Market Insider

After-hours buzz: Staples, Home Depot, Alaska Air & more

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Check out the companies making headlines after the bell Monday:

Staples shares tumbled as the company incurs charges after a merger with Office Depot was blocked by regulators.

Shares closed Monday at $8.34 per share, near their 52-week low of $8.04. Last week, the company terminated merger plans with rival Office Depot, costing Staples a $250 million break-up fee.

Staples is slated to report quarterly earnings May 18, when it is expected to report earnings of 16 cents per share on $5.09 billion in revenue.

Home Depot continued to inch up in extended trading ahead of its quarterly earnings Tuesday morning.

The home-improvement retailer closed up nearly 2 percent Monday in its best daily performance in two months and was the second best performer on the Dow, closing at $135.34 Monday, up 1.7 percent for the day. The stock is up more than 2 percent this year and nearly 20 percent year over year.

Analysts are expecting strong results heading into first-quarter earnings.

"With a retail tape that has largely proven to be brutal for Q1, we believe the home improvement retailers continue to take wallet share and have navigated the Q1 landscape well," Piper Jaffray analysts said in a note, citing positive home-improvement surveys and temperature trends.

"We sense greater investor interest in the space given weakness in other parts of retail," the note said, adding that the published sell-side comp estimates will move the stock higher.

Alaska Air shares edged higher after reports that the antitrust division of the Justice Department had requested additional information about a proposed merger with Virgin America. The companies said in a joint statement the request is a "standard part" of the DOJ review process and noted that they are on track to complete the transaction by the beginning of 2017.

Shares of Agilent Technologies rose after the company posted better-than-expected earnings. The maker of scientific laboratory equipment posted adjusted earnings of 44 cents per share on revenue of $1.02 billion, above the 39 cents per share on revenue of $981.8 expected by Wall Street, according to the Associated Press. The company raised its guidance for full-year operating cash flow as it works to expand operating margins.

— CNBC's Kate Rooney contributed to this report.