Shares of Gilead rally on $10 billion bond pricing

Shares of Gilead Sciences Inc. gained Thursday after the biotechnology firm said it priced $10 billion in senior unsecured notes. Gilead plans to use the proceeds of the bond sale for general corporate purposes, including repaying debt, payment of dividends and for stock buybacks. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC are acting as joint book-running managers. The deal is in six tranches with maturities spanning 3 years to 31 years and is expected to close on Monday. Gilead’s stock rose more than 3% to $107.20.

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Oil pares gains after EIA reports 2.6 million-barrel rise in crude supplies

Oil prices pared some of their gains on Thursday after the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported an increase of 2.6 million barrels in crude supplies for the week ended Sept. 4. Analysts polled by Platts forecast a crude-stock climb of 300,000 barrels, while the American Petroleum Institute Wednesday said supplies gained by 2.1 million barrels. Gasoline supplies rose 400,000 barrels while distillate stockpiles climbed by 1 million barrels last week, according to the EIA. October crude was at $44.93 a barrel, up 77 cents, or 1.7%, on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices traded at $45.24 before the report.

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CBS upgraded to buy at Deutsche Bank on Showtime, ad revenue potential

Deutsche Bank analysts, led by Bryan Kraft, upgraded shares of CBS Corp. to buy, from hold. Kraft said in a note he sees an inflection point for CBS’s earnings per share growth with limited risk to estimates, as cost pressures ease and ad revenue expectations look achievable. Kraft expects Showtime’s standalone Internet-based service to be an earnings driver for CBS in 2016. “CBS is significantly under-monetizing the pay TV ecosystem,” Kraft wrote. “CBS is best positioned to grow from a shift toward smaller bundles and new entrants [like Apple].” To boot, while Kraft doesn’t see a potential turnaround in the TV ad market, he said CBS should be able to remain stable with the Superbowl, low “Thursday Night Football” comparables, “Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and political coverage. Kraft, however, dropped his price target on CBS to $60 from $67. Shares of CBS have seen a more than 20% decline in the year to date, while the S&P has dropped 5%.

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Device holding U.K. data for some Lloyds customers ‘stolen’

London police are looking into the disappearance of a storage device that held the financial details of customers with Lloyds Premier banking accounts. “Unfortunately a data storage device has been reported as stolen from one of our data centers,” said Royal Sun Alliance in a statement. RSA provided emergency home-insurance coverage as part of a benefits package for the Lloyds account holders. RSA launched an investigation and informed Lloyds of the theft when it learned of it on July 30th, Lloyds said in a statement Thursday. “We are working with the police on a full investigation,” RSA said. It added that while “there is no evidence to suggest that this data has been misused in any way,” it’s offering to pay for identity protection for two years through fraud-prevention service provider Cifas. RSA in a letter to customers dated Sept. 4 said it handled claims for the Premier Account customers between 2006 and 2012.

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Natural-gas prices climb further after a smaller-than-expected rise in U.S. supplies

Natural-gas futures added to earlier gains on Thursday after the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that supplies of natural gas rose 68 billion cubic feet for the week ended Sept. 4. Analysts polled by Platts forecast a climb of between 72 billion cubic feet and 76 billion cubic feet. Total stocks now stand at 3.261 trillion cubic feet, up 473 billion cubic feet from a year ago and 127 billion cubic feet above the five-year average, the government said. October natural gas was at $2.705 per million British thermal units, up 5.5 cents, or 2.1%. Prices traded at $2.686 before the supply data.

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65% of big-cap fund managers trailed S&P in past year

In the 12 months ended June 30, 65.3% of large-cap stock fund managers underperformed the S&P 500, said S&P Dow Jones Indices on Thursday in the mid-year version of its U.S. S&P Indices Versus Active Funds (SPIVA) Scorecard. Stock pickers’ track records have been worse over longer time frames, with 80.8% faring worse than the S&P over the past five years, and 79.6% underperforming over the past 10 years. The latest SPIVA report indicates that mid-cap fund managers have been more successful, with only 48.2% underperforming the S&P MidCap 400 in the 12 months ended June 30. Among small-cap managers, 58.5% failed to beat the S&P 600 over the latest one-year period. In 2014, 86.4% of large-cap managers underperformed the S&P 500.

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​U.S. wholesale inventories fall slightly i​n July​

​WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – U.S. wholesale inventories ​decreased by ​0.1% in ​July,​ while wholesale sales ​dropped 0.3%, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Inventories of durable goods advanced 0.1%​, but i​nventories of nondurable goods such as groceries and clothing ​fell 0.5%. At July’s sales pace, the inventory-to-sales ratio was unchanged at 1.30 months. The increase in inventories in June, meanwhile, was revised down to show a 0.7% gain instead of 0.9%.

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Mortgage rates largely steady ahead of Fed decision

Mortgage rates were little changed ahead of the Federal Reserve’s key rate decision next week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. The 30-year fixed rate mortgage averaged 3.90% in the week ending Sept. 10, up from 3.89. The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.10%, up from 3.09%, and the 1-year Treasury-indexed adjustable rate mortgage averaged 2.63%, up from 2.62%. The 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid ARM averaged 2.91%, down from 2.93%.

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ECB likely to push QE through to 2017: Goldman

The European Central Bank is likely to extend its quantitative-easing program into 2017 as it battles with low inflation in the region, analysts at Goldman Sachs said in a report. The central bank’s €60-billion-a-month asset purchase scheme was announced in January and is currently set to run until September 2016. However, ECB members have hinted more easing could be on the way if inflation stays below the 2% target for too long. “We continue to think that the euro area is more exposed to risks emanating from China in light of the direction of its exports, and low underlying inflation,” the Goldman Sachs analysts said in the note dated Sept. 9. At the ECB meeting last week, central bank staffers downgraded their inflation forecasts and now expect inflation to get closer to 2% only in the second half of 2017. “The extension of the QE policy we now forecast is between one and two quarters, which, at a pace of €60 billion per month, amounts to, at most, €360 billion, or around a third of the current program,” the Goldman analysts said.

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U.S. stocks little changed as investors grapple with data

U.S. stocks opened slightly lower Thursday as investors grappled with mixed economic reports. A sharp fall in import and export prices pointed to sluggish global growth, while weekly jobless claim remained at very low levels. The main indexes briefly turned positive, but were trading lower shortly after the opening bell. The S&P 500 was 2 points, or 0.1%, lower at 1,940. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 16 points, or 0.1%, to 16,242. The Nasdaq Composite was flat at 4,756.

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