Category: Stock Market News

Oil production from seven major U.S. shale plays is expected to fall by 113,000 barrels a day to 4.96 million barrels a day in June from May, according to a monthly report from the Energy Information Administration released Monday. Oil output at the Eagle Ford shale play in South Texas is expected to see the largest decline, down 58,000 barrels in June. The Bakken shale play, which stretches from Canada into North Dakota and Montana, is expected to see output fall by 28,000 barrels a day, the report said. June oil continued to trade higher, up $1.53, or 3.3%, to $47.74 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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Delta Air Lines Inc. said Monday in a presentation to analysts that it will increase it’s annual dividend by 50% to 81 cents a share from 54 cents a share, in the third quarter. At current prices, the new annual dividend would imply a dividend yield of 1.9%, compared with the aggregate S&P 500 yield of 2.2%, according to FactSet. Delta’s stock shot up 3.3% in midday trade. The airline company said it planned to buy back $3 billion worth of its shares, which is what remained from the $5 billion stock repurchase program announced last year, by May 2017, including $375 million in accelerated share repurchases planned for the current quarter. Delta said it expects to remove about 1 percentage point of planned capacity growth during the second half of the year. The stock has dropped 15% year to date, while the NYSE Arca Airline index has slipped 3.2% and the S&P 500 gained 1%.

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Julian Robertson’s Tiger Management LLC sold its entire stake in Apple Inc. during the first quarter, as the hedge fund nearly halved the value of its equity holdings, according to its latest 13F regulatory filing. Tiger had owned 409,310 shares of Apple as of Dec. 31. The fund’s equity assets were valued at $398.7 million as of March 31, down from $775.2 million as of Dec. 31. Some other moves Robertson’s fund made during the quarter included cutting its Alphabet Inc. stake by 46% to 38,785 shares, slashing its Citigroup Inc. holding by 54% to 303,000 shares, selling his entire 1.1 million share stake in DeVry Education Group Inc. , adding a new 228,840-share stake in Celgene Corp. , reducing his Facebook Inc. bet by 57% to 212,000 shares, adding a new 124,600-share stake in FedEx Corp. , nearly halving its holding in Delta Air Lines Inc. to 511,775 shares and by selling off its 230,300-share stake in IAC/InterActiveCorp.

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Leon Cooperman’s Omega Advisors bought stakes in UnitedHealth Group and digital-payment processor PayPal during the first quarter. Omega Advisors purchased 499,500 shares of UnitedHealth Group and 1.3 million shares of PayPal , according to a regulatory filing on Monday. The UnitedHealth stake represents 1.7% of the fund’s holdings, while PayPal is about 1.3% of Omega Advisors’ portfolio. Cooperman’s fund dissolved approximately three million shares of Citigroup , representing about 3.4% of the fund’s holdings. Other new stakes disclosed include Coach Inc. , Lowe’s Cos AutoZone Inc. and Electronic Arts . Omega Advisors also slashed its stake in tech giants, like Facebook , which it cut by more than 50% to 459,000 shares and Google Inc. parent Alphabet Inc. , which it decreased by more than a third to about 277,000 shares. Regulatory filings also showed that Omega Advisors bought a stake in Apple Inc. , purchasing 227,000 shares, representing 0.7% of its portfolio. However, the fund sold its entire position since then, according to CNBC. Apple’s shares surged on Monday after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway disclosed that it took a nearly 10 million share stake in Apple.

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Biogen Inc. said Monday morning it would collaborate with the University of Pennsylvania on an up to $2 billion project to develop gene therapy and gene editing programs and technologies. The effort will have a particular focus on therapeutic approaches for the eye, skeletal muscle and the central nervous system, Biogen said. The company plans to pay the university $20 million with an additional $62.5 million for research and development costs over the next several years, with the school’s seven programs eligible for $77.5 million to $137.5 million at various product milestones along with royalties on product sales. Biogen said it will have an option to license gene transfer technology using adeno-associated virus vectors for the company’s outside use. Shares of the company were up 0.9% Monday morning after the announcement. Biogen stock has risen 3.0% in the last three months, compared with an 8.6% rise in the S&P 500 .

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U.S. stocks opened slightly higher Monday as investors weighed weak economic data from China against a renewed push higher for oil prices . A steep drop in a reading of New York-area business conditions also weighed on sentiment, while the market got a boost from a flurry of mergers and acquisitions, most notably Pfizer Inc.’s proposed purchase of Anacor Pharmaceuticals . The S&P 500 was up 2 points, or 0.1%, to 2,047. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 10 points, or 0.1%, to 17,547 at the open. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite began the session down 12 points, or 0.3%, at 4,730.

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Aduro Biotech Inc. shares were halted in pre-market trade Monda, after the company said its pancreatic cancer drug missed the primary endpoint in a phase 2b clinical trial. The therapy being tested was CRS-207 both alone and in combination with GVAX Pancreas and was intended for patients with the cancer who had unsuccessfully undergone two prior metastatic therapies. Aduro’s chairman, Stephen Isaacs, called the findings “unexpected” given “the divergence of these data from the results of our Phase 2a study.” The company said the therapies are also being tested in an ongoing trial as a second-line treatment for patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer. Aduro shares have dropped 28.6% in the last three months, compared with a 8.0% rise in the S&P 500 .

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Warren Buffett’s investment vehicle Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s new investment in Apple Inc. could be worth about $181.2 million less than it was 6 1/2 weeks ago, at the end of the first quarter. Berkshire’s 13F filing showed that it owned a new 9,811,747 stake in Apple as of March 31, when the stock closed at $108.99, or 20% above Friday’s closing price of $90.52. The filing did not disclose at what prices the shares were bought. The volume-weighted average price of Apple’s stock during the quarter was $99.59. At that price, if its position in Apple was unchanged, Berkshire could have lost about $89 million on its Apple stake through Friday.

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Warren Buffett’s investment vehicle Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s new investment in Apple Inc. could be worth about $181.2 million less than it was 6 1/2 weeks ago, at the end of the first quarter. Berkshire’s 13F filing showed that it owned a new 9,811,747 stake in Apple as of March 31, when the stock closed at $108.99, or 20% above Friday’s closing price of $90.52. The filing did not disclose at what prices the shares were bought. The volume-weighted average price of Apple’s stock during the quarter was $99.59. At that price, if its position in Apple was unchanged, Berkshire could have lost about $89 million on its Apple stake through Friday.

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