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Shares of Pandora Media Inc. have slipped more than 5% in early trade on Tuesday, after Liberty Media Corp. Chief Executive Greg Maffei reportedly said it’s unlikely his company would buy the music streaming platform. Maffei reportedly told investors attending the Deutsche Bank Media, Internet and Telecom Conference on Monday that Pandora is overvalued. Maffei has floated the idea that Liberty would be interested in scooping up Pandora in the past, and said during the conference he would probably make a move on the company if it was selling for $10 a share. Liberty Media owns satellite radio provider SiriusXM. It would make sense for the company to add a business like Pandora to its ranks, which it informally tried to do last year, offering to pay $3.4 billion, or $15 a share for Pandora, according to Deadline Hollywood. Shares of Pandora have gained more than 6% in the last 12 months and Liberty Media shares are up almost 6%, while the S&P 500 index is up more than 18% and the Nasdaq Composite index is up more than 24% during the same period.

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Police in London are Tuesday afternoon investigating a “security alert” around the key transportation hub London Bridge, with hotels, coffee shops and office buildings in the area on lockdown. A bomb disposal robot was reportedly deployed to carry out a search on an abandoned suspicious vehicle close to the station in the U.K. capital. National Rail said all train services were suspended in and out of the station as “Metropolitan Police have requested that NO trains run through London Bridge until further notice, because of a security alert nearby.” The bus station was also evacuated.

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Craftsman portable table saws made by Rexon Industrial Corp. of Taiwan and sold exclusively at Sears Holdings Inc. have been recalled because of the danger of laceration and impact injuries, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said Tuesday. About 46,000 saws are impacted, according to the CPSC. So far, there have been 11 reports of the table saw collapsing, including nine reports of injured fingers and hands. The injuries include broken bones, lacerations, shoulder strain and a partial fingernail amputation. The CPSC is urging consumers to stop using the saws and to contact Rexon for a free replacement. The saws were sold by Sears for about $200 a piece in the period stretching from April 2014 through October 2016. Shares of Sears, which announced the sale of Craftsman to Stanley Black & Decker Inc. in January, were down 1.7%, and have fallen 60% in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 has gained 19%.

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Shares of Snap Inc. fell another 7% on Tuesday, putting the stock on track for its second down day since Thursday’s initial public offering. The social media stock slid to $22.11 a share in morning trade, after closing down more than 12% on Monday. Last week, the stock priced at $17 a share. The declines follow a wave of bearish analyst notes that have hit Snap, which calls itself a camera company, since its market debut. The average rating on the stock is the equivalent to sell, while the average price target is $16.50, according to a FactSet survey of 8 analysts. Many of the analysts have been warning clients that Snap stock is overvalued. Others have cited the company’s shaky fundamentals, with its widening losses and slowing user growth offsetting strong revenue gains.

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U.S. stocks opened lower on Tuesday, indicating a second straight day of mild declines as investors took a breather from recent gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 24 points, or 0.1%, to 20,932. The S&P 500 lost 3 points to trade at 2,371, a decline of 0.2%. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 12 points to 5,837, a decline of 0.2%. The benchmark S&P 500 has hit a series of records of late, and it is also coming off a six-week streak of gains. The rally has raised concerns that the move was too much, too quickly, and that equities could be vulnerable to a pullback in the near-term, particularly with the Federal Reserve widely expected to raise interest rates at its upcoming meeting. Among the biggest decliners of the day were health care stocks, after President Donald Trump tweeted that he was working on a new system to increase drug industry competition and reduce drug pricing. Ionis Pharmaceuticals lost 2.1% while Sage Therapeutics slid 2%.

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Walt Disney Co.’s live -action reimaginning of the animated 1991 Best-Picture nominated “Beauty and the Beast” is outpacing advance ticket sales of “Captain America: Civil War,” according to Fandango, owned by Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal. For comparison, “Captain America: Civil War” opened with $179 million in box office receipts and went on to gross $1.2 billion worldwide. “Beauty and the Beast,” starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens, hits theaters nationwide this weekend. The new version of the famed fairy tale, one of the most-anticipated films of the year, is the fastest-selling family film, according to Fandango, beating out last year’s “Finding Dory.” Disney shares have gained more than 11% in the trailing 12-month period, while the S&P 500 index is up more than 18% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up nearly 23% during the same period.

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Pharmaceutical and biotechnology shares slumped in pre-market trade Tuesday after President Donald Trump tweeted that he was working on a new system to increase drug industry competition and reduce drug pricing. The SPDR S&P Pharmaceutical ETF slumped 0.6% and the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF declined 1.2% Tuesday pre-market. “Pricing for the American people will come way down!” Trump said, though he provided no detail as to how. Since the president met with pharmaceutical executives in late January and seemed to back away from previous statements about negotiating drug prices, the SPDR S&P Pharmaceutical ETF and the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF rebounded and then some. The president’s tweet follows the release of House Republicans’ health care plan Monday evening, whichmade no mention of drug prices. The SPDR S&P Pharmaceuticals ETF has surged 7.9% over the last three months and the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF has surged 14.5% over the last three months, compared with a 6.0% rise in the S&P 500 .

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Sterling Bancorp announced Tuesday a deal to buy Astoria Financial Corp. in a stock deal valued at about $2.2 billion, to create a regional bank serving the New York City metropolitan area. Under terms of the deal, Sterling will exchange 0.875 of its shares for each Astoria share outstanding. Based on Monday’s closing prices, the deal values Astoria shares at $21.92 each, or an 18.6% premium. After the merger closes, which is expected in the fourth quarter of 2017, Sterling shareholders will own 60% of the combined company, which will be known as Sterling Bancorp. The deal is expected to boost Sterling’s tangible book valued per share by 12%, increase earnings per share by 9% in 2018 and by 16% in 2019, and generate $100 million synergies. Astoria’s stock surged 8.6% in premarket trade after a halt was lifted, while Sterling shares were still inactive. Over the past three months through Monday, Astoria’s stock has gained 4.2%, Sterling shares have tacked on 3.5%, the SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF has climbed 5.1% and the S&P 500 has advanced 6%.

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Brown-Forman Corp. said Tuesday it had net income of $182 million, or 47 cents a share, in its fiscal third quarter to Jan. 31, after earnings of $190 million, or 47 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter. The distributor of Jack Daniel’s whiskey and Finlandia vodka said sales fell to $808 million from $809 million. The FactSet consensus was for EPS of 48 cents and sales of $802 million. “The company believes that fiscal 2017 is on track to be another year of continued growth in underlying net sales and operating income, despite the significant uncertainty that currently exists around the global economic and geopolitical environment, not to mention foreign exchange volatility,” the company said in a statement. It is now expecting 2017 sales growth of 3% to 4% and EPS of $1.71 to $1.76. The FactSet consensus is for 2017 EPS of $1.84. Shares were not yet active in premarket trade, but are up 44% in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 has gained about 19%.

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From:: Stock Market News