Category: Stock Market News

U.S. stock indexes opened slightly higher Monday, as investors look ahead to a coming meeting by the Federal Reserve, and as bitcoin made its trading debut in the futures market late Sunday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened up but was mostly trading at break-even at 24,331, the S&P 500 index traded about 0.1% higher at 2,652, while the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 10 points, or 0.2%, higher at 6,849. Meanwhile, was at $17,900, after the Cboe Global Market Inc. kicked off trad of the volatility cryptocurrency at 6 p.m. Eastern on Sunday. Markets are awaiting a key meeting of the Federal Reserve on Wednesday, where a hike of benchmark interest rates is expected.

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Shares of Arch Coal Inc. rallied 2.4% toward a record high in morning trade Monday, after the coal producer announced a deal to buy back 500,000 shares from its second-largest shareholder, Monarch Alternative Capital LP. The company said it will repurchase the stock at $83.03 a share, which was 2.2% below Friday’s closing price of $84.94, for a total of $41.5 million. The deal is expected to close on our about Dec. 14. Arch said the repurchase is part of its existing $500 million buyback program. Monarch owned 2.56 million Arch shares, or 10.5% of the shares outstanding, as of Sept. 30, according to FactSet, which was second to OppenheimerFunds Inc.’s 13.6 million shares outstanding. Arch’s stock has rallied 11.4% year to date, while the S&P 500 has climbed 18.5%.

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Shares of gene therapy biotech Spark Therapeutics Inc. tumbled more than 40% in early trade Monday, after it reported data from trials of a hemophilia treatment that analysts said look less competitive than a rival product from BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. The company presented early data from a trial of its SPK-8011 in hemophilia A involving five patients. “Although the enrollment size is small so far (n=5), early signs raise more caution than encouragement, on balance, and lead us to question whether there will be adequate dose-response for patients to reliably achieve normal Factor VIII expression levels,” Leerink analysts wrote in an early note. Spark also unveiled longer-term data from a treatment for hemophilia B, that it is working on with Pfizer Inc. Shares are down 14.7% for 2017, while the S&P 500 has gained 18%. BioMarin shares rose 8.4%.

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Shares of programmatic-advertising firm The Trade Desk Inc. gained 8% in Monday trading after analysts at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey upgraded the stock to buy from hold. The analysts, led by Youssef Squali, think that the company’s risk/reward balance now looks attractive following a recent pullback in the stock price over the past month. While the company has exposure to the packaged-good and retail sectors, two troubled areas, Squali is upbeat about the future of programmatic advertising. He believes that large retail and packaged good firms “will come back and increase their spend, because online is where the eyeballs are and because programmatic is one of the most efficient ad channels online.” The company could also be a beneficiary of tax reform, he wrote in a note to clients. Shares of The Trade Desk have gained 75% so far in 2017, compared with an 18% rise for the S&P 500 Index .

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Analysts at KeyBanc Capital Markets raised their price target on Grubhub Inc. to $80 on Monday, matching the highest target among Wall Street analysts tracked by FactSet. Grubhub shares gained 2.4% in morning trading. The analysts, led by Brad Erickson, believe that Grubhub is effectively withstanding competitive pressure from Uber, Amazon.com Inc. , and others. “Amazon’s impact has quieted relative to prior rounds of checks” with restaurants,” Erickson wrote. He also sees numerous potential acquisition targets for Grubhub that would be “almost immediately accretive and could be done tactically in the event of incremental softness in gross food sales.” These include meal-kit firms Munchery and Gobble, as well as food-delivery companies DoorDash and Delivery.com. Grubhub’s stock has gained 81% so far in 2017, compared with an 18% rise for the S&P 500 Index .

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Several analysts initiated coverage of email-marketing firm SendGrid Inc. with the equivalent of buy ratings on Monday. Analysts at KeyBanc Capital Markets assigned a price target of $26, citing “compelling growth prospects, coupled with strong leadership and a disciplined model balancing high growth and profitability” as reasons for their optimism. Analysts at William Blair think that the company is poised to benefit as email usage increases over the next several years. “The company’s self-service on-boarding process allows it to acquire customers at a reasonable cost and maintain below-average sales-and-marketing expenses, which should drive operating leverage,” they wrote. Stifel analysts see room for “significant international expansion” and began their coverage with a price target of $25. SendGrid priced its IPO in mid-November at $16 a share, and the stock is up 34% from there. The S&P 500 Index has gained 2.8% since SendGrid went public. SendGrid’s stock is flat in premarket trading Monday.

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Riot Blockchain Inc. said Monday it’s TessPay Inc. unit has signed a non-binding letter of intent to merge with Canada’s Cresval Capital Corp. . TessPay is a blockchain company that is developing a supply chain payment platform for businesses to guarantee payment on time and in full. After the deal closes, TessPay will start trading on the TSX Venture Exchange, Riot Blockchain said in a statement. Riot Blockchain itself 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. The LOI provides for TessPay to be issued 80 million Cresval shares in the deal with its parent to receive 41.6 million shares. Riot Blockchain shares were up 23% in premarket trade, and have gained 313% in 2017, while the S&P 500 has gained 18%.

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Apple Inc. shares were flat in premarket trading Monday after analysts at Susquehanna Group delivered an update on their checks with Apple suppliers and made a prediction about next year’s iPhone models. The analysts, led by Mehdi Hosseini, wrote that their checks with suppliers in Asia suggest that there haven’t been any changes made to Apple’s iPhone build forecast for the current quarter or for next quarter. The firm predicts 66 million iPhone builds for the December quarter, 36 million of which will be iPhone X models, and 54 million total builds for the March quarter, 35 million of which will be iPhone X models. Looking ahead to next year, Hosseini thinks Apple will come out with three iPhone models again. He expects these to include 5.1-inch and 6-inch OLED models as well as a cheaper LCD-based version. Apple shares have gained 46% so far in 2017, compared with a 23% gain for the Dow Jones Industrial Average .

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Bluebird Bio shares soared 24% in premarket trade Monday, after Goldman Sachs raised its price target for the stock to $309 from $186, on strong gene/cell therapy pipeline updates at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting. Bluebird’s CAR T bb2121 “looks to have a disruptive impact on the multiple myeloma (MM) treatment paradigm,” Goldman analysts led by Salveen Richter wrote in a note, based on the efficacy and safety profile, which supports development of this “potentially curative approach.” Bluebird may also be on the path to address severe sickle cell disease, it said. Goldman views the company as an attractive takeover candidate, “given its innovative and leading lentiviral-based gene therapy and CAR-T cell platforms backed by positive proof of concept data, which targets large blood disorders beta-thalassemia and sickle cell disease and multiple myeloma,” said the note. Shares have gained 177% in 2017, while the S&P 500 has gained 18%.

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Shares of NXP Semiconductors N.V. tacked on 0.8% in premarket trade Monday, after shareholder Elliott Management Corp., said in a letter to shareholders that it believes NXP is worth $135 a share. That is well above the $110-a-share buyout bid by Qualcomm Inc. , which was made in October 2016. Last month, Elliott had hired UBS to help in its effort to get a higher bid from Qualcomm, including sounding out other potential bidders. In October, Qualcomm Chief Executive Steve Mollenkopf told The Wall Street Journal that he expected the NXP purchase to close on schedule by the end of the year. Meanwhile, Qualcomm is trying to fend off an unsolicited buyout bid from Broadcom Ltd. , which said its bid would stand whether Qualcomm’s purchase of NXP closes or not. Elliott said it advises funds that collectively own about 6% of NXP’s shares outstanding. NXP’s stock has closed above Qualcomm’s $110-a-share bid price since July 27. It has rallied 17.6% year to date, while the PHLX Semiconductor Index has run up 36.6% and the S&P 500 has gained 18.4%.

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