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Standard & Poor’s on Monday affirmed its BB+ corporate credit rating on Dell Inc. but placed its senior secured and senior unsecured ratings on CreditWatch negative, meaning it could downgrade them in the near term. The rating agency also placed EMC Corp.’s A rating on CreditWatch negative. The moves came after EMC agreed to be acquired by Michael Dell and partners in a $67 billion cash-and-stock deal. S&P expects the deal to be financed with a mixture of cash on hand, debt issuance, equity from its current owners and Singaporean wealth fund Temasek, and a tracking stock to track VMware’s stock price, although details have not been disclosed. “The affirmation of the corporate credit rating on Dell reflects the company’s improved business risk profile as we view the acquisition of EMC strengthens Dell’s existing product portfolio to include market leadership positions in PC, servers, storage, and virtualization software, enhances Dell’s position as a critical IT business partner with its customers and supply chain partners, improves the company’s profitability profile as a result of better product
mix, and also enables the opportunities for revenue and cost synergies,” said S&P credit analyst David Tsui. “Offsetting this factor is our view that the transaction will weaken the company’s financial risk profile due to higher debt leverage.”

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From:: Stock Market News

U.S. stocks opened little changed on Monday as investors appeared to take a pause after last week’s strong gains. Volumes for the session are expected to be thin, with most banks, federal institutions and U.S. bond markets closed for the Columbus Day holiday. The S&P 500 opened unchanged at 2,014. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 4 points to 17,090. The Nasdaq Composite began the day up 6 points, or 0.1%, at 4,836.

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From:: Stock Market News

Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s stock climbed 1% in premarket trade Monday, after the investment bank was upgraded at Citigroup, which cited an attractive valuation following recent share price underperformance. Analyst Keith Horowitz raised his rating to buy after being at hold since January 2013, while maintaining his stock price target at $210, which is 17% above Friday’s closing price of $179.19. The stock has dropped 14% over the past three months through Friday, while the SPDR Financial ETF has lost 5.7% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average has slipped 3.8% over the same time. Horowitz said the market is now pricing in subpar returns over time for Goldman, reflecting low investor sentiment on the capital markets, so he sees Goldman’s stock as a “cheap call option”–bullish bet–on improving capital markets. Horowitz wrote in a note to clients that he thinks “investors will want to buy the stock when return expectations are low as they are today and the stock is pricing in longer term returns just slightly above the cost of capital.

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From:: Stock Market News

Eli Lilly & Co. tumbled 7.6% in premarket trade Monday, after the drug maker said it was terminating development of its cardiovascular disease treatment, evacetrapib, because of insufficient efficacy. The company expects to record a fourth-quarter charge of $90 million, or 5 cents a share, as a result of discontinuing development. Lilly said an independent data monitoring committee had recommended discontinuing trials, after data from reviews of late-stage trials suggested there was a low probability that the study would achieve its primary endpoint. “We’re obviously disappointed in this outcome, as we hoped that evacetrapib would offer an advance in treatment for people with high-risk cardiovascular disease,” said David Ricks, president of Lilly Bio-Medicines. The stock has soared 25% year to date through Friday, while the S&P 500 has lost 2.1%.

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From:: Stock Market News

By James Aldridge

Foreclosure rates in the San Antonio area were on the decline in July, according to the latest report from CoreLogic, indicating that the local housing market continues to be healthy.

The CoreLogic data shows that foreclosures among outstanding mortgage loans in the San Antonio-New Braunfels area was 0.64 percent for July, which is down a fraction of a percentage point from July 2014 when the rate was 0.74 percent.

Foreclosure activity in the San Antonio-New Braunfels area was lower than the national… …read more

From:: biz journal foreclosures

Phillips 66 on Monday unveiled a capital budget of $3.6 billion for 2016 and said its board has approved a $2.0 billion increase to its share buyback program. The energy and logistics company said it will spend $2.0 on its midstream business lines, $1.2 billion on refining and about $135 million on marketing and specialties. Another $180 million earmarked for corporate and other spending. The company is planning to increase its regular dividends in 2016. The additional $2.0 billion in share buybacks brings its total authorization to $9.0 billion. Shares were slightly higher in premarket trade, and are up 12% in the year so far, while the S&P 500 has lost 2.1%.

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From:: Stock Market News

Trading in Eli Lilly & Co.’s stock was halted on the NYSE for news pending. The stock was untraded in the premarket prior to the halt. It has run up 25% year to date through Friday, compared with a 0.1% gain in the SPDR Health Care ETF and a 2.1% decline in the S&P 500 .

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From:: Stock Market News

EMC Corp. has agreed to be acquired by Michael Dell and partners in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $67 billion, Michael Dell and EMC Chief Executive Joe Tucci announced on CNBC. The buyers will pay $33.15 per EMC share in the deal, which is the biggest ever acquisition in the U.S. tech space. EMC shares surged 7% in premarket trade, but are down 7% in the year through Friday, while the S&P 500 has lost 2.1%.

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From:: Stock Market News

Princeton University economics professor Angus Deaton was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences “for his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Monday. Deaton, born in 1945 in Edinburgh, earned his Ph.D from the University of Cambridge, U.K., in 1974, and has been a professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton since 1983. “To design economic policy that promotes welfare and reduces poverty, we must first understand individual consumption choices. More than anyone else, Angus Deaton has enhanced this understanding,” according to a statement from the Nobel committee.

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From:: Stock Market News

EMC Corp. pre-announced third-quarter earnings and sales, as part of its announcement of a deal to be acquired by Dell Inc. in a deal valued at $67 billion. EMC said it expects adjusted earnings per share, which excludes non-recurring items, of 43 cents, missing the FactSet consensus of 45 cents. Revenue is expected to be $6.05 billion to $6.08 billion, below the FactSet consensus of $6.24 billion. Separately, VMware Inc. , the publicly-traded cloud infrastructure arm of EMC, said it expects third-quarter adjusted EPS of $1.02 a share and revenue of $1.67 billion, both above the FactSet consensus for EPS of 99 cents and revenue of $1.65 billion. EMC’s stock climbed 4.2% in premarket trade, while VMware share were unchanged.

Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.

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From:: Stock Market News