Ross Stores, Applied Materials, Moderna: After-hour movers

Yahoo Finance Live's Seana Smith takes a look at the stock action surrounding Ross Stores (ROST) and semiconductor company Applied Materials (AMAT) after both companies reported earnings beats, as well as Moderna (MRNA) shares after publishing positive trial results for its updated COVID vaccine.

Video transcript

SEANA SMITH: Let's take a look at what's trending after hours. We've got three stocks for you. Ross Stores, Applied Materials, and Moderna.

Kicking off with Ross Stores. And we're looking at a gain of just over 6% here in extended trading. A very solid earnings report here from the company. They also raised their earnings and sales outlook for the year. And they now expect positive same store sales for the year, seeing growth of 2% - 3%.

Now that was up from what they were initially expecting, which was a flat sales for the year. When you take a look at the numbers for the second quarter, sales coming in at $4.93 billion. That's up 7% from just a year ago. Comp sales blowing past expectations, growing just about 5% for the quarter. We're looking at gains of nearly 9% in the last three months.

When you take a look at that year-to-date chart, we have seen Ross Stores gain a bit of momentum since hovering right around its lows of the year back in June. So close today, right around $113 a share. We'll see whether or not this momentum after hours sticks for the opening bell tomorrow.

Let's take a look at Applied Materials, a look here at the chip sector. And we're looking at gains of nearly 2% in extended trading. A strong forecast here from Applied Materials. Also another sign that maybe the slump that we've seen in the chip sector that it might continue to fade just a little bit.

Now the company also beat on the top and bottom line for its fiscal third quarter earnings of $1.90 a share. Sales of $6.43 billion that came in better than the street was looking for. But it did decline just about 1.5% from a year ago.

And rounding it out with Moderna. We're looking at losses of just about a tenth of a per cent. But a headline here, crossing in after hours trading. The company saying that its prelim trial data showed that its updated COVID vaccine generates robust immune response, and that they're expecting the updated vaccine expected in coming weeks pending approval.

Obviously, now this is a stock that's lost a lot of its momentum as we have seen demand for the COVID vaccine really continue to wane. We're looking at losses of just about 40% year-to-date over the last year, slightly less. They're off just about 32%. But we certainly have seen the steady decline since the start of the year. Lots of concern just about what that demand picture is going to look like for Moderna for its vaccine here in the future.