What Happened?
A number of stocks fell in the afternoon session after sentiment weakened following a surprisingly weak private payrolls report from ADP. According to the ADP National Employment Report, the U.S. private sector added only 22,000 jobs in January, falling significantly short of economists' estimates of 45,000 to 48,000. The slowdown was led by the manufacturing and the professional and business services sectors. The professional and business services category was particularly hard-hit, shedding 57,000 jobs, marking its most substantial monthly decline since mid-2025. This lackluster hiring data points to a potential cooling in the labor market, raising concerns for companies whose revenues are closely tied to employment levels and business spending.
The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks.
Among others, the following stocks were impacted:
- Electronic Components & Manufacturing company Coherent (NYSE:COHR) fell 8%. Is now the time to buy Coherent? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
- Electronic Components & Manufacturing company Amphenol (NYSE:APH) fell 10.4%. Is now the time to buy Amphenol? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
Zooming In On Amphenol (APH)
Amphenol’s shares are somewhat volatile and have had 11 moves greater than 5% over the last year. But moves this big are rare even for Amphenol and indicate this news significantly impacted the market’s perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 6 days ago when the stock gained 3% on the news that analysts at Barclays and Citigroup raised their price targets on the stock. Barclays maintained its "Overweight" rating while increasing its price target on Amphenol to $175.00 from $156.00. Similarly, Citigroup, which has a "buy" rating on the stock, lifted its price target to $180.00 from $175.00. The positive analyst actions followed the company's strong fourth-quarter 2025 financial report from the previous day. In that report, Amphenol announced that both its sales and adjusted earnings beat estimates, growing 49% and 76% year-over-year, respectively. The company also provided an optimistic outlook, expecting first-quarter 2026 sales to increase by 43% to 45% compared to the prior year.
Amphenol is down 6.4% since the beginning of the year, and at $130.81 per share, it is trading 21.3% below its 52-week high of $166.25 from January 2026. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Amphenol’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $4,076.
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