirit with either Frontier or JetBlue, Dave, would create the fifth largest airline in the United States. Of course, the big question is, no matter who they pick, if they pick Frontier or if they pick JetBlue, there's some uncertainty about whether or not this will actually get approval, regulatory approval, going forward.

DAVE BRIGGS: Yeah, it looks more likely probably with Frontier, but a lot of think it's unlikely either way. And the bad news is here, while this could be some good news for an investor, for all you consumers out there, this is more bad news, not what you need going into more increased travel this summer. Because today, in that CPI number, we saw airline tickets increased 12.6%. That's the third straight month, Seana, of double digit increases, up 38% from a year ago. So, again, more bad news for the future of travel. But again, people have shown that they are very resilient. They continue to want to fly. How long that lasts, a big question.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, that is a big question. We're going to ask that to Trivago CEO. We're going to be talking to him next hour, just about the trends that he's seeing in the travel industry. And it brings up the question about when is that, when are we going to hit that peak, when are we going to see consumers starting to scale back some of the spending. Because you have to think that we must be close to those rates when you talk about those big jumps in airline prices, hotels, and also for car rentals.