Category: Stock Market News

U.S. oil prices dropped by more than 3% on Friday to finish at their lowest level in a week, pressured by a slow recovery among Gulf refiners recovering from Hurricane Harvey. Traders also mulled the potential impact of Hurricane Irma on Florida’s demand for oil products. October West Texas Intermediate crude lost $1.61, or 3.3%, to settle at $47.48 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices still saw a gain of 0.4% for the week.

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Goldman Sachs ‘ head of commodities trading Greg Agran will leave the firm, according to the Wall Street Journal citing an internal memo. His departure comes after the investment bank suffered a 40% plunge in fixed-income trading–a bread-and-butter business for the organization. Agran is a 26-year veteran at the investment bank run by CEO Lloyd Blankfein. Commodities trading in particular is close to Blankfein’s heart, who hailed from J. Aron, the commodities focused outfit acquired by Goldman in 1981. Agran spent five years as head of the unit.

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Shares of telecom giant Verizon Communications Inc. slumped 0.5% in afternoon trade, putting them on track to suffer a ninth-straight loss. That would be the longest losing streak since the nine-session stretch ending Oct. 13, 2005. There have been four eight-session losing streaks since then, in May 2017, October 2012, January 2012 and February 2009. Analyst Walter Piecyk at BTIG warned investors against selling into the weakness, saying the stock’s relatively high dividend yield, the fact that the stock is trading at the deepest discount to the broader market in years and the belief that concerns over competition ahead of the release of Apple Inc. much-anticipated 10th anniversary iPhone are overblown suggests “Verizon’s stock is once again attractive” as third-quarter reporting seasons approaches. Verizon’s current dividend yield of 5.1% is the highest among Dow Jones Industrial Average components, while the price-to-earnings ratio of 11.78, according to FactSet, is well below the S&P 500’s 21.50. Verizon’s stock has shed 14% over the past three months while the Dow has gained 3%.

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Gold prices finished slightly higher Friday, ending at a fresh one-year high and scoring a third-weekly gain in a row. A decline in the dollar, with the ICE U.S. Dollar Index losing 1.6% this week, provided a boost for dollar-denominated gold. The metal also found support amid uncertainty surrounding U.S. tensions with North Korea and the economic impact from the Atlantic hurricane season. December gold added 90 cents, or less than 0.1%, to settle at $1,351.20 an ounce. It was up about 1.6% for the week.

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The House Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing on the Equifax data breach that was disclosed on Thursday. Chairman Jeb Hensarling, a Texas Republican, said the breach was “very serious and very troubling” and that consumers deserve answers. Hensarling said a date would be set for the hearing later.

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Retailer stocks took a midday dive Friday, after Target Corp. said on its website that it had “lowered prices on thousands of items,” fueling concerns over a price war amid a lackluster sales environment. Target’s stock was down about 1.5% just before its announcement, but losses widened to 3.2% in afternoon trade. The discount retailer said the price cuts are an attempt to end customer uncertainty over the timing of discounts on certain products. “We want our guests to feel a sense of satisfaction every time they shop at Target,” Chief Merchandising Officer Mark Tritton said in a statement. “Part of that is removing the guesswork to ensure they feel confident they’re getting a great, low price every day.” Shares of rival Wal-Mart Stores Inc. went from down 1.2% just before Target’s announcement to down 2%. Elsewhere, shares of Kohl’s Corp. shed 1%, J.C. Penney Co. Inc. gave up 1.7%, Macy’s Inc. lost 1.4% and Nordstrom Inc. fell 0.5%. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF went from a loss of 0.4% to a decline of 1.3%, before recovering to be down 0.8%. Target’s stock has tumbled 21.5% year to date, while the retail ETF has lost 9.0% and the S&P 500 has gained 10.1%.

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Baker Hughes on Friday reported that the number of active U.S. rigs drilling for oil fell by 3 to 756 this week. The total active U.S. rig count, which includes oil and natural-gas rigs, rose by 1 to 944, according to Baker Hughes. Oil prices showed little reaction, with October West Texas Intermediate crude down $1.05, or 2.1%, from Thursday at $48.04 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It traded at $47.07 before the data.

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A popular exchange-traded fund specializing in long-dated Treasurys on Thursday attracted the most money in a single day since May 2011, data from FactSet shows. The iShares 20+ year Treasury Bond ETF drew in $664.7 million of investment, more than doubling the total amount of inflows this year. Investors rushed into the ETF in the wake of geopolitical concerns in North Korea, the potential damages from two hurricanes, and soft inflation readings. Traders are now pricing in a diminished chance of another rate hike this year, briefly pushing the likelihood of a December rate increase down to 22% on Thursday. Moreover, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi punted forward a key decision on tapering its bond purchases to October’s policy meeting, spurring a rally in U.S. government paper
and bonds of eurozone member nations.

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Cybersecurity stocks traded higher Friday following the revelation of a massive data breach of credit reporting agency Equifax Inc. late Thursday. Shares of Symantec Corp. surged 4.1% to $31.84, while CyberArk Software Ltd. shares gained 2.6% to $41.92. The ETFMG Prime Cyber Security ETF rose 0.7% to $30.03. Meanwhile, shares of Proofpoint Inc. advanced 1.9% to $93.44, Barracuda Networks Inc. shares rose 1.4% to $24.48, FireEye Inc. shares gained 1.4% to $15.98, Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. shares rose 1.5% to $113.05, and Palo Alto Networks Inc. shares rose 1.2% to $145.43 at last check. Shares of Equifax plunged more than 13% after the company revealed that sensitive data on up to 143 million U.S. customers may have been accessed by hackers.

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Funds targeting U.S. investment-grade corporate credits snapped 37 straight weeks of inflows for the period ending Sep. 6, according to data-provider Lipper. U.S., investment-grade corporate funds saw net outflows of $43 million in the most recent week, ending an eight-month period that saw those funds attract $641 million. The impressive run comes amid U.S. corporations releasing a torrent of new supply in the low interest-rate environment, with more than $1 trillion worth of debt issued this year. Analysts suggested that debt investors could be taking the opportunity to take risk off the table this week by selling assets amid stretched valuations and growing geopolitical fears, including potential conflict in the Korean Peninsula. Spreads for investment-grade bonds against equivalent Treasurys, a gauge of how much yield investors demand for buying riskier corporate credits versus so-called safe assets, currently resides slightly above historical lows at around 1.5 percentage points, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “Hurricane Irma, global central bank policies, US fiscal discussions, and geopolitical risks weighed on investors’ conscience,” wrote Jody Lurie, director of fixed income strategy for Janney Montgomery Scott.

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