Top stocks to trade on Monday 🚀

The stock market closed out last week with a solid performance, led by a Nasdaq rally, but the Dow ended the session with a small loss.

S&P 500 [+0.5%]

Dow [-0.1%]

Nasdaq [+1.2%]

Russell 2K [+1.5%]

Futures are down by a narrow margin in early premarket trading. S&P 500 contracts are down by less than 0.1%.

What to Watch Today:
Today’s calendar is pretty quiet in the way of earnings and economic updates, but it could still be a busy day. The S&P 500 is sitting up against new record highs, and the Nasdaq surged last week. Today, I’ll be watching closely to see if there are any signs the rally is beginning to run out of steam.

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🔄 Investors Zero In On Distressed Real Estate

The commercial real estate scene is seeing a seismic shift, with distress signals from regional banks and lenders echoing through the market. Yet, amid the tumult, cash-rich investors are finding a silver lining, poised to capitalize on opportunities that the current chaos presents.

💼 Patience Pays Off
Since the pandemic's dawn, a certain breed of investors has been amassing war chests, eagerly awaiting their moment to strike on distressed properties.

Their patience, however, was put to the test as deal-making was stalled by property owners holding out for better prices, buoyed by lenient lending practices offering extensions and modifications.

🏢 A Changing Tide
But the landscape is shifting. Lenders are now dialing up the pressure, especially on sectors hit the hardest by changing times—office spaces reeling from the remote work revolution, hotels in dire need of renovations, and apartment complexes delayed by supply chain disruptions.

The catalyst? A steep climb in interest rates, leaving those who borrowed at pre-shock rates or with floating rate debt, floundering under the weight of significantly higher debt-service costs.

💵 Cash Is King
Investors flush with funds are moving in, seizing the opportunity to buy out beleaguered properties or to throw a lifeline to struggling owners with the promise of preferred returns.

Notable moves include a venture between investment behemoth Ares Management [ARES] and NY's office titan RXR, embarking on a buying spree for a slice of the office space pie and eyeing over $500 million in senior debt acquisitions.

This flurry of activity signals a keen interest in reshaping the landscape of commercial real estate, turning today's turmoil into tomorrow's treasure.

Context Logic [WISH] - Last Close: $4.50

The Wish.com parent company landed a $173 million cash deal to offload the majority of its operating assets & liabilities to Qoo10.

According to an early press release, the deal pays about $6.50 per share and represents a 44% premium to WISH’s Friday closing price.

ContextLogic will remain a publicly-traded company while the board attempts to monetize its net operating losses, but will return all remaining capital to shareholders if the effort fails.

WISH is up 33.3% on nearly 2 million shares traded on the news.

My Take: WISH has been struggling for a while, and it looks like it’s finally throwing in the towel. This is about a good of a deal as it could’ve gotten for its beleagured shareholders.

Millennium Intl. [MGIH] - Last Close: $1.03

A new group of investors is taking interest in this tiny company, according to a Friday-evening Form SC 13G filing.

YC 1926 (BVI) Ltd has amassed 10 million ordinary shares of Millennium, equivalent to an 88.89% ownership stake in the company.

No word on YC 1926’s intentions for the company just yet, but the stock is getting a big boost in the premarket.

MGIH is up 109.7% on more than 3 million shares traded.

My Take: MGIH’s future depends on YC 1926’s intentions, since it controls the vast majority of the company. For all we know, they could be planning to dump their shares, so don’t overexpose yourself here.

Intuitive Machines [LUNR] - Last Close: $4.99

A recent Form SC13D regulatory disclosure revealed Kamal Seyed Ghaffarian and Ghaffarian Enterprises have built a 73.0% stake in the company.

The news dropped in Thursday’s premarket and propelled LUNR to a 32.0% rally on Friday, accompanied by a huge volume spike.

Today, LUNR is extending its lead with a 19.3% gain on upwards of 2 million shares traded.

My Take: If Ghaffarian takes LUNR private, shareholders could get a plush deal out of the arrangement. The stock has been on a tear since it bottomed out in early January.

Beamr Imaging [BMR] - Last Close: $2.11

This tiny video software firm just landed a deal with NVIDIA [NVDA] to accelerate the adoption of the latest video standard, AV1.

In an early morning press release, the company said it will present its joint research on the subject at the ACM Mile-High-Video 2024 conference in Denver, running from Feb. 11th to Feb. 14th.

The company says it has addressed two key shortcomings of AV1 technology using NVIDIA‘s hardware accelerated encoding.

BMR is up 80.5% on 10 million shares traded.

My Take:There’s not a lot of substance to BMR’s announcement, but NVDA is the market’s King Midas at this point. I am not sure if this rally will last, although shares have been trending higher since early Jan.

Gainers

DIH Holdings [DHAI] >> +80.9%

Supercom [SPCB] >> +41.7%

Sunworks [SUNW] >> +23.6%

Decliners

AN2 Therapeutics [ANTX] >> (71.5%)

Larimar Therapeutics [LRMR] >> (24.1%)

Intelligent Bio [INBS] >> (24.0%)