Category: Stock Market News

Shares of Mylan N.V. rose more than 8% late Friday after the maker of anti-allergy device EpiPen said its subsidiary Mylan Inc. has agreed to a $465 million settlement with the Justice Department and other government agencies stemming from the classification of EpiPen for Medicaid rebates. The terms of the settlement “do not provide for any finding of wrongdoing” by Mylan, and provides a resolution for all potential liability claims by federal and state governments, Mylan said in a statement. In the same statement, Mylan lowered its 2016 adjusted earnings expectations to between $4.70 a share and $4.90 a share, from $4.85 a share to $5.15 a share. The company will include a pre-tax charge of $465 million in the quarter ended Sept. 30 as a result of the settlement, Mylan said. The company has been under fire for recent EpiPen price hikes and for reporting the EpiPen as a generic drug with multiple competitors, which allows for fewer rebates than if it were classified as a brand-name drug.

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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – The Federal Reserve plans to publish a paper later this year outlining its views on the start-up financial innovations sweeping the banking sector, said Fed Gov. Lael Brainard on Friday. Banks have been testing applications of blockchain, the technology underlying bitcoin, for trading derivatives, as a way to replace existing systems that require each party to a trade plus a central clearinghouse to record the trade. Blockchain-based networks can allow banks and regulators to share a single record of a trade over a network. “We are paying close attention to distributed ledger technology, or blockchain, recognizing this may represent the most significant development in many years in payments, clearing, and settlement,” Brainard said in a speech to the Institute of International Finance. The U.S. central bank wants “to maintain public confidence in the payments system, while supporting innovation that provides broadly shared benefits to the public over time, including through the reduction of unnecessary frictions, costs, and delays,” Brainard said. The deployment of any new financial technology must be undertaken with a thorough understanding and management of risks, she said.

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The U.S. is “confident” that the Russian government is behind recent hacking incidents including into the Democratic National Committee, according to a statement from two agencies. “These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process,” said a statement from the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “Only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities,” the statement said.

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U.S. stocks closed lower Friday, turning in the first losing week out of the past four, after the economy added fewer than expected jobs in September. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 28.01 points, or 0.2%, to close at 18,240.49, weighed down by declines in United Technologies Corp. and Home Depot Inc. . The S&P 500 Index declined 7.03 points, or 0.3%, to finish at 2,153.74, led by declines in the materials and industrials sectors. The Nasdaq Composite index slipped 14.45 points, or 0.3%, to close at 5,292.40. For the week, both the Dow and the Nasdaq declined 0.4%, while the S&P 500 fell 0.7%. The U.S. economy added 156,000 jobs in September, just shy of the 172,000 expected from economists surveyed by MarketWatch.

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Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s stock slid 0.7% in afternoon trade Friday, putting it on course for a fifth-straight loss to a five-month low. More importantly for chart watchers, the stock is headed for the first close below its 200-day moving average, which many technicians use as a dividing line between longer-term uptrends and downtrends, since May 18. At that time, the stock closed below its 200-day MA for just one day, before surging back above it after the Wal-Mart reported better-than-expected quarterly results on May 19. The last time it closed below the 200-day MA for at least two-straight sessions was Feb. 22. The stock was trading at $68.90, while the 200-day MA extended to $69.18. Friday’s selloff comes a day after Wal-Mart provided a downbeat earnings outlook for fiscal 2017. It has lost 6.3% over the past three months, while the SPDR S&P Retail ETF has gained 3.9%–the ETF is 1.6% above its 200-day MA– and the Dow Jones Industrial Average has tacked on 2.1%.

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Oil futures settled back under $50 a barrel on Friday, but still gained roughly 3.3% for the week with the market wary of potential oil supply and demand disruptions linked to Hurricane Matthew and uncertainty surrounding informal output discussions among major oil producers in the coming days. November West Texas Intermediate crude fell 63 cents, or 1.3%, to settle at $49.81 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices, which settled at a four-month high of $50.44 Thursday, tallied a third straight week of gains.

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Gold futures fell on Friday, suffering from a sixth straight session loss to tally a weekly decline of roughly 5% as traders assessed recent U.S. economic data to gauge the likelihood of a Federal Reserve interest-rate increase before the end of the year. Monthly nonfarm payrolls data released Friday came in weaker than expected, but still showed a solid gain in employment. December gold fell $1.10, or 0.1%, to settle at $1,251.90 an ounce for the session. Prices settled at their lowest level since June 7, according to FactSet data.

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Oil futures continued to decline Friday after data from Baker Hughes revealed that the number of active U.S. rigs drilling for oil climbed by 3 to 428 rigs this week. They have now posted increases in each of the last six weeks. The total active U.S. rig count, which includes oil and natural-gas rigs, climbed by 2 to 524, Baker Hughes said. Nov. crude was at $49.74 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, down 68 cents, or 1.7%, from Thursday’s settlement. It was trading around $49.68 before the rig data.

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Deutsche Bank AG’s largest non-institutional shareholder is looking to give the bank a large cash infusion but mostly backed by a margin loan, according to media reports Friday. U.S.-traded shares of Deutsche Bank surged briefly, rising as much as 3% following reports, and were last up 1.2% at $13.69. According to FactSet data, Al Thani Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabor, the former prime minister of Qatar, owns a 10% stake in Deutsche Bank. Sheikh Hamad is planning on providing a $2.9 billion cash infusion to Deutche Bank, with about $2 billion of that coming from a $2 billion margin loan from the Qatar National Bank, according to Bloomberg News. The move would back reports that Qatari investors are considering increasing their stake in the bank even as it has potentially lost $1.2 billion on their investment, according to Reuters. The bank has been under pressure lately from reports it could pay as much as a $14 billion fine to the Justice Department, squeezing its balance sheet.

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Sarepta Therapeutics Inc. stock slumped 4.8% in morning trade Friday after Anthem Inc. signaled that it wouldn’t cover the biotech’s $300,000 a year Duchenne muscular dystrophy drug, the first approved treatment for the rare degenerative disease. The new drug, eteplirsen, is “investigational and not medically necessary,” Anthem said in a medical policy dated Thursday. In explaining the decision, the health insurer reviewed eteplirsen’s long and controversial path to approval, including a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee’s vote against recommending approval, which the FDA ultimately disregarded, and the small population that the drug was studied in, or 13 boys with DMD. “In summary, the clinical benefit of treatment for DMD with eteplirsen, including improved motor function, has not been demonstrated,” the Anthem policy said. “Establishment of a clinical benefit is warranted in on-going clinical trials,” which the FDA required as part of the drug’s approval. Sarepta shares rose 180.3% over the last three weeks, compared with a 2.8% rise in the S&P 500 .

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