Old American Brand Names Rally: Abercrombie, Hilton, Motorola, Sunoco

While some of the best-known Nasdaq-100 tech and social media stocks struggle to make higher highs — Apple
AAPL
, Alphabet, Microsoft
MSFT
and Netflix
NFLX
come to mind — these 4 New York Stock Exchange-traded old brand names are already up there at the new 52-week high mark.

Abercrombie & Fitch
ANF
took a steady up trend to a new high this week. It may be that it’s the company’s stock buybacks that improve the “per share” metric, as in: the same basic earnings but with less stock out there equals a decent chunk of the “per share” improvement.

There’s also the short float at 17%. That’s a relatively high percentage for an NYSE-listed equity with a market capitalization of $3.34 billion. That short sellers are being forced to cover (i.e. “buy”) may be a factor in that stock’s continued move to the upside.

Abercrombie and Fitch is being sued over alleged facilitation of sexual abuse involving its male models by former Chief Executive Officer Mike Jeffries who left in 2014 after 22 years with the company. The lawsuit was filed Friday, October 27th — how much it affects the retail apparel firm remains to be seen.

Here’s the daily price chart:

Hilton Worldwide Holdings today broke above the August and September highs and hit just over $157 before selling took over. The daily price chart below shows how the price remains above the 50-day moving average (the blue line) and the 200-day moving average, both of which trend upward.

This year’s earnings are up by 24.49% and a quarterly report recently exceeded the expectations of analysts. With a market cap of $40.09 billion, the big hotel company in late October received a “buy” rating from HSBC Securities which initiated analyst coverage with a price target of $191.

Motorola Solutions last week reported 3rd quarter earnings that exceeded expectations and the stock gapped up Friday and then continued the run even higher today. The stock broke out of a trading range that had been keeping it tight from May through last month.

Bank of America
BAC
Securities in early October had initiated a “buy” rating on the stock with a price target of $330. Motorola has a market capitalization of $50.55 billion and pays a 1.13% dividend.

Sunoco
SUN
is an oil and gas refining and marketing company with a market cap of $4.48 billion. The company beat earnings expectations announced in late October and the stock bounced from $50 to $54 before selling came in. The daily price chart below shows a relentless up trend with a non-stop 200-day moving average.

Those are 4 name brands making new highs this week and none of them are components of the Nasdaq-100, just for the record.

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