PreMarket Prep Stock Of The Day: Lowe's Companies

Benzinga's PreMarket Prep airs every morning from 8-9 a.m. ET. During that fast-paced, highly informative hour, traders and investors tune in to get the major news of the day, the catalysts behind those moves and the corresponding price action for the upcoming session.

On any given day, the show will cover at least 20 stocks determined by co-hosts Joel Elconin and Dennis Dick along with producer Spencer Israel.

For those who don't have the time to tune in live or listen to the podcast, Benzinga will highlight one stock that merits further discussion. This analysis is not a buy or sell recommendation.

Price action trends sometimes develop within a particular sector during earnings season. With the shellacking that Walmart Inc WMT took after its first-quarter beat Tuesday, traders and investors were pondering how Lowe's Companies, Inc. LOW would react to its first-quarter report, making it the PreMarket Prep Stock of the Day.

Lowe's Posts Larger EPS Beat Than Walmart

Before the open, Lowe's announced a first-quarter EPS beat of 46 cents compared to Wal Mart's 1-cent beat.

On the other hand, Lowe’s reported a sales beat of $1.62 billion, while Walmart beat estimates by $4.39 billion.

Walmart, Lowe's Show Similar Pre-Market Price Action

Just as Walmart blasted to a new all-time high in pre-market trading Tuesday, Lowe’s replicated that feat Wednesday, rallying to $126.97 and surpassing its all-time high of $126.73 from January.

Lowe's drifted lower into the opening bell and lost more altitude than Walmart, which was only a few dollars off its pre-market high Tuesday.

Lowe’s was nearly $4 off its pre-maket high ahead of the open.

Nothing But Sellers For Lowe's At The Open — And Then Some

On Tuesday, Walmart peaked within seconds after its opening price of $131.75 at $131.99 and then sold off all day to end the session at $124.95. 

The song remained the same for Lowe’s, and with even less of a rally off the opening print. Following its opening print of $122.61, the issue went only 8 cents higher to $122.69 and resumed its move lower.

A step-down seller took the issue through Tuesday’s close ($116.87) to $116.44, and the issue is not far off that low, trading down 0.21% at $116.63 at the time of publication.

Lowe's Moving Forward

From the price action on much heavier-than-average volume, it's apparent that some institutions are unloading their large positions in Lowe's in today’s session.

With the primary catalyst for a rally — an earnings beat — gone for now, the issue may struggle to revisit the lofty $127 area for quite some time.

Photo by Coolcaesar via Wikimedia.