Category: Stock Market News

Oil prices rallied Wednesday to their highest settlement in about three years as ongoing protests in Iran continued to raise concerns over crude output in the country, which is the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ third-biggest producer. Prices also climbed ahead of Thursday’s holiday-delayed Energy Information Administration report, which is expected to reveal a drop of 5.7 million barrels in crude stockpiles for the week ended Dec. 29, according to an S&P Global Platts survey. February West Texas Intermediate crude rose $1.26, or 2.1%, to settle at $61.63 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That was the highest most-active futures contract settlement since December 2014, according to FactSet data.

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Alphabet Inc. is considering selling the Zagat restaurant-reviews property six years after acquiring it. Google, which reportedly paid more than $100 million for the property, has talked with multiple interested parties about selling Zagat, Reuters reported Wednesday based on anonymous sources. Google bought the service after reportedly exploring the purchase of Yelp Inc. and Groupon Inc. , and eventually reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission resulting from the search engine’s use of content from sites like Yelp. Yelp recently formally accused Google of breaking the rules it agreed to in that settlement. Alphabet class A and class C shares hit all-time intraday highs in Wednesday’s trading session.

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Gold prices ended higher for a ninth consecutive session Wednesday, buoyed by recent weakness in the dollar and safe haven demand fed by protests in Iran. After futures prices settled, minutes from the Federal Reserve’s December meeting showed a sharp divide over the central bank’s own forecast of three interest-rate hikes this year. In electronic trading, February gold was at $1,311.80 an ounce, after settling with a gain of $2.40, or 0.2%, at $1,318.50, the highest finish for a most-active futures contract since Sept. 15, according to FactSet data.

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U.S. stocks on Wednesday retained their grip on solid afternoon gains, even as President Donald Trump said his former strategist Steve Bannon “lost his mind.” Trump was reacting to to recent comments by Bannon, who referred to a reported meeting with the president’s son and Russian officials “treasonous and unpatriotic”. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 50 points, or 0.2%, at 24,874, the S&P 500 index was trading 0.5% higher above the psychologically significant level above 2,700, most recently at 2,709, while the Nasdaq Composite Index was 0.7% higher at 7,057. All three main indexes were in record territory, with a gauge of small-cap stocks the Russell 2000 index and the Dow Jones Transportation Average both trading near their own records, highlighting a sustained and broad climb to new heights for assets perceived as risky, in the early days of trade in 2018. Trump in emailed comments said Bannon had “nothing to do with me or my presidency.” Bannon is cited in a forthcoming book by Michael Wolff.” Trump has said Bannon “doesn’t represent” his “base–he’s only in it for himself.”

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Biotech AveXis Inc. could benefit, if indirectly, from payment arrangements set up by rival Spark Therapeutics Inc. for its $850,000-a-patient gene therapy Luxturna, RBC Capital Markets analyst Brian Abrahams said on Wednesday. AveXis, which is developing its AVXS-101 gene therapy as a one-time treatment for spinal muscular atrophy, saw shares decline 3.6% in heavy Wednesday trade. AVXS-101, if approved, could cost as much as $2 million per treatment, Abrahams said. The payment schemes set up by Spark, intended to make Luxturna’s record-setting pricetag more palatable to health care payers, “helps set the stage for AVXS’s ‘101 and other gene therapies,” Abrahams said. “We note this strategy is in distinct contrast to what had taken place with other one-time treatments as in HCV, and believe that this more proactive approach is more likely to ensure the buy-in of key constituents (rather than generate a backlash).” Positive results from a phase 1 trial of AVXS-101 were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in November, and Abrahams said that the Food and Drug Administration might consider accelerated approval. Abrahams also raised his price target for AveXis from $97 to $99 on Wednesday, citing the success of Biogen’s spinal muscular atrophy therapy Spinraza, among other factors. AveXis shares have surged 8.4% over the last three months, compared with a 6.9% rise in the S&P 500 and a 9.6% rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average .

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President Donald Trump said Wednesday his former strategist Steve Bannon “lost his mind” after being fired and “has nothing to do with me or my presidency.” Bannon is cited in a forthcoming book by Michael Wolff as saying a meeting between Trump’s son Donald Jr. and a group of Russians was “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.” In a statement, Trump said Bannon “doesn’t represent my base–he’s only in it for himself.”

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Shares of Riot Blockchain Inc. Wednesday afternoon were trading nearly 11% lower, even as bitcoin prices tilted slightly higher at around $15,000. Riot Blockchain started life as diagnostic machinery biotech stock Biopix Inc., before pivoting to cryptocurrencies and changing its name. The company aims to support blockchain technologies, which underlie digital currencies, such as bitcoin . Over the past week, Riot’s shares are down 12.4% so far this week as bitcoin prices have stalled since the digital currency hit a mid-December peak near $20,000. For Riot’s part, the company still boasts a 66% gain over the past 30 days and a 208% return over the past three months, according to FactSet data. Comparatively, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has climbed about 0.7% on Wednesday, 2.7% over the past week, and about 10% over the past three months. Meanwhile bitcoin futures traded on the CME Group Inc. for January were up 1.7% at 15,105, while those for the Cboe Global Markets Inc. for the same month rose 0.6% at $15,150.

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SunTrust Robinson Humphrey revised McDonald’s Corp.’s price target down to $187, reversing an earlier note that moved the price target to $205 from $178. “[W]e overestimated the impact of tax reform on McDonald’s tax rate, by mistakenly holding the foreign tax rate steady,” SunTrust analysts say in the revision. “We now estimate the foreign tax differential to be +3.3% vs. -4.5% prior, which increases our ’18/’19 tax rate estimate to 26.1% vs. 18.3% prior, down from 32.6% in ’17.” Other price target moves in the earlier note include Wendy’s Co. to $22 from $17, Shake Shack Inc. to $60 from $50, and Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. to $363 from $355. McDonald’s shares are up 44% for the last year while the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up nearly 25% for the period.

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From:: Stock Market News

SunTrust Robinson Humphrey revised McDonald’s Corp.’s price target down to $187, reversing an earlier note that moved the price target to $205 from $178. “[W]e overestimated the impact of tax reform on McDonald’s tax rate, by mistakenly holding the foreign tax rate steady,” SunTrust analysts say in the revision. “We now estimate the foreign tax differential to be +3.3% vs. -4.5% prior, which increases our ’18/’19 tax rate estimate to 26.1% vs. 18.3% prior, down from 32.6% in ’17.” Other price target moves in the earlier note include Wendy’s Co. to $22 from $17, Shake Shack Inc. to $60 from $50, and Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. to $363 from $355. McDonald’s shares are up 44% for the last year while the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up nearly 25% for the period.

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Verizon Communications Inc. said on Wednesday that it has signed a new partnership with A&E Networks to give Verizon customers free access to stream content from A&E, including from Lifetime, the History channel and Viceland. A&E is co-owned by Walt Disney Co. , Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal and Hearst Communications. This deal follows a similar Verizon announcement last month that the company had entered a deal with the National Football League to stream games beginning in January. Verizon will provide its customers with A&E content across its media brands, including Yahoo and AOL. The deal also gives Verizon first rights to content from A&E’s in-house branded content agency 45th & Dean. “This partnership expansion is yet another example of how we’re fueling our new Oath media brands,” said Brian Angiolet, Verizon’s chief media and content officer, in a statement. Shares of Verizon were down nearly 2% during intraday trade on Wednesday and have declined close to 4% in the trailing 12-month period. By comparison, the S&P 500 index is up 20% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up almost 25%.

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