Category: Stock Market News

The latest two companies to make their trading debut this week were enjoying initial stock gains Thursday. Apellis Pharmaceuticals Inc. , a clinical-stage biotech, was trading up 1.4% after pricing at the midpoint of their range. The company sold 10.7 million shares to raise about $150 million. Apellis shares are trading on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “APLS”. Separately, Chinese search engine Sogou Inc. saw its shares gain 5% in early trade. The company priced its IPO at $13 a share, the top end of its $11 to $13 range. The company sold 45 million shares to raise $585 million. Shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “SOGO”. The S&P 500 was last down 0.5%.

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Despite the firm selloff in the major indexes from record highs Thursday, the Arms Index, used to measure buying or selling intensity, suggests investors are in a buying mood. On big down days, the Arms tends to rise above 1.000, as the ratio of down volume to up volume rises relative to the ratio of declining stocks to rising stocks. But the NYSE Arms has slipped to 0.645 and the Nasdaq Arms is at 0.859 a sign that buyers on the dip have been slightly more aggressive than sellers. The Nasdaq Composite Index earlier was threatening to fall the most since Aug. 17, but has since pared that earlier slide, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 are on track to fall by the most since Sept. 5. Those moves came as the CBOE Volatility Index , a measure of implied volatility, jumped 7.3% in morning trade at 10.49, still far below its historically average at around 19.

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Shares of Oracle Corp. shed 1.8% in morning trade Thursday, after the software company was downgraded at UBS, which cited concerns over valuation has the company pivots from its dominant position on premise to the highly competitive cloud market. Analyst Jennifer Swanson Lowe assumed coverage of Oracle with a neutral rating and a $55 stock price target, down from a previous rating of buy and a price target of $57. While “pushing hard into the cloud is the right move for Oracle’s future,” the stock’s current premium valuation “leaves little room for error, and [Wall] Street estimates do not seem to fully reflect the near-term risk to margins or growth as the model shifts,” Lowe wrote in a note to clients. The stock has rallied 29% year to date, while the SPDR Technology Select Sector ETF has climbed 31% and the S&P 500 has gained 15%.

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Kroger Co. said Thursday that it will hire about 14,000 seasonal and part-time workers, with interested applicants encouraged to go to the company website. Kroger says it will invest $500 million in people over the next three years. Kroger shares are down 32% for the last year while the S&P 500 index is up 19.4% for the period.

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Oil prices touched fresh session highs on Thursday following a report from Al Arabiya that Saudi Arabia has urged its nationals to leave Lebanon immediately. “There is a rumor Saudi Arabia is pulling their citizen out of Lebanon. So there is speculation they are going to mount an attack,” said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group. December West Texas Intermediate crude added 44 cents, or 0.8%, to trade at $57.25 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after tapping a high of $57.47. January Brent crude added 33 cents, or 0.5%, to $63.82 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe after a $64.03 high.

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Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Thursday showed that domestic supplies of natural gas rose by 15 billion cubic feet for the week ended Nov. 3. That exceeds expectations from analysts surveyed by S&P Global Platts for a rise of 12 billion cubic feet in supplies. December natural gas rose 1 penny, or 0.4%, to $3.188 per million British thermal units.

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.

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Despite the firm early selloff in the major indexes from record highs Thursday, the Arms Index, used to measure buying or selling intensity, suggests investors are in a buying mood. On big down days, the Arms tends to rise above 1.000, as the ratio of down volume to up volume rises relative to the ratio of declining stocks to rising stocks. But the NYSE Arms has slipped to 0.751 and the Nasdaq Arms is at 0.827, a sign that buyers on the dip have been slightly more aggressive than sellers. The Nasdaq Composite Index earlier was threatening to fall the most since Aug. 17, but has since pared that earlier slide, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 have seen their morning declines, which saw them both on track to fall by the most since Sept. 5, abate. Those moves came as the CBOE Volatility Index , a measure of implied volatility, jumped 8% in morning trade.

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.

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The Nasdaq Composite Index was trading sharply lower on Thursday as investors unloaded technology stocks, putting the tech-heavy gauge on track to post its worst decline since Aug. 17, according to FactSet Data. The Nasdaq Composite was off about 65 points, or 1%, at 6,723. The drop came as the Dow Jones Industrial Average was slumping the most since Sept. 5, down 123 points, or 0.5%, at 12,442. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 index was off 0.6% at 2,579, also its worst one-day drop since Sept. 5. Investors were awaiting details on reforms to tax policy, which have been a factor contributing to a recent uptrend in equities, along with better-than-expected corporate earnings.

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.

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U.S. stocks opened firmly lower on Thursday as Wall Street awaited the Senate version of a GOP-led tax bill, with the investors appearing to wager that the prospects for passage of reforms to tax policy soon were low. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 132 points, or 0.6%, 23,432, threatening to fall the most since Sept. 5, the S&P 500 index slipped 16 points, or 0.5% at 2,581, while the Nasdaq Composite Index were down 1% at 6,721. All three benchmarks closed at a records simultaneously on Wednesday, but only booked slight gains in doing so. In economic news, weekly jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs across the U.S., increased 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 239,000 in the week ended Nov. 4, the Labor Department said. However, the levels still reflect a labor market that is healthy. In corporate news, Kohl’s Corp. shares tumbled after lowering its 2018 earnings outlook and reporting quarterly profit that was slightly weaker than expected, though earnings exceeded estimates. Sage Therapeutics Inc. shares surged after the company said its postpartum-depression therapy has positive results in two late-stage clinical trials.

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As the Dow Jones Industrial Average threatens to open with a triple-digit loss, 26 of the 30 components traded lower in premarket trade. Among the biggest decliners, shares of Intel Corp. fell 1.3%, American Express Co. shed 1% and Cisco Systems Inc. fell 0.7%. Among the gainers, shares of both Boeing Co. and Pfizer Inc. edged up 0.3%. Dow futures slumped 92 points ahead of the open.

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