Carnival stock rebounds, Netflix upgraded to ‘neutral,’ Bumble stock soars

Yahoo Finance Live's Brad Smith, Rachelle Akuffo, and Emily McCormick take a look at several of today's trending stock tickers.

Video Transcript

BRAD SMITH: Welcome back. It's time for the Yahoo Finance triple play, where Rachelle, Emily, and I call out three stocks that we're tracking on the day, going into the market close. And I'll kick things off for us here today. I'm tracking shares of CCL, both on the percentage move that we've seen and on volume, upsized volume here during the course of today's session. There you're seeing a move higher by about 8.9% on today's activity.

And this is something synonymous that we've seen across some of the other cruise line operators that, for many of them, have pushed out the ability to have these re-engagement campaigns, alongside some of the customers that they're expecting to come back for this experiential part of the economy.

And so with that in mind, we also are continuing to track, of course, fuel prices. Those increases had knocked them back. And you're seeing some of that accounted for over these past few weeks among cruise line operators. But all in all, a big day for cruise line operators as well, as some of the other major experiential economy names, especially those that are in the sky today. And American Airlines, Delta Airlines, and even Southwest and United Airlines as well moving higher.

EMILY MCCORMICK: And to that point, Brad, just on the broader move that we're seeing across the travel names to the upside, I do think this is interesting when we just track the dip buying, this rebound that we're seeing today in the broader market. Some of the most badly beaten down names from earlier this week are now the ones that are moving most to the upside, the travel names no exception here. And cruise names aside, we have been getting some negative news, I guess you could call it, in terms of what they're forecasting for the rest of this year, or at least, the first half of this year.

If you recall yesterday, we had Alaska Air Group talking about cutting capacity as much as 5% in the first half of the year due to rising fuel prices. Booking.com just yesterday said that room nights for over the week ended March 6 were down about 10% compared to 2019 levels due to a reduction in demand in Eastern Europe. So certainly not all good news here for the travel names, but perhaps some of this peak pessimism has now been priced in. We're still seeing them down for the year-to-date, but at least seeing a little bit of a recovery in these names this afternoon.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: I agree, and I mean, we're seeing sort of a convergence of things. We did see talk of some sort of ceasefire with Ukraine and Russia, though, obviously, that's still a fast moving target. And it also goes back to the strength of the US consumer. I mean, there's a lot of still pent-up demand, a lot of people seeing this, perhaps, as a light at the end of the tunnel after all these COVID restrictions. And then after, the weariness of that, and then adding to this, concerns about the conflict.

I think people want something to look forward to. And as you mentioned, we did see some of that light also shining on hospitality stocks, casinos, and restaurants, some of the usual suspects for some of this discretionary spending. Now speaking of that, I want to turn to Netflix, which is my pick for the day. Now as we can see, it is up-- it's been up over 5% at the moment. It's really been trending steadily upwards all day long.

Now, it's interesting because this came on the heels of a note titled "Hell Freezes Over." And that accompanied a landmark upgrade on Netflix by a notable bear on the stock, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter. Now he raised the rating from underperform to neutral. And he was saying that he sees a 12-month price target of $342. Now he said that Netflix's first mover advantage and large subscriber base provides the company with a nearly insurmountable competitive advantage over its streaming peers.

And as we talk about the peers, obviously, a lot of them moving into some of these cheaper tiers. And people are wondering, will Netflix follow suit? Will they perhaps have an ad-supported cheaper tier? Analysts hope so. And the CFO said, never say never, leaving the door open just a little bit.

BRAD SMITH: I mean, when we think about Netflix and how much upside that even some of the retail investors, but especially the institutions that may have a little bit more money to throw around, looking at this as of yesterday, 50% off of its peaks that we had seen in November of 2021. Certainly presents an opportunity, but it does come with that headwind risk of some of the deceleration in growth that the company had warned for. And so on price alone, it seems that at least some of the analysts out there might be setting up where exactly they anticipate Netflix will move in the future and if they have the catalog and the content to eventually get them there as well.

EMILY MCCORMICK: And Rachelle, just to go back to your point, of course, this upgrade that we saw from Wedbush, really do want to underscore how notable this is coming from Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter. Prior to this upgrade, he did have an underperform rating on shares of Netflix for more than a decade. So perhaps one of the reasons why we're seeing the stock react the way it is today.

But also in the tech world, I want to shift gears and talk about Bumble. That's a stock that I'm watching today. And we are seeing the shares flying higher by more than 39% this afternoon. Two things really here-- the company reported better than feared fourth quarter results, better than expected guidance going forward. And the second thing I want to highlight is the fact that Bumble did say that it will be pulling out of Russia, and of course, joining a number of other companies now that have done so as well.

So to that point, Bumble is discontinuing its operations in Russia, removing all of its apps from the app stores in Russia and Belarus. And Bumble's full year forecast, which, again, did come in better than expected, sees full year revenue coming in at as much as $944 million. That does include an expected $20 million loss of sales from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

So not necessarily so much coming from the main Bumble app, but because Badoo, which is one of the smaller dating apps in the Bumble ecosystem, does operate in Eastern Europe. So something to watch here going forward, but certainly getting a stock pop here because of these better than feared results, guys.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: Exactly, and you have to figure in because of that concern about that exposure to Russia-Ukraine, a lot of people sort of bracing for the worst. So to see that the hit wasn't as bad as expected certainly gives some hope, and obviously, perhaps, love in the air as COVID restrictions lift and things get a little bit more normalized as well.