Discover, Gamestop, NextEra Energy: Trending tickers

Shares of Discover Financial Services (DFS) rose today after the company reached an agreement with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The FDIC's consent order prompts the credit card company to improve its compliance practices and customer service protocols.

GameStop (GME) shares fell in afternoon trading, dropping to the lowest levels in two-and-a-half years. The sell-off comes despite last week's announcement that Ryan Cohen would become the videogame retailer's new CEO. Investors are questioning whether new leadership is enough to execute a successful turnaround.

NextEra Energy (NEE) stock takes a significant hit following a downgrade for NextEra Energy Partners(NEP). Wells Fargo downgraded the company from 'Overweight' to 'Equal Weight' after NextEra Energy decided to trim its growth goal for NextEra Energy Partners. This marks a 6-day decline for the companies.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: Shares of Discover Financial Services climbing after an agreement with the FDIC. In a filing, the credit card issuer disclosed agreeing to improve its customer compliance and related corporate governance. I believe at one point it was the best performer in the S&P 500, although gave up some of those gains at day's end. So basically, this is a consent decree with the FDIC in order to improve some of its customer and consumer interactions. According to analysts, they were concerned that there would be a more onerous remedy here in this case, and so that's why we're seeing a bit of a relief being expressed in the shares.

- Yeah, exactly. So analysts apparently seeing it as a positive. No fines or penalties. In other words, regulatory overhang lifting here. For example, Wolfe Research saying, no smoking gun. I think that pretty much sums up a lot of the feelings from the traders and investors today.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, back in July when the company said that this whole back and forth was going on with the FDIC, a couple of other things were weighing on the stock. It said basically that it had done a review after some incorrectly classified credit card accounts from around mid 2007. That was unrelated to the FDIC decree, but still, that was something weighing on the shares. At the same time, it also paused its share repurchases, so we'll see if we get a restart now that this portion has been resolved.

- And moving on, Gamestop shares remain under pressure, sliding in today's trading session, hitting its lowest level this year. Company last week, remember, named Ryan Cohen as CEO amid the company's turnaround push, and you remember, Julie, I think we discussed some analysts, including our friend Michael Pachter of Wedbush, not fans of that move.

JULIE HYMAN: No, not fans of the move, but it looks like shareholders, interestingly, are not necessarily fans of that move either, and this is a switch, right? For the period of time in which Gamestop could sort of do no wrong, no matter what, you know, people outside the company might have been saying about it, and that has definitely changed and sentiment has indeed soured on Gamestop.

It's interesting that, you know, the sort of slip in the company. I think it's probably a coincidence, but the release of "Dumb Money", the movie that sort of examined the-- right, the the meme stock-- meme stock craze coincides with this drop in the shares of Gamestop. Maybe people taking another look at the stock. Who knows, as we see this switch over.

- $15, by the way. $15. At one point, $4.80.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah. I remember.

- You remember those days.

JULIE HYMAN: I do remember those days. It wasn't that long ago, interestingly. There's the longer term chart. And let's take a look at NextEra Energy Partners. It's hit with a downgrade over at Wells Fargo. The stock cut to equal weight from overweight. The bank also slashing its price target. Shares of parent company NextEra Energy also sliding in today's trading session.

Now, I think this is a really interesting story, because last week, NextEra, the parent company, cut its targets, got a bunch of downgrades. This is just the latest six day that we've seen declines for these companies here, and basically NextEra Energy cut the growth goal for NextEra Energy Partners, and that's what started this whole slide here. The worst performer, NextEra Energy that is, in the S&P 500 on the day.

- Yeah, and I think you'd be-- you know, the broader question are these higher interest rates as they begin to pose these headwinds, these challenges for the wind stocks, right, the solar stocks, the clean energy stocks. You begin as a trader, investor to wonder, OK, where's the next shoe dropping?

JULIE HYMAN: Well, and it's not just the renewable energy stocks. It's the traditional utility companies as well. If you take a look inside the Yahoo Finance Interactive, looking at the sectors on the day, utilities, in part led by NextEra, down the most in the S&P 500. Energy stocks as well, but the XLU, that's that ETF that tracks those, down by more than 4.5%.

And traditionally there are a number of reasons that higher interest rates weigh on power companies. They tend to have high debt loads, right? And so they're paying higher energy servicing costs. They also have relatively high dividend yields, and so when energy-- when treasury yields creep up and up and up, that provides some competition. If I can buy a treasury, that's seen as a very safe return versus a utility. You know, you see some yield competition in that case.

- Might not be the last headline we see like this.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah. We'll have to keep an eye on it. XLU down 11% over the past five sessions.

- Wow.