Category: Stock Market News

Sarepta Therapeutics Inc. shares surged 14.4% in premarket trade Wednesday on positive early/mid-stage clinical trial results for its golodirsen therapy in Duchenne muscular dystrophy. In a phase 1/2 trial in Europe that enrolled 25 boys with DMD, there was a 100% response rate, “demonstrating proof of mechanism,” and average dystrophin protein had a nearly elevenfold increase from baseline, the company said. DMD is a rare, progressive muscle disease; boys who have it lack the protein dystrophin that’s critical to muscle function. Golodirsen was tested in boys with the DMD gene amenable to skipping exon 53. Sarepta’s other, controversial DMD drug, eteplirsen, was the first approved for DMD and was approved for patients with the DMD gene amenable to skipping exon 51. Sarepta shares have surged 30.4% over the last three months, compared with a 1.2% rise in the S&P 500 .

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Navistar International Corp. reported Wednesday a fiscal third-quarter net profit of $37 million, or 38 cents a share, after a loss of $34 million, or 42 cents a share, in the same period a year ago. The FactSet consensus for earnings per share was 33 cents. The trucks and engine maker said revenue rose to $2.21 billion from $2.09 billion. The FactSet consensus for GAAP sales was $2.18 billion. Truck segment sales rose 10% to $1.5 billion, above the FactSet consensus of $1.44 billion. The company maintained its 2017 outlook for revenue to be “similar” to 2016, and said it still expects retail deliveries of Class 6-8 trucks and buses in the U.S. and Canada to be in the range of 305,000 units to 335,000 units. “We returned to profitability this quarter thanks to strong operational performance across the board, highlighted by a 15-percent increase in chargeouts and solid market share gains amid flat industry conditions, and strengthening margins,” said Chief Executive Troy Clarke. The stock, which was inactive in premarket trade, has climbed 13% over the past three months, while the S&P 500 has gained 1.2%.

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German hotel search platform Trivago N.V. shares fell 18% in premarket trade Wednesday, after the company cut its guidance, saying earnings for the third quarter and full year would be lower than previously expected. The Duesseldorf-based company said it now expects full-year revenue growth of about 40%. The negative impact on revenue per qualified referral that the company discussed on its second-quarter conference call has been “more significant than previously expected.
As a result of this impact, we have algorithmically pulled back our performance marketing activities more than previously anticipated, which has resulted in a further slowdown in traffic and revenue growth from those channels,” the company said in a statement. Trivago has an unusual business model, in that, unlike other travel websites, it does not allow users to actually make a booking. Instead, it offers travelers a means of searching for and comparing millions of hotels and room prices through its websites and local-language apps. The company earns revenue based on referrals. Customers may click on many hotels but are likely to make just one booking, at which point the company deems them a qualified referral. “Due to the speed with which the above RPQR slowdown unfolded we were unable to pull back planned television advertising spend quickly enough to prevent overspend. As a consequence, we will have lower Return on Adverting Spend (ROAS) in July and August and adjusted EBITDA margins in those months have been negatively impacted. Note that we do expect ROAS to stabilize over time with an adjustment of brand marketing expenses,” said the statement. Shares have gained 27% in 2017, while the S&P 500 has gained 9.8%.

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President Donald Trump will make his latest push to reform the U.S. tax code in a speech on Wednesday in North Dakota, visiting the state with its Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp. Senior White House officials said Tuesday that the support of Heitkamp, who’s up for re-election next year in a state Trump carried, is something they are optimistic about winning. Both Heitkamp and North Dakota Republican Sen. John Hoeven will travel on Air Force One with Trump, the officials said. The speech comes a week after Trump kicked off his tax-reform campaign in Missouri, in which he called for a 15% corporate rate and said he wanted a tax code that creates more jobs.

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The U.S. men’s national soccer team can breathe a bit easier after salvaging a tie in dramatic fashion on the road against Honduras on Tuesday, improving its chances of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Bobby Wood scored in the 85th minute for the U.S., giving the Americans a crucial leg up on its qualifying chances. Now it just needs to win its next two matches, against Panama and Trinidad & Tobago in October, to clinch a World Cup berth. If the U.S. had lost, it would have needed help from other teams in securing a berth. The U.S. was stunned Friday by a home loss against Costa Rica. The Americans are currently in third place in their group; the top three spots automatically qualify for the World Cup, while the fourth-place team must play against Asia’s fifth-place team in a play-in game for a World Cup spot. The U.S. team hasn’t missed making the World Cup since 1986.

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GoDaddy Inc. shares slipped in the extended session Tuesday after the domain name company announced that several investors were selling shares in a secondary offering of its shares. GoDaddy shares declined 2.5% to $44.05 after hours, after closing up 0.5% during the regular session. GoDaddy said the offering consists of 20 million shares held by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., Silver Lake Partners, Technology Crossover Ventures, and YAM Special Holdings Inc., which is owned by GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons. GoDaddy has about 165 million shares outstanding. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are the bookrunners for the offering. GoDaddy will not receive proceeds from the offering but the company is also offering 50,000 shares to pay for transaction expenses.

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Argentine cement maker Loma Negra Corp. has filed for an initial public offering, according to a SEC filing late Tuesday. “We believe that the economic recovery of Argentina represents one of the most attractive opportunities in global emerging markets today,” the company said in the filing. “Cement consumption is highly correlated to economic activity and we expect demand for cement to grow significantly within the next five years in Argentina.” Risks included cement-industry cycles and political and economic conditions in Argentina and Paraguay, it said. The company listed net revenue of $401.8 million for the six months ended July 2017 and of $594.9 million for the year ended December 2016, and net profit of $41.7 million to June and $30.2 million for all of 2016. Loma Negra’s American Depositary shares are expected to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol LOMA. Underwriters include Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, and the investment banking unit of Brazilian bank Bradesco.

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Electronics For Imaging Inc. shares rallied in the extended session Tuesday after the digital imaging company said it does not expect an accounting review to require a restatement of its previous results. Electronics For Imaging shares rose 8.3% to $38.20 after hours. The company said it expects third-quarter adjusted earnings of 55 cents to 60 cents a share on revenue of $255 million to $260 million. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expect earnings of 63 cents a share on revenue of $261.2 million. Shares of Electronics For Imaging tumbled earlier after the company said it was reviewing its accounting practices.

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Shares of Dave & Buster’s Entertainment Inc. fell more than 9% late Tuesday after the company reported second-quarter sales below Wall Street expectations and trimmed its fiscal-year forecast. Dave & Buster’s said it earned $30.4 million, or 71 cents a share, in the second quarter, compared with $21.5 million, or 50 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted for one-time items, the company earned 59 cents a share. Revenue rose 14.9% to $280.8 million, from $244.3 million a year ago. Comparable-store sales increased 1.1%, the company said. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected earnings of 55 cents a share on sales of $282 million. The company said it expects a comparable-store sales increase of 1% to 2% in fiscal 2017, compared with previous guidance of 2% to 3%. It forecast fiscal 2017 EBITDA of $270 million to $276 million for the year, compared with $276 million to $282 million previously. Shares ended the regular trading day up 0.5%.

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Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. beat quarterly earnings expectations after spinning off some software assets, and shares received a boost in late trading Tuesday. The enterprise-focused arm of the split-apart Hewlett-Packard Co. revealed fiscal third-quarter earnings of 15 cents per share for continuing operations, down from $1.43 a share a year ago, on revenue of $8.2 billion. After adjusting for the charges related to HPE’s long restructuring process and other factors, the company claimed adjusted earnings of 31 cents a share. Analysts on average expected earnings of 26 cents a share on revenue of $7.5 billion, according to FactSet. HPE also adjusted its full-year forecast with the software spin-off completed, projecting that it will end the fiscal year with a GAAP loss of 7 to 11 cents a share and an adjusted profit of $1.36 to $1.40 a share, with the large discrepancy coming from separation costs, restructuring charges and other costs. HPE shares gained about 4% in immediate late trading after the announcement, topping $14.50 after closing the session with a 1.9% decline at $14.04.

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