CE 100 Index Gains 0.4% as Roblox Drives Fun Pillar Higher

The third quarter’s over.

And after a week that saw the CE 100 Index gain 0.4%, the year-to-date gains stand at about 19.4% — significant but trailing the NASDAQ benchmark.

Earnings season begins two weeks from now and will be among the key determinants as to whether those gains hold.

Shares of Roblox were up more than 14% and led the Have Fun pillar higher by 2.2%,

As reported here, Walmart Discovered is being launched as a new virtual experience on Roblox. The new Walmart offering lets users ages 13 and older discover virtual items and creators while developers can sell virtual items with Robux, Roblox’s native currency. Walmart first teamed with Roblox last year with the debut of its Walmart Land and Universe of Play immersive experiences.

The Move segment was up 2%, as XPO gathered 8.7%. As detailed by investing sites such as Schaffer’s Investment Research, Evercore ISI upgraded the stock to “outperform” from “in line,” and looked to what is being billed as an “operational turnaround” for XPO. The sell-side firm also increased its price target to $79 from $72.

Peloton surged 13.2% and helped drive the Be Well segment up about 0.2%. PYMNTS coverage noted this week that Peloton and lululemon disclosed a five-year strategic global partnership that ties together fitness content and apparel across 20 million members and guests.

The partnership announcement detailed that Peloton will become the exclusive digital fitness content provider for lululemon, while lululemon will become Peloton’s primary athletic apparel partner.

The two brands will engage their global communities in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia through technical athletic apparel, real-life experiences, special programming and original content. As of Oct. 11, co-branded apparel across lululemon’s product lines will be available at Peloton retail stores and online in the U.S., U.K. and Canada. This availability will expand to all five of Peloton’s global markets by March 2024, according to the press release.

As part of this partnership, lululemon intends to discontinue selling the lululemon Studio Mirror before the end of the year.

Ocado and Workday Lose Ground on Guidance

But not all sectors managed to finish in the black. The “Shopping” sector lost 0.8%. Ocado led the way here and gave up 13.4%. Earlier in the month, the company released its third-quarter numbers for Ocado Retail, which operates as a joint venture between Ocado and Marks & Spenser, logging 7.2% revenue growth in the period, as measured year over year.

The company expects its full-year revenue to grow by mid-single digits. Average orders per week of Ocado.com rose 1.9%. Active customers reached 961,000 at the end of the most recent period, up 1.5% from a year ago. Ocado also said that the average basket size for Ocado Retail, which is the number of items per order, declined by 3.9% while average selling prices were up 8.4%.

In the Work group, which slipped 0.2%, Workday lost 6.9%. Guidance at its financial analyst day said that the company is targeting annual subscription revenue growth of between 17% to 19%, where that rate had been more than 20% through the next three years. And as detailed by investing sites, including The Motley Fool, several Wall Street firms trimmed their price targets on the company. Morgan Stanley, for example, lowered its price target on the stock from $260 per share to $245 per share. In another example, TD Cowen lowered its one-year price target from $270 per share to $260 per share.