Investing.com’s stocks of the week

Investing.com – U.S. equities were extremely volatile this week, as investor concerns regarding valuations led to declines, especially among technology stocks. However, there were some names that managed to make solid gains.

Here were some of the big-name movers this week:

Expedia

Expedia shares are on track to rise more than 17% in the last week after the company posted its latest quarterly earnings after the close on Thursday, impressing investors. EXPE topped earnings and revenue consensus estimates, with bookings accelerating.

“EXPE remains one of our Top Picks among the Large Cap Nets along with AMZN & NFLX,” Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney wrote in a note following the report.

“We believe Q3 results largely support our Bullish outlook with this quarter as confirmation that OTA growth rate convergence is continuing...actually it has already happened.”

Tesla

Tesla shares are on track for a weekly decline of around 4.5%. On Friday, the stock has declined over 4% after shareholders approved CEO Elon Musk’s highly contested pay package.

The package is valued at up to $1 trillion over the next decade, if performance targets are met. Over 75% of Tesla shares voted in support of the record pay package.

Yum! Brands

While YUM shares have been ranging since around April, the stock is back near the top of the range after gaining more than 7% in the last week following its quarterly earnings release.

The company topped earnings and revenue expectations. The company also said it has initiated a process to “explore strategic options for the Pizza Hut brand to maximize long-term value creation for Yum!, Pizza Hut, and its franchise partners.”

Following the report, Evercore ISI analyst David Palmer upgraded Yum! Brands from In Line to Outperform.

“With an anticipated sale of Pizza Hut, our 2027e EPS drops from $7.64 to ~$7.10. That said, after the spin-off, we are modeling higher—and more consistent—profit growth and EPS of 9% and 13% long-term (total return of 15% with dividend),” the analyst wrote.

“This sort of performance and visibility would place YUM in rarified air in the consumer space (think: HLT, TJX, WMT, ORLY, COST) which could cause a valuation to eclipse our targeted 25x. A premium multiple is deserved even after country risk assessment.”

Kenvue

Kenvuew shares have also rallied over the last week, climbing more than 18%. While the company reported earnings on Monday, with profit topping expectations, it was the news that the company has reached a deal to be acquired by Kimberly-Clark for $48.7 billion that pushed its stock higher.

Story Continues

Kenvue said it has entered into a definitive merger agreement under which Kimberly-Clark will acquire all outstanding shares of Kenvue common stock in a $48.7 billion cash-and-stock transaction.

IREN Ltd

Finally, Shares of IREN Limited jumped more than 11% on Monday after the company announced a multiyear GPU cloud services agreement with Microsoft valued at about $9.7 billion.

After a 1.7% decline on Tuesday, the stock gained a further 14% in Wednesday’s session before the slump on Thursday and Friday trading pushed it back down to around $63.10 per share, close to the level traded before the deal was announced.

Under the five-year deal, IREN will provide Microsoft with access to NVIDIA GB300 GPUs, with Microsoft making a 20 percent prepayment.

IREN also revealed it has entered into an agreement with Dell Technologies to buy GPUs and related equipment worth roughly $5.8 billion.

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