Shopify stock tanks after disappointing earnings, Hycroft Mining shares up, Nikola stock rises

Yahoo Finance Live looks at several stocks tied to today's trending industry stories, including Shopify announcing their acquisition of logistics firm Deliverr.

Video Transcript

RACHELLE AKUFFO: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Live, everyone. As we can see, the major indices continuing their descent there-- the Dow down more than 1,200 points, down 3.6%. The S&P 500 also down more than 170 points there, about to be down about 4%. And the NASDAQ down 5.42% there, losing 700 points on the day.

Well, as we can see there, that sea of red across the markets today-- so let's head into our Triple Play. My pick is actually bucking today's downtrend. I picked Hycroft Mining. Now, this stock is usually-- it's in gold and silver mining-- and they actually jumped 30% in early trading before paring back those gains-- still in the green, though. They're up more than 14%.

Now, this came on the heels of quarterly data that came out late Wednesday and some optimism about its recent exploration results of high grade silver vortex deposits. But that Q1 data did show revenue halved and net losses widened to just over $22 million, or $0.27 a share, from $9.69 million, or $0.16 a share, compared to a year ago.

But today's upswing is welcome news for AMC Entertainment holdings. Now, they actually raised eyebrows when they took a 22% stake in Hycroft, as well as at 71-acre mine in northern Nevada back in March. But that investment has helped Hycroft now fund the silver exploration that's now paying off that we're seeing in today's share price. So coming full circle there.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, Rachelle, it's interesting-- I think AMC's involvement in Hycroft caught a lot of investors by surprise. They were wondering what they saw in Hycroft. I remember going back-- it happened just a few months ago, but CEO Adam Aron, he basically said that Hycroft reminded him of AMC a year ago.

And he said that they were facing a liquidity crisis despite what he called rock solid assets. So year-to-date, the stock's up pretty substantially, but still below $2 a share. So any move here either way looks like a pretty big jump. So certainly a name to keep an eye on. Let's talk about Shopify, though. It's having a massive move here today to the downside, taking a post-pandemic hit.

Now, the stock is tanking off just, look at that, over 15.5%. It fell short on earnings thanks to a slowdown that we're seeing in e-commerce growth. Now, the company posted earnings per share of $0.20. That was well below the Street's expectations-- $1.2 billion in sales. Shopify warning of the slowdown that's coming in the coming months.

Their growth in merchants using the platform there, saying that it will be, quote, "comparable to last year." So we're no longer seeing that massive growth that we got used to during the pandemic. Now, Shopify is not the only e-commerce play in the red today. EBay and Etsy two more names that are both moving lower on weak guidance. But again, Shopify shares off just over 15%, Emily.

EMILY MCCORMICK: Absolutely, Seana. I mean, it really goes to show here the slowdown that we're seeing in e-commerce. When we look back to Amazon's earnings results reported earlier on during this earnings season, all of these really showing the fact that consumers are going back to shop in-person at the expense of a lot of these e-commerce sales. So again, taking a look at that 15.8% decline in shares of Shopify today.

But, Rachelle, like you, I'm also looking at a stock that is bucking the trend of the broader market, and that's Nikola. Now, those shares are actually higher today, and that's after Nikola reported better-than-feared loss results, I should say. The company actually reported a narrower-than-expected adjusted EBITDA loss of $79.2 million, better than the $108.8 million loss expected.

And the company also said that it expects to deliver between 300 and 500 battery electric vehicle trucks this year. Now, that is in line with the guidance that Nikola gave back in February. So the fact that this company is maintaining that guidance, even given ongoing supply chain concerns and company-specific concerns we've seen over the past couple of years is a good sign here for investors.

Then also in a facilities update, Nikola said that it expects its phase two assembly for its Coolidge, Arizona factory to be done next year. And that once that's completed, it'll provide production capacity of as much as 20,000 trucks in two shifts. So overall, some incrementally good news here and investors are really latching on to that, Rachelle.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: Especially where sort of better-than-feared losses are a highlight at a time like this when we're seeing this tech sell-off and we're seeing the major indices, obviously, stumbling as well. A lot of people are wondering, you know, what's going to happen with a lot of these chipmakers? Will some of these electric cars be able to get the supplies that they need?

We're seeing this commodities crunch on some of these minerals that are needed for chip manufacturers. Obviously, the Biden administration also trying to beef up chip manufacturing amid this shortage that they're worrying about. I hope that this doesn't end up showing up for Nikola in the long run. Obviously, a lot of companies working on their own personal chip manufacturing and ways to come up with other ideas for batteries. So we'll see if that pays off for Nikola as well.