Benzinga | Oct 9, 2020 08:36AM EDT

Benzinga Pro's Top 5 Stocks To Watch For Friday, Oct. 9, 2020: JPM, JNPR, VLDR, GNMK, GRFS

Today's 5 Stock Ideas:

* JP Morgan (JPM) - Will unofficially kick off the Q3 earnings season next week on Tuesday. Citigroup (C) will also report results on that day. Bank Of America (BAC) and Wells Fargo (WFC) will report Wednesday; Morgan Stanley (MS) will be Thursday and Goldman Sachs (GS) has not yet confirmed it's earnings date.

* Juniper Networks (JNPR) - Shares on watch following raised guidance from peer Extreme Networks (EXTR). Extreme Networks shares were up about 15% in pre-market action Friday.

* Velodyne Lidar (VLDR) - A play on lidar (light detection and ranging) for automotive self-driving application. Shares traded up about 3% Friday morning, likely on the heels of a Thursday Seeking Alpha article that brought more attention to the space. The article speculated on the valuation of MicroVision (MVIS) given valuation of two peers in the lidar space -- Velodyne being one of those peers.

* GenMark Diagnostics (GNMK) - A COVID-19 testing play. Shares gained almost 4% after market close Thursday as the company's ePlex Respiratory Pathogen Panel 2 testing system received an Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA.

* Grifols (GRFS) - A COVID-19 treatment play. On Friday morning, Grifols announced that its anti-SARS-CoV-2 hyperimmune globulin, a potential COVID-19 treatment, had started an international multicenter clinical trial with the help of the US government to test its safety, efficacy and tolerability.