Category: Stock Market News

Kohl’s Corp. shares surged 7.2% in premarket trading after the retailer reported a third-quarter earnings beat and increased its share buyback program. Net income was $146 million, or 83 cents, up from $120 million, or 63 cents per share, for the same period last year. Adjusted earnings per share of 80 cents beat the FactSet consensus of 70 cents. Revenue totaled $4.33 billion, down from $4.43 billion last year, but above the $4.32 billion FactSet estimate. Same-store sales declined 1.7%, in line with the FactSet consensus. The company increased its outstanding share buyback program to $2.0 billion. And the retailer reaffirmed its fiscal 2016 adjusted EPS guidance of $3.80 to $4.00. Kohl’s shares are down 4.1% for the year so far while the S&P 500 Index is up 5.8% for the same period.

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.

…read more

From:: Stock Market News

Shares of Twitter Inc. tumbled 4% Wednesday after the San Francisco social-media company said COO Adam Bain will step down. Anthony Noto, Twitter’s CFO since July 2014, has been named COO. Twitter has started a search for a new CFO, the company said. Last year, when Twitter was searching for a new CEO, the board allegedly had considered Bain to replace Dick Costolo, who stepped down in June 2015. In January, four Twitter executives left the company, including engineering chief Alex Roetter, part of a seemingly constant churn in the executive ranks for the social-media company. Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey returned to the company as interim CEO after Costolo’s ousting and took over as CEO in October of last year. Twitter shares ended the regular trading day up 4.1%.

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.

…read more

From:: Stock Market News

Novavax Inc. [S; nvax] said Tuesday that it will cut staff by 30% after disappointing results, another wound for a company that lost more than 80% of its value in a single session earlier this year on a disappointing vaccine trial. The company said it would continue to develop the vaccine for a respiratory virus called RSV, with a focus on the still-promising results in infants while continuing to search for a way to make the medicine work for older patients. The company said that it would incur $3 million to $4 million in restructuring charges from the layoffs, while also executing other cost-cutting measures that would reduce cash burn next year by $70 million to $100 million from this year. Novavax reported a quarterly loss of $66.3 million, or 24 cents a share, double the loss reported in the same quarter last year, on revenue of $3.2 million. Shares, which had spiked 17.2% in regular trading on a strong day for biotech stocks after Donald Trump was declared the next president, dropped 13.5% in late trades.

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.

…read more

From:: Stock Market News

Shares of Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. were halted late Wednesday after the New Haven, Conn., company said it will delay filing its third-quarter report due to an ongoing investigation into certain sales practices following allegations by a former employee. The investigation has not identified instances where orders of Alexion’s drug Soliris were not placed by customers for patients or any facts that require the company to update its previously reported historical results, Alexion said. Shares of Alexion ended the regular trading session up 6.5%.

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.

…read more

From:: Stock Market News

Mylan Inc. reported a third-quarter earnings loss and missed on revenue after hours on Wednesday. The company reported a loss for the latest quarter of $119.8 million, or 23 cents per share, after a $428.6 million profit, or 83 cents per share, a year ago. The company said the loss was primarily due to a $465 million Department of Justice settlement announced last month. Adjusted earnings-per-share were $1.38, compared with the FactSet consensus of $1.45. Revenue rose to $3.06 billion from $2.70 billion in the year-earlier period, compared with the FactSet consensus of $3.12 billion. Mylan said specialty drug sales declined 4% compared with the year-earlier period, due to lower volume sales of its controversial allergic reaction treatment, the EpiPen, “in anticipation of the authorized generic launch.” Mylan was criticized widely this summer after hiking the price of the EpiPen significantly. Mylan shares rose 1.5% in after hours trade, compared to the S&P 500 close of 1.1%, in a post-election day that turned bullish for pharmaceutical companies’ stocks.

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.

…read more

From:: Stock Market News

President-elect Donald Trump is not going to ask Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen to resign before her term ends in February 2018, according to a top adviser. During the campaign, Trump criticized Yellen for politicizing interest rate policy. Judy Shelton, an economist and senior fellow at the Atlas Network, told The Wall Street Journal that Trump won’t ask Yellen to serve a second four-year term. “He’s saying he’d want someone whose thinking is more in keeping with own,” Shelton said. Fed insiders think it is important that Yellen finish out her term and not resign due to political pressure.

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.

…read more

From:: Stock Market News

Shares of SunPower Corp. fell 0.8% late Wednesday after the San Jose, Calif., solar-power company narrowed its quarterly loss but reported sales under expectations. SunPower reported a loss of $40.5 million, or 29 cents a share, in the third quarter, narrowing a loss of $56.3 million, or 41 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted for one-time items, the solar-power developer said it earned $97 million, or 68 cents a share, compared with $20 million, or 13 cents a share, a year ago. Sales reached $729 million, compared with $380 million in the third quarter of 2015. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected SunPower to report adjusted earnings of 41 cents a share on sales of $786 million. The company said it was enacting “significant” cost-reduction initiatives in order to face a more uncertain solar market. The company will report on a restructuring program Dec. 7, it said. SunPower said it expects a “slight moderation” of growth in its residential market in the fourth quarter. The company also tweaked its guidance, and said it expects 2016 revenue of $2.43 billion to $2.63 billion and net loss of $295 million to $320 million for the year. Shares had ended the regular trading day down 14%.

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.

…read more

From:: Stock Market News

Shares of Shake Shack Inc. jumped in Wednesday’s extended session after the casual restaurant chain raised its 2016 revenue outlook. Shake Shack reported its third-quarter earnings rose to $6.8 million, or 15 cents a share, from $6.2 million, or 10 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Revenue grew 40.2% to $71.9 million while same-store sales rose 2.9%, slowing from an increase of 17.1% year ago. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast earnings of 14 cents a share on revenue of $69.3 million. The burger chain raised its 2016 revenue outlook to a range of $264 million to $265 million from $253 million to $256 million previously. It also projected same-store sales of 4% to 5% for the year. For 2017, it projected revenue of $348 million to $352 million and same-store sales of 2% to 3%. Shake Shack shares rallied 11% after hours.

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.

…read more

From:: Stock Market News

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 280 points, or 1.5%, to 18,612 on Wednesday, to trade within a hair’s breadth of its all-time record of 18,636.05 set in August. The rally was led by sharp gains in Pfizer Inc., Merck & Co, Inc and Caterpillar Inc, and banking stocks like Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. as investors bet that Donald Trump’s presidency would usher in massive fiscal spending over the next few years. Higher inflation would be beneficial to banks. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies surged as the defeat of Hillary Clinton was seen as removing obstacles to aggressive price-hikes in the drug sector.

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.

…read more

From:: Stock Market News

Oil futures climbed Wednesday to settle at a one-week high, buoyed by a risk-on sentiment among investors that provided a lift to U.S. equities and the dollar. But data showing a second-straight weekly climb in U.S. crude supplies, along with a weekly increase in domestic crude production, kept a lid on oil’s price gains. December WTI crude rose 29 cents, or 0.6%, to settle at $45.27 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That was the highest settlement since Nov. 2, according to FactSet data.

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.

…read more

From:: Stock Market News