Category: Stock Market News

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Saturday he did not threaten to sanction Turkish banks in a recent conversation with a senior government official, quieting rumors that had jarred that country’s markets earlier this week. “Turkey is not the focus right now, for the moment,” Mnuchin told the Wall Street Journal and other reporters traveling with him on a trip through the Middle East. Amid an escalation of U.S. sanctions against Iran for its ballistic missile program, Turkish media reported that the U.S. would sanction six Turkish banks that maintained business relations with Iran’s sanctioned military unit. “There is no truth to those rumors,” Mnuchin said. “I did have discussions with them [on the sidelines of a global finance ministers’ meeting in Washington earlier this month] but I did not have specific conversations on sanctions.”

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Merck & Co. shares fell in the extended session Friday after the drug maker said it was no longer pursuing market approval for a lung cancer drug in Europe. Merck shares declined 2.3% to $56.91 after hours, adding to a 6.1% drop during Friday’s regular session after the company reported a cyberattack in June hurt sales by at least $135 million in the third quarter. Not only did that wipe out earlier gains following an earnings beat, but put Merck shares at a 1.1% loss for the year. Late Friday, Merck said that it had withdrawn its European application for Keytruda to treat metastatic nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer, but did not list a specific reason for the withdrawal. Earlier in the year, Merck shares slipped 1.7% on July 6 after the company said it was halting three U.S. clinical studies for Keytruda in the treatment of certain blood cancers.

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S&P Global Ratings upgraded Friday the credit rating of Italy’s sovereign debt one notch to BBB from BBB-. They cited the improvement in growth prospects, rising business investment and diminished risks in the banking sector. The ratings firms’ analysts said they had confidence the government could cut its “very high” debt levels. Italy’s debt to GDP ratio stood at 132.6% in 2016, compared with 99.8% in 2007.

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Microsoft Corp. closed at a record share price of $83.81 Friday, and its market cap moved higher than $650 billion in intraday trading just a week after the company pushed past $600 billion for the first time since the dot-com boom. The stock hit an intraday record of $86.25 after Microsoft announced a big earnings beat Thursday afternoon, a 9.5% gain that was Microsoft’s biggest intraday move in more than two years. Shares ended the day up 6.4%, just behind Intel Corp. , which also spiked after a strong earnings report, for the best-performing component of the Dow Jones industrial average . FactSet tracked 19 analysts raising their price target on Microsoft after the earnings, with one rating change from hold to buy and one downgrade from buy to hold. Microsoft’s closing price represented a market cap of $646.6 billion, according to FactSet.

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Amazon.com Inc. stock reached a record closing high with its best one-day percentage gain in more than two years Friday, as a strong earnings report pushed the company’s market capitalization up more than $60 billion. Amazon shares closed higher than $1,100 for the first time with a 13.2% gain to $1,100.95, the biggest daily jump for the e-commerce giant since April 24, 2015. Amazon added nearly $62 billion to its market capitalization, which ended the session at $529.1 billion, according to FactSet. Amazon was joined in record high prices by two other tech companies and rivals in cloud-computing that reported earnings Thursday afternoon, Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc. , which helped to push the Nasdaq composite index toward its strongest gains vs. the Dow Jones industrial average since 2002.

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U.S. major stock indexes ended higher on Friday after stronger-than-expected earnings from the tech sector buoyed the Nasdaq and S&P 500 to all-time highs this week. Amazon.com Inc. , Microsoft Corp. , Alphabet Inc. and Intel Corp. posted solid third-quarter earnings. That helped the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index to notch its largest single-day gain since Nov. 7 2016. The S&P 500 scored its seventh straight weekly gain, while the Nasdaq hit its fifth consecutive such rise. The S&P 500 rose 0.8% to 2581 points, pushing weekly gains to 0.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.1% to 23434 points, generating a weeklong gain of 0.5% . The Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 2.2% to 6701 points, 1.1% for the week.

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Investors shouldn’t give credit to the surging in shares of Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp. , after both tech-sector heavyweights reported better-than-expected earnings, for the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s gain, they should instead thank Apple Inc.’s stock rally. That’s because the combined price gain in Intel and Microsoft shares of $9.13, which would about 63 points to the Dow’s price, was being cancelled out by the combined price decline in Chevron Corp. and Merck & Co. Inc. shares after the companies’ disappointing results of $9.50, which would shave about 65 points off the Dow. So the Dow’s 22-point gain can be attributed to the $5.61, or 3.6%, gain in Apple’s stock after reports of strong iPhone X demand, which is adding about 39 points to the Dow.

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The federal government had “no role” in a contract given to Whitefish Energy to help Puerto Rico repair its electrical grid after Hurricane Maria, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Friday. Whitefish is headquartered in the Montana hometown of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Sanders said President Donald Trump asked Zinke if he had involvement, and Zinke said he did not.

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President Donald Trump will name his pick to lead the Federal Reserve next week, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Friday. Sanders did not comment on names, but current Chairwoman Janet Yellen is reportedly out of the race to head the central bank, leaving it to Fed Gov. Jerome Powell and Stanford economist John Taylor. Trump has been expected to announce his nominee before leaving for an Asia trip on Nov. 3.

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