Stocks: Coinbase recovers, Peloton rises, airlines mixed, Macy’s jumps

Yahoo Finance's Emily McCormick and Adam Shapiro share their top trending stocks for the day.

Video Transcript

EMILY MCCORMICK: Well, let's shift gears now and focus on our 2 & 2. That's two stocks I'm watching and two stocks Adam is watching this afternoon. And let's take a look first at shares of Coinbase because like the broader stock indexes, Coinbase is paring losses from session lows. It had been down more than 8% earlier today and had been underperforming, even relative to the broader market.

And the big reason for this is because of the recent slide that we've been seeing in cryptocurrency prices. Now, Bitcoin prices have also stabilized this afternoon. But earlier today, we did see the largest cryptocurrency by market cap trade lower by more than 8% to trade below $34,000 for the first time since July.

Now, other major cryptocurrency prices had also extended declines today, including Ethereum and Litecoin. And cryptocurrency prices and stocks linked to crypto, like Coinbase, have been under pressure the past couple of weeks now because of concerns that tighter monetary policy from the Fed would lead to reduced liquidity and impact speculative assets.

And I also want to point out that a new proposal from Russia's central bank suggesting a full ban on the use and creation of all cryptocurrencies in the country has also added to the risk-off tone among digital currencies heading into this week. So that proposal did come out at the end of last week. Now, for Coinbase, those shares are down more than around 30% so far for the year to date.

Then want to shift gears now and talk about shares of Peloton. Now, this stock, as you can see, is actually up about 8% this afternoon. But for context, this is coming after a more than 80% drop since its record high from January 2021. And today's move higher comes after the activist investor Blackwells Capital sent a letter to Peloton, saying it has, quote, "grave concerns about the fitness company's performance." And it also called on Peloton board of directors to fire CEO John Foley immediately and consider a sale.

Now, Blackwells Capital took issue specifically with Foley's pricing strategies, the fact that he hired his wife as a key executive, and also his handling of Peloton's treadmill recall last year. Now, Blackwell Capital has a less than 5% stake in Peloton. And it's unclear whether any of these demands will gain traction. But at least for now, that stock is seeing a pickup after a recent decline. Adam?

ADAM SHAPIRO: Emily, want to go to the airlines. And we're going to do what we call a five board, show you five of the airlines, the biggest, Delta, United, American, Southwest, and JetBlue. And you can see Southwest barely flat, a little bit positive today. They're going to report earnings on Thursday. And one of the things investors might be picking up on is the fact that when you look at TSA throughput, the people going through the nation's airport security, it has held steady despite the omicron wave and all of the discussions we've had with airline CEOs from companies that have already reported.

So there's an expectation that this visiting friends and relatives, the domestic portion of travel, has held up well for Southwest. Again, they're going to report before the bell on Thursday. But something else to keep in mind, you've got Helane Becker over at Cowen. Cowen tracks airfares every week. And they make this. You can go to their notes to see this.

And what they have found is that published fares are up 9.7% year over year. And they're up 7.5% week over week. Why is that? Well, if you're planning to get out of dodge, whether you're in a cold part of the country and you want to go somewhere warm in the spring, good luck getting a ticket. I was on a site last night. And not really great deals to be had. You're going to be paying top dollar if you want to travel.

And the airlines, most of them selling off today. But there's an expectation they're going to rebound come the spring.

Take a look at Macy's. When was the last time you looked at a retailer like this, a department store, and saw their shares up? You see that number? 16%, that's an OMG scream, right?

So here's what's going on. Not only is Macy's up today. But you have other department store stocks trading higher on the news that "The Wall Street Journal" broke that Kohl's has received a $9 billion takeover bid from Starboard Value LP.

So this is having positive effects on other stocks. And Macy's is one of them. Just remember too, we won't get Macy's reporting for the fourth quarter until February. But the third quarter, before we went into the holidays, Macy's really blew away expectations with sales over $5.4 billion, which was much higher than the Street expected. So we're getting ready for Macy's to report their holiday sales quarter. Plus you've got this positive news for the traditional brick-and-mortar retail sector with this offer regarding Kohl's.