Under fire restaurateur, Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc (NYSE:CMG) received a positive reaction to the appointment of its new chief executive officer, Brian Niccol.
Niccol has been lured away from Taco Bell and will be tasked with turning around Chipotle's fortunes after its reputation was shredded by a succession of health scares.
Chipotle shares were up 12.2% in screen-based trading.
An even hotter stock was Fossil Group Inc (NASDAQ:FOSL), the watches maker.
The shares stormed to US$16.15 in after-hours trading after closing at US$9.04 in regular trading, with investors climbing on board after the company reported strong growth, driven by demand for wearables.
“Fiscal 2017 saw us nearly double wearables to over US$300 million, representing 14% of total watch sales,” said Kosta Kartsotis, the chairman and chief executive officer of Fossil.
Net sales for 2017 eased to US$2.79bn from US$3.04bn, while the company reported a net loss of US$478.2mln, versus a profit the year before of US$78.9mln, due mainly to non-cash intangible asset impairment charges and higher restructuring charges combined with lower sales and gross margin.
In the fourth quarter, earnings per share (EPS) came in at 64 cents a share after stripping out the effects of the recent changes to US tax laws.
The EPS figure was down from U$1.03 in the same period of 2016 but well ahead of the 40 cents a share the market had been expecting.
Baidu Inc (NASDAQ:BIDU), the company behind the popular Chinese search engine, topped expectations on Thursday night with its quarterly earnings.
Fourth-quarter profit totaled 4.16bn yuan, which is equivalent to around US$577mln.
Earnings per American depositary receipt (ADR) were 12.38 yuan, or 14.90 yuan when excluding stock-based compensation for management and other items, compared to 13.23 yuan in the same period of 2016. The consensus forecast on Wall Street was for earnings per ADR of 13.38 yuan.
Revenue rose 29% to 23.56bn yuan, which was ahead of the company's expectations and also the expectations of analysts, who had penciled in 23.05bn yuan for the revenue figure.
Baidu's stock was up almost 6% in after-hours' trading.
Baidu Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2017 Results - https://t.co/0QxXCZFIJi pic.twitter.com/Dew5tJ7IK4
— Baidu Inc. (@Baidu_Inc) February 13, 2018