Tag Archives: irbt

IRobot Hopes To Clean Up In Floor-Mopping Business

Home-cleaning robot maker iRobot ( IRBT ) has introduced a new, lower-cost floor-mopping robot that it hopes will help it expand in an underpenetrated market. The Bedford, Mass.-based company on Tuesday debuted the Braava Jet mopping robot. The $199.99 robot is designed to mop hard floor surfaces in high-traffic areas like kitchens and bathrooms. It features a vibrating cleaning head, water jet spray and replaceable cleaning pads. The compact robot promises to lift dirt and stains in even hard-to-reach places like under kitchen cabinets and around toilets. IRobot is a leader in the carpet vacuuming market with its Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners, which cost $374.99 to $899.99. It has targeted hard-surface floors as a market ripe for expansion. It previously approached that market with premium Scooba floor-scrubbing robots, which cost up to $599.99, as well as cheaper Braava floor-mopping robots. IRobot has discontinued its Scooba line in favor of Braava. It will sell two types of Braava robots: the new Braava Jet 240 and the Braava 380T, which costs $299.99. The Braava 380T is designed to clean larger floor areas than the Braava Jet. The Braava Jet uses special disposable cleaning pads for wet mopping, damp sweeping and dry sweeping. IRobot also is selling reusable, washable cleaning pads. “IRobot is focused on significant growth opportunities in the consumer robotic technology market,” iRobot CEO Colin Angle said in a statement . “To capitalize, we will continue to diversify our home robot offerings, identifying new product categories ripe for growth and exploring other opportunities within the connected home.” IRobot stock was up 2% in afternoon trading on the stock market today , near 34. RELATED: Roomba Maker iRobot Short-Circuits On 2016 Guidance

Big Stock Moves For Techs With Earnings Reports This Week

Loading the player… Several tech companies reporting earnings over the latest week lifted in the stock market Friday as major stock indexes perked 1% to 2%. It’s been a volatile trading week amid a market in correction. Twitter ( TWTR ) vaulted 11% Friday, closing at 15.88 and erasing the week’s losses around its fourth quarter report that showed slowing user growth. It’s tweaking its user interface to be a little more like Facebook ( FB ), which currently gets a top stock rating from IBD: a best-possible Composite Rating of 99. (See the video for who’s highly rated or not, and more on the week’s earnings reports.) Akamai ( AKAM ) lifted 3.3% in the stock market today after surging earlier in the week on its quarterly report. IRobot ( IRBT ) rose 4.6%. Cisco Systems ( CSCO ) and Yelp ( YELP ) gained close to 2% each. Pandora Media ( P ) plunged 12% Friday, amid a declining number of users for the streaming music service revealed in its quarterly report Thursday, plus competition from Apple ( AAPL ), highly rated  Alphabet ( GOOGL ) (with a 99 IBD Composite Rating) and Amazon ( AMZN ) in its business. “Pandora’s core profitability appears challenged by higher royalties and diminishing productivity gains, and its new service efforts appear expensive given the poor history of profits in the space,” Pacific Crest Securities analyst Andy Hargreaves said in a research report. Security firm CyberArk ( CYBR ) fell 10.8% for the day. Travel sites TripAdvisor ( TRIP ) and Expedia ( EXPE ) gave back 1.9% and 1.1%, respectively, on Friday. (Both rose Thursday.)  Tesla Motors ( TSLA ) edged up 0.4% Friday. Before Friday’s action, tech companies whose stocks had lifted this week around their quarterly reports included Cisco, Akamai and TripAdvisor, with big jumps, as well as Tesla and Expedia. On the downside were Pandora, iRobot, CyberArk, Yelp and Twitter. Image provided by Shutterstock .    

Big Stock Moves Friday For Techs With Earnings Reports This Week

Loading the player… Several tech companies reporting earnings over the latest week lifted in the stock market Friday as major stock indexes perked by more than 1%. It’s been a volatile trading week amid a market in correction. Twitter ( TWTR ) vaulted 10% in afternoon trading, erasing the week’s losses around its fourth quarter report that showed slowing user growth. It’s tweaking its user interface to be a little more like Facebook ( FB ), which currently gets a top stock rating from IBD: a best-possible Composite Rating of 99. (See the video for who’s highly rated or not, and more on the week’s earnings reports.) Akamai ( AKAM ) lifted more than 3% intraday in the stock market today after surging earlier in the week on its quarterly report. IRobot ( IRBT ) was up nearly 4%. Cisco Systems ( CSCO ) and Yelp ( YELP ) stock rose more than 2% by the afternoon. Pandora Media ( P ) plunged 14% Friday afternoon, amid a declining number of users for the streaming music service revealed in its quarterly report Thursday, plus competition from Apple ( AAPL ), highly rated  Alphabet ( GOOGL ) (with a 99 IBD Composite Rating) and Amazon ( AMZN ) in its business. “Pandora’s core profitability appears challenged by higher royalties and diminishing productivity gains, and its new service efforts appear expensive given the poor history of profits in the space,” Pacific Crest Securities analyst Andy Hargreaves said in a research report. Security firm CyberArk ( CYBR ) fell nearly 12%. Travel sites TripAdvisor ( TRIP ) and Expedia ( EXPE ) gave back 2.5% Friday afternoon. Both rose Thursday. Tesla Motors ( TSLA ) fell fractionally. Before Friday’s action, tech companies whose stocks had lifted this week around their quarterly reports included Cisco, Akamai and TripAdvisor, with big jumps, as well as Tesla and Expedia. On the downside were Pandora, iRobot, CyberArk, Yelp and Twitter. Image provided by Shutterstock .