Why Urban Outfitters, Pure Storage, and Adamas Pharmaceuticals Jumped Today

The week ended quietly for the major benchmarks. While stocks were generally mixed, there was little overall movement from where the session began. Investors watched the progress of a hurricane making its way toward the U.S. Gulf Coast, but found little news to move the indexes one way or the other. Amid the market calm, good news from several companies sent their share prices substantially higher. Urban Outfitters, Inc. (NASDAQ: URBN), Pure Storage, Inc. (NYSE: PSTG), and Adamas Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADMS) were among the best performers on the day. Below, we'll look more closely at these stocks to tell you why they did so well.

Urban Outfitters climbs on buybacks

Urban Outfitters saw its shares gain 8.1% in the wake of several announcements that had investors applauding. The specialty retailer and lifestyle company revealed that Sukhinder Singh Cassidy would join an expanded board of directors. Cassidy has a strong background in e-commerce operations, having served as President of Asia Pacific and Latin America for Google, a division of Alphabet, and as an early business development executive at Amazon.com. This move signaled to shareholders that the company is increasingly serious about its online sales aspirations.

Urban Outfitters also announced that its board had authorized the repurchase of an additional 20 million shares, with nearly 1 million shares remaining on the previous buyback. If the company were to purchase all 21 million shares, it would reduce its existing share count by 19%, resulting in a greater earnings allocated to each shareholder. This will provide an additional boost as the company seeks to get its comparable-store sales back on track.

Pure Storage gets an earnings boost

Pure Storage stock surged 19% after the company reported financial results for its fiscal 2018 second quarter that surpassed its own expectations and those of analysts. The cloud storage specialist said that its revenue increased 38% and its losses were less than anticipated. The company also raised its full-year forecast. CFO Tim Ritters said the company was "laser-focused on executing against our plan to achieve $1B+ in revenue this year and marching steadily to profitability in the near future."

Pure Storage also named Charles Giancarlo to the position of CEO, effective immediately. Giancarlo previously served in senior executive roles at Silver Lake Partners and Cisco Systems. Outgoing CEO Scott Dietzen has been appointed chairman of the board. Investors seemed to welcome the improving results and the addition of a seasoned executive.

Adamas wins FDA approval

Finally, shares of Adamas Pharmaceuticals skyrocketed 40.1% following news that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved Gocovri, the biotech's drug used to treat dyskinesia in patients with Parkinson's disease. Dyskinesia is the uncontrolled movements that are a common side effect of drugs taken by patients to treat Parkinson's, and Gocovri is the only medication approved by the FDA for treatment of those symptoms. While the drug won't be available until later this year, investors celebrated the results and awaited approval for a second indication, as the drug could potentially improve multiple sclerosis patients' ability to walk.

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Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Danny Vena owns shares of GOOGL and AMZN. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends GOOGL, GOOG, and AMZN. The Motley Fool recommends CSCO. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.