Stocks: Moderna rises on vaccine sales forecast, eBay slips on earnings outlook, Alibaba falls

Yahoo Finance's Brian Sozzi and Julie Hyman discuss earnings reports from Moderna, eBay, and Alibaba.

Video transcript

JULIE HYMAN: Let's move on to earnings and just zoom through them a little more quickly than we normally do, because everything going on. Brian, I want to start with Moderna. Those shares talking about operating expenses above the average annual assessment. The shares had been trading lower.

In pre-market trading, they've now turned higher. They're up now by 7 and 1/2 percent. The company did come out, I should say, with revenue above estimates, including a COVID vaccine revenue that was above estimates. Also the company coming out with earnings per share that are above estimates. There have been some concerns, again, over those expenses, but it looks like the market is shaking them off.

BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah, finally, Moderna are getting a little bit of love here. It has been one of the worst performing stocks really the past six months. Two things, Julie, and you highlighted the first one. It is that guidance for this year for what Moderna calls, advanced purchase agreements, or APAs. So they say they had $19 billion worth of those agreements, mostly as it pertains to COVID-19 vaccines, and then another $3 billion for potential booster shots.

I think the market likes to see that ongoing demand for COVID-19 vaccinations from Moderna at a time where we're seeing new cases of COVID come down. Secondarily, cash position from Moderna, very, very strong at almost $18 billion. I think the market likes that too.

JULIE HYMAN: And just wanted to mention as well, we in a few minutes are going to talk to Hartaj Singh of Oppenheimer to get some more insight into the quarter. And we're going to hear from Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel coming up at 11:15 right here on Yahoo Finance.

Also going to talk about eBay this morning though, because that stock is also on the move sharply downward, in its case, down by 9%. The company's forecast for the current quarter for sales. It's saying sales will be as much as $2.48 billion. $2.6 billion is what analysts had been predicting. This even after revenue matched and earnings per share beat estimates.

So it's really the forecast here that is of concern. And active buyers fell last quarter as well, which is not good news when you talk about a company like eBay.

BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah, eBay is staying on my dog list, Julie. Another terrible quarter from this company. A true also ran of an internet company, really completely irrelevant when it comes to just, I think, a lot of folks on the Street wanting to get involved with this company. It's just bad.

Gross merchandise volume down 10% year-over-year at a time where we're all flooding to the internet and we're still locked at our homes in large part buying stuff. That's not good. And speaking of not good, neither is the market reaction by Wall Street analysts.

You have the folks over at Wells Fargo saying this could be a [INAUDIBLE] journey for trying to turn eBay around, but still concerned about what their margin outlook is going to be. That outlook likely to stay somewhat concerning here for eBay. But on the positive, Julie, a lot of analysts highlighting that they had a good quarter selling a lot of shoes. So good to see eBay being able to sell a lot of shoes in this environment, but not doing much for their profits.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, no, it is not. And finally, just quickly, Alibaba here. That company also has been under pressure this morning after reporting the slowest revenue growth since the company went public. Some of it has to do with the China regulatory crackdown that we've seen on the tech sector. Part of it has to do with losses in its investment portfolio.

Net income down 74% year-over-year. Sales did rise 9.7%, but before this crackdown, they were regularly putting up 40% growth quarters in sales. So that is what's responsible for the declines that we're seeing here. You see that sales growth, that revenue number, missing estimates.