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Gold futures finished with a loss Monday after a 1.4% climb in the previous session. Strength in the dollar and gains in the U.S. stock market pressured prices, offsetting earlier haven support from jitters over a potential trade war. April gold lost $3.50, or 0.3%, to settle at $1,319.90 an ounce.
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.
From:: Stock Market News
A man critically ill after being exposed to an unknown substance in the U.K is a former Russian spy, according to a BBC report. The man, Sergei Skripal, is a retired Russian military intelligence colonel and was jailed for 13 years in 2006 for spying for Britain, the BBC said. He was granted asylum in the U.K. in 2010. Skripal and a woman fell ill Sunday afternoon in Wiltshire after being exposed to the substance, which has not been identified. The news comes as a British inquiry last month concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin “probably” approved the murder of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko died in 2006 after drinking polonium-laced tea.
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.
From:: Stock Market News
U.S. stocks rallied on Monday, with all 11 of the primary S&P 500 sectors in positive territory as equities staged a broad rebound. Each of the 11 primary industry groups had traded lower at some point during the day, as had the major indexes. However, stocks turned positive in morning trading and the gains accelerated throughout the session. The biggest gainer on the day was the utility sector, up 1.5%, while financial stocks rose 1.3%. The relative underperformer of the day was the industrial sector, up 0.6%. Investors appeared somewhat skeptical about industrial stocks given the looming threat of a global trade war, a factor that arose last week when President Donald Trump announced he would be instituting tariffs on steel and aluminum. Among the biggest gainers on the day, Netflix Inc. added 4.1% while General Electric Co. was up 2.8%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.1% while the S&P 500 was up 1% and the Nasdaq Composite Index was up 1.1%.
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.
From:: Stock Market News
PayPal Holdings Inc. shares are up 0.5% in midday trading Monday after it was revealed that the company recently filed for a patent related to bitcoin. The company’s patent filing was for an “expedited virtual currency transaction system” and was flagged by Bitcoin.com. Such a system could potentially speed up bitcoin transactions and be anonymous. Shares of PayPal were originally down to start the day after the Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon.com Inc. was interested in creating its own product similar to a checking account. PayPal’s stock is up 84% so far this year, while the S&P 500 Index has gained 14%.
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From:: Stock Market News
Matteo Renzi resigned Monday as head of Italy’s Democratic Party following its poor showing in the country’s general election, news reports said. Renzi, a former prime minister, saw his center-left party put in a historically poor showing of less than 20% of the vote. Meanwhile, the leaders of the populist 5 Star Movement and the anti-immigrant League each claimed to have enough support to form a government, but neither won an outright majority, likely leaving Italy to face weeks or months of wrangling.
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From:: Stock Market News
The former chief executive officer at Stearns Lending LLC has joined a home builder and will oversee two joint mortgage ventures as well as develop new business lines.
Brian S. Hale was named CEO of Santa Ana, California-based Stearns Lending in 2012. He stayed on in that role until stepping down in May 2017.
Hale originally started his career as a commissioned loan originator 35 years ago at Fleet Mortgage Inc., which was acquired by Bank of America Corp.
From:: Financing
Shares of Groupon Inc. are up 5.2% in midday trading Monday after analysts at Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock to equal-weight from underweight. The analysts, led by Jonathan Lanterman, believe that the post-earnings selloff has been overdone, with shares down 14% since the company reported an earnings miss in mid-February. The company also issued disappointing guidance at the time. “We acknowledge that 2018 could see gross billings and revenue growth metrics look unappealing with success of Groupon+ and the shift to [third-party] goods, but the company focuses on gross profit growth as a better indicator of the health of the business and we agree,” Lanterman wrote. He raised his price target on shares to $4.40 from $4.30. Groupon shares are up 12% in the past 12 months, while the S&P 500 Index has gained 14%.
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From:: Stock Market News
GTx Inc. shares surged nearly 30% in Monday trade after the company reported additional results from a phase 2 trial of its drug for postmenopausal women with stress urinary incontinence. The latest data suggest that the drug, enobosarm, could also work for women with urge incontinence and thus have “a possible treatment effect for women with mixed incontinence,” the company said. A post hoc analysis of a subset of trial patients consisting of women with both types of incontinence — which means the analysis wasn’t specified before seeing the data — found that use of enobosarm reduced average urge incontinence episodes by about 68%. The phase 2 trial in question enrolled 18 patients total, 11 of which had both types of incontinence. Stress urinary incontinence consists of unintentional urine leakage during activities like coughing, sneezing or exercise, and affects up to 35% of adult U.S. women, according to GTx. Urge incontinence refers to the involuntary loss of urine at the time of a sudden, strong need to urinate, and the two often coexist, the company said. GTx shares have surged nearly 75% over the last three months, compared with a 3.1% rise in the S&P 500 .
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From:: Stock Market News
Shares of Square Inc. are up 8.5% in Monday trading and on track to close at a new all-time high. If the current gains hold, this would mark Square’s largest one-day percentage gain since May 4, 2017, when its stock rose 8.9%. The company said late Friday that its general counsel, Hillary Smith, would be resigning, and Square confirmed to MarketWatch that it hasn’t announced any news. The company announced better-than-expected earnings last week and CEO Jack Dorsey also said at the time that the company wanted to enhance its bitcoin offerings beyond buying and selling. Square shares are up 194% so far this year, while the S&P 500 Index is up 14%.
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From:: Stock Market News
General Electric Co.’s stock surged 3.2% in midday trade, enough to pace the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s gainers. The stock has now climbed 4.0% since it closed at $14.02 last Thursday, which was the lowest close since July 6, 2010. Despite Monday’s big percentage rally, the 46-cent price gain only added about 3 points to the price of the Dow, which was up 193 points. And GE’s stock was still down 17% year to date, 18% over the past three months, 41% over the past 6 months and 52% the past 12 months, making it the worst Dow performer over all four of those time frames. In comparison, the Dow has gained 0.1% this year, 2.3% the past three months, 14% the past 6 months and 18% the past year.
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.
From:: Stock Market News