Category: Stock Market News

Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. said both its chief executive and chief financial officer have left the company, as the previously-announced internal accounting investigation nears completion. The company said CEO David Hallal has resigned for personal reasons, and its CFO Vikas Sinha has left to pursue other opportunities. The company named board member David Brennan as interim-CEO, effective immediately, and David Anderson has joined the company to be CFO. The company said its audit and finance committee has not at this point identified any facts that would require a restatement of previous results. The company expects to file its quarterly report for the quarter ended Sept. 30 by January 2017. “With strong new leaders in place, we will continue to be relentlessly focused on serving patients and families with devastating and rare diseases,” said Chairman Leonard Bell. The stock, which is halted for news until 8:00 a.m. ET, has tumbled 31% year to date through Friday, while the S&P 500 has gained 11%.

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Shares of Ophthotech Corp. plunged 79% toward a record low in active premarket trade Monday, after the biopharmaceutical company said two phase 3 trials of its age-related vision loss treatment failed to meet their primary endpoints. “We are very disappointed in the results from these trials, particularly for patients afflicted with wet [age-related macular degeneration],” said Chief Executivew David R. Guyer. “We will continue to analyze the data from these two studies to better understand the trial results.” The stock traded at $7.95 ahead of the open, on volume of about 200,000 shares. The regular-session all-time intraday low for the stock, which went public at $22 a share in September 2013, was $22.61 in Nov. 18, 2013. The stock had tumbled 51% year to date through Friday, while the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF had lost 20% and the S&P 500 had gained 11%.

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Newell Brands Inc. announced Monday a deal to buy New Zealand’s Sistema, a provider of food storage containers, for the equivalent of $470 million. The consumer goods company also said it was buying home fragrance company Smith Mountain Industries, which owns the WoodWick Candle brand, for $100 million. Newell said it will fund both acquisitions with cash on hand, and will not use the proceeds from the planned divestitures to pay for the deals. The Sistema deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2017 and the WoodWick Candle deal is expected to close in the first quarter. Newell’s stock, which was still inactive in premarket trade, has gained 3.3% year to date, while the S&P 500 has climbed 11%.

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Embattled Italian lender Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA is making a last-ditch effort to raise 5 billion euros by the end of the year to stay afloat and avoid being bailed out by the Italian government. In a statement late Sunday, the bank said it will seek new private capital by reopening a debt-to-equity swap offer after receiving regulatory authorization, according to media reports. The bank last week made an offer to bondholders to swap €4.3 billion worth of subordinated into shares, but only raised €1 billion through the offering. The bank is racing to raise €5 billion by the end of the year after the European Central Bank rejected BMPS’s request for more time to complete its recapitalization plan. Monte dei Paschi shares jumped 6.9% in early European trade on Monday.

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The Senate passed a bill late Friday night to fund the government through April 28, acting just shortly before the government was due to partially shut down. The House approved the measure on Thursday and it now goes to President Barack Obama for signature. The funding bill was held up by Democrats’ efforts to get a longer extension of miners’ health-care benefits. But lawmakers said they wouldn’t shut down the government over the issue and vowed to press it next year. The vote was 63-36.

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The Senate passed a bill late Friday night to fund the government through April 28, acting just shortly before the government was due to partially shut down. The House approved the measure on Thursday and it now goes to President Barack Obama for signature. The funding bill was held up by Democrats’ efforts to get a longer extension of miners’ health-care benefits. But lawmakers said they wouldn’t shut down the government over the issue and vowed to press it next year. The vote was 63-36.

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The Senate appeared poised Friday night to vote for a stopgap spending bill that would head off a government shutdown at midnight. The House approved the measure, which funds government operations through April 28, on Thursday. Senators including Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, had sought a longer extension of miners’ benefits than is included in the House bill. “We are not going to shut down the government over this issue,” said Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat. Votes are expected later Friday night.

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President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team said Friday that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani had taken himself out of the running for “a position in the new administration.” Giuliani was reportedly under consideration for secretary of state. The Wall Street Journal reported, meanwhile, that Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson has emerged as the top candidate to lead the State Department.

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Stocks finished at records Friday as consumer sentiment surged and markets continued their Trump-inspired rally. The Dow Jones Industrial Index finished up 142.04 points, or 0.7%, at 19,756.85, for a weekly gain of 3.1%, the blue-chip average’s fifth week of consecutive gains. The S&P 500 index gained 13.34 points, or 0.6%, to finish at 2,259.53, led by the health-care and consumer-staples sectors, for a weekly gain of 3.1%. The Nasdaq Composite index closed up 27.14 points, or 0.5%, at 5,444.50, for a weekly gain of 3.6%.

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Oil futures settled higher Friday, with major oil producers set to meet this weekend with plans to shore up their recent decision to cut back output. For the week, however, prices lost about 0.4% as some doubts lingered that producers outside of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will fully support the agreement. January West Texas Intermediate crude rose 66 cents, or 1.3%, to settle at $51.50 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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