Category: Stock Market News

U.S. stocks opened solidly lower on Wednesday, the first trading session after the resignation of Gary Cohn, the head of President Donald Trump’s National Economic Council. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 308 points, or 1.2%, to 24,574. The S&P 500 was down 18 points to 2,710, a decline of 0.7%. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost 53 points, or 0.7%, to 7,321. The day’s losses were broad, with TKTK. Cohn’s resignation represents another question mark for investors, who have already been trying to figure out the Trump administration’s trade policy following the surprise announcement of tariffs last week. Cohn had opposed the tariff proposal and was widely viewed as having a moderating influence within the White House. Among the biggest decliners of the day were Boeing , down 2.6%, and Caterpillar Inc. , which fell 2.9%. Both stocks are seen as having an outsize impact from tariffs.

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Amazon.com Inc. said Wednesday that it is extending the $5.99-per-month Prime membership rate offered to low-income customers with a valid EBT (electronic benefit transfer) card to Medicaid recipients. Customers can sign up for a 30-day free trial, there’s no annual commitment and customers can cancel at any time. The monthly Prime membership fee was raised to $12.99 in January. There’s also a $6.49-per-month student membership and an $8.99-per-month Prime Video membership. Separately, Amazon also announced plans for its first Missouri fulfillment center in St. Peters, which will create more than 1,500 full-time jobs. The fulfillment center will span 800,000 square feet, and workers will pack and ship small items such as books and electronics. Amazon shares are up nearly 82% for the past year while the S&P 500 index is up 15.2% for the period.

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Piper Jaffray analyst Jason Deleeuw weighed in on PayPal Holdings Inc.’s potential cryptocurrency efforts Wednesday, after a crypto-related patent filing was made public earlier in the month. PayPal’s patent filing was for an “expedited virtual currency transaction system,” which could speed up cryptocurrency transactions by allowing buyers and sellers to trade private keys and not wait for transactions to be confirmed on the blockchain, Deleeuw wrote. He noted that “Bitcoin transactions are not confirmed until they are batched in a block and added to the blockchain,” which can take about 10 minutes. Deleeuw sees some challenges for PayPal if it were to get involved with crypto in this way, noting for one that “the reliance on PayPal for enabling this solution defeats the decentralized purpose of cryptos.” He added that while the patent was recently made public, it was filed in mid-2016, and recent comments from management suggest to him that PayPal may have “de-prioritized” such efforts in the last 18 months. “Still, we like that PayPal is exploring how to improve crypto asset accessibility,” he wrote. PayPal shares are up 85% over the past 12 months, while the S&P 500 has gained 15%. Square Inc. , another popular payments stock, has seen shares rise sharply in recent months after it began allowing users to buy and sell bitcoin on its peer-to-peer Cash app.

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Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. are little changed in premarket trading Wednesday after the Nikkei Asian Review reported that U.S. chipmaker GlobalFoundries has requested that regulators in China look into whether TSMC has violated anti-trust rules. The report, which cites two sources familiar with the situation, says that GlobalFoundries alleges TSMC used unfair tactics to discourage customers from placing chip orders elsewhere. TSMC’s CFO Lora Ho said in an email to the Nikkei Asian Review that the company planned to cooperate with any requests but that it “believes there is no anti-competition concern in such a highly competitive industry.” GlobalFoundries raised similar concerns about TSMC’s customer practices to European regulators last year, the article noted. TSMC shares are up 39% over the past 12 months, while the S&P 500 is up 15%.

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Jefferies analyst Brent Thill raised his price target on Match Group Inc. shares to $50 from $44 late Tuesday, writing that he believes new investors haven’t missed Match’s rally entirely, despite the stock’s 156% rise over the past 12 months. The S&P 500 is up 15% in that time. Thill wrote that Match Group shares still trade at a discount to shares of other subscription internet names, including Netflix Inc. , Zillow Group and Angi Homeservices Inc. , based on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda). “The argument can no longer be made that Match is a cheap asset, but we still believe that upside remains,” Thill wrote. He added that the company’s Tinder platform continues to perform well in App Store rankings and he thinks that a new paid Tinder feature due out later this year is potentially “a catalyst that can move the stock.”

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Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc. shares rose 2.5% in premarket trade Wednesday after the company said that the first dose cohort of three patients in a phase 1/2 gene therapy study had “positive longer-term safety and efficacy” results. Moreover, after 24 weeks, the first patient dosed decided to discontinue all alternate medication three weeks ago and “continues to do well,” Ultragenyx Chief Executive Emil Kakkis said. While the first patient’s urea formation rate was increased “substantially” over 24 weeks, the second and third patients did not show a clinically meaningful change in rate of urea formation over 20 weeks and 12 weeks, Ultragenyx said. The gene therapy, DTX301, is being developed for ornithine transcarbamylase deficiency, a genetic disorder that can cause acute and chronic neurological deficits and other toxicities; an estimated 10,000 patients have OTC deficiency worldwide, according to Ultragenyx, and the only way to cure it right now is a liver transplant. The study will next enroll a second, higher-dose cohort of three patients. The company expects to enroll the first patient in March and data on the three patients is expected in the second half of this year. Ultragenyx shares have surged 14.1% over the last three months, compared with a 3.5% rise in the S&P 500 .

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Large-capitalization bank stocks were broadly lower in premarket trade Wednesday, as the resignation of Gary Cohn, who was the head of President Donald Trump’s National Economic Council, spooked investors. In premarket trade, shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. fell 1.4%; Cohn is a former Goldman executive. Elsewhere, shares of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. lost 0.8%, Bankd of America Copr. dropped 0.8%, Citigroup Inc. slid 0.8%, Wells Fargo & Co. gave up 1.0% and the SPDR Financial Select Sector ETF declined 0.8%. The broad-market selloff, with Dow industrials futures down 214 points, or 0.9%, has led to a decline in Treasury yields as investors moved into safe-haven Treasurys; lower Treasury yields can undercut banks’ profits as the spread the banks earn from the spread between longer-term assets, like loans, and short-term liabilities narrows.

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U.S. stocks look poised to fall on Wednesday following news late Tuesday that National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn ihas resigned from President Donald Trump’s administration in the coming weeks. Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive, was seen as a level head within the administration and one of the chief architects of Wall Street-friendly corporate tax cuts signed into law late last year. Speculation about Cohn exiting the White House following Trump’s reaction to violence at a white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in August similarly roiled markets. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down about 200 points, or 0.9%, at 24,628, while those for the S&P 500 were down 0.6% at 2,707. Cohn’s planned departure comes amid turmoil in the White House over Trump’s plan to implement tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, which Cohn has opposed, arguing that it could undercut the Trump’s economic achievements, according to reports. The loss of Cohn is viewed by some on Wall Street as a headwind to the president’s pro-business agenda and underlines ongoing turmoil in the White House, highlighted by a parade of departing officials.

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Shares of all 30 Dow Jones Industrial Average components fell in premarket trade Wednesday, led by selloffs in Caterpillar Inc.’s and Boeing Co.’s stocks, as the resignation of Gary Cohn cast a pall on the broader market. Dow futures slumped 268 points. Shares of Caterpillar shed 2.2%, and were on track to shave about 24 points off the Dow’s price, while Boeing’s stock lost 1.8% to put it on track to shave about 44 points off the Dow. The most-active stocks were Apple Inc. , which shed 0.9%, and Intel Corp.’s , which lost 1.1%. The best performer was Coca-Cola Co. shares , which were down just 0.6%.

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Esperion Therapeutics Inc. announced positive results Wednesday from a late-stage trial of a treatment for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, a condition involving a build-up of sticky cholesterol-rich plaque that can cause heart attack or stroke. Esperion said the phase 3 trial of bempedoic acid for patients with elevated low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) met its primary endpoint of LDL-C lowering. “Patients treated with bempedoic acid also achieved a significantly greater reduction of 33 percent in high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP), an important marker of the underlying inflammation associated with cardiovascular disease, compared to the placebo group which had an increase of two percent (p

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