Category: Stock Market News

U.S. stocks rallied on Monday, with all 11 of the primary S&P 500 sectors in positive territory as equities staged a broad rebound. Each of the 11 primary industry groups had traded lower at some point during the day, as had the major indexes. However, stocks turned positive in morning trading and the gains accelerated throughout the session. The biggest gainer on the day was the utility sector, up 1.5%, while financial stocks rose 1.3%. The relative underperformer of the day was the industrial sector, up 0.6%. Investors appeared somewhat skeptical about industrial stocks given the looming threat of a global trade war, a factor that arose last week when President Donald Trump announced he would be instituting tariffs on steel and aluminum. Among the biggest gainers on the day, Netflix Inc. added 4.1% while General Electric Co. was up 2.8%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.1% while the S&P 500 was up 1% and the Nasdaq Composite Index was up 1.1%.

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.

…read more

From:: Stock Market News

PayPal Holdings Inc. shares are up 0.5% in midday trading Monday after it was revealed that the company recently filed for a patent related to bitcoin. The company’s patent filing was for an “expedited virtual currency transaction system” and was flagged by Bitcoin.com. Such a system could potentially speed up bitcoin transactions and be anonymous. Shares of PayPal were originally down to start the day after the Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon.com Inc. was interested in creating its own product similar to a checking account. PayPal’s stock is up 84% so far this year, while the S&P 500 Index has gained 14%.

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.

…read more

From:: Stock Market News

Matteo Renzi resigned Monday as head of Italy’s Democratic Party following its poor showing in the country’s general election, news reports said. Renzi, a former prime minister, saw his center-left party put in a historically poor showing of less than 20% of the vote. Meanwhile, the leaders of the populist 5 Star Movement and the anti-immigrant League each claimed to have enough support to form a government, but neither won an outright majority, likely leaving Italy to face weeks or months of wrangling.

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.

…read more

From:: Stock Market News

Shares of Groupon Inc. are up 5.2% in midday trading Monday after analysts at Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock to equal-weight from underweight. The analysts, led by Jonathan Lanterman, believe that the post-earnings selloff has been overdone, with shares down 14% since the company reported an earnings miss in mid-February. The company also issued disappointing guidance at the time. “We acknowledge that 2018 could see gross billings and revenue growth metrics look unappealing with success of Groupon+ and the shift to [third-party] goods, but the company focuses on gross profit growth as a better indicator of the health of the business and we agree,” Lanterman wrote. He raised his price target on shares to $4.40 from $4.30. Groupon shares are up 12% in the past 12 months, while the S&P 500 Index has gained 14%.

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.

…read more

From:: Stock Market News

GTx Inc. shares surged nearly 30% in Monday trade after the company reported additional results from a phase 2 trial of its drug for postmenopausal women with stress urinary incontinence. The latest data suggest that the drug, enobosarm, could also work for women with urge incontinence and thus have “a possible treatment effect for women with mixed incontinence,” the company said. A post hoc analysis of a subset of trial patients consisting of women with both types of incontinence — which means the analysis wasn’t specified before seeing the data — found that use of enobosarm reduced average urge incontinence episodes by about 68%. The phase 2 trial in question enrolled 18 patients total, 11 of which had both types of incontinence. Stress urinary incontinence consists of unintentional urine leakage during activities like coughing, sneezing or exercise, and affects up to 35% of adult U.S. women, according to GTx. Urge incontinence refers to the involuntary loss of urine at the time of a sudden, strong need to urinate, and the two often coexist, the company said. GTx shares have surged nearly 75% over the last three months, compared with a 3.1% rise in the S&P 500 .

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.

…read more

From:: Stock Market News

Shares of Square Inc. are up 8.5% in Monday trading and on track to close at a new all-time high. If the current gains hold, this would mark Square’s largest one-day percentage gain since May 4, 2017, when its stock rose 8.9%. The company said late Friday that its general counsel, Hillary Smith, would be resigning, and Square confirmed to MarketWatch that it hasn’t announced any news. The company announced better-than-expected earnings last week and CEO Jack Dorsey also said at the time that the company wanted to enhance its bitcoin offerings beyond buying and selling. Square shares are up 194% so far this year, while the S&P 500 Index is up 14%.

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.

…read more

From:: Stock Market News

General Electric Co.’s stock surged 3.2% in midday trade, enough to pace the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s gainers. The stock has now climbed 4.0% since it closed at $14.02 last Thursday, which was the lowest close since July 6, 2010. Despite Monday’s big percentage rally, the 46-cent price gain only added about 3 points to the price of the Dow, which was up 193 points. And GE’s stock was still down 17% year to date, 18% over the past three months, 41% over the past 6 months and 52% the past 12 months, making it the worst Dow performer over all four of those time frames. In comparison, the Dow has gained 0.1% this year, 2.3% the past three months, 14% the past 6 months and 18% the past year.

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.

…read more

From:: Stock Market News

The Dow Jones Industrial Average Monday afternoon was trading firmly higher, erasing a triple-digit decline to trade in positive territory. That bounce was partly aided by share gains in Caterpillar Inc. [: CAT] and McDonald’s Corp. , which had marked its worst percentage decline since 2008 on Friday, both combining to lift by the price-weighted Dow by about 40 points. U.S. equities had been under pressure on news that President Donald Trump will impose import tariffs later this week on steel and aluminum, raising the specter of a global trade war. The fear is that many large U.S. corporations would see costs increase in such an environment. The Dow was most recently up 211 points, or 0.9%, at 24,750, the S&P 500 index was up 0.9% at 2,715, while the Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.9% at 7,322. All three benchmarks were well off their lows, wiping out firm losses from the open.

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.

…read more

From:: Stock Market News

The largest exchange-traded fund to track Italy’s equity market fell on Monday, in the wake of a national election that yielded no clear-cut winner. The iShares MSCI Italy ETF fell 1.5% and was on track for its fifth straight daily decline. The fund has tumbled 9.9% from a recent closing high hit in late January, though it remains up 1.9% for 2018, having been supported by “an improving economic picture,” according to Chris Dhanraj, head of ETF investment strategy at BlackRock. Populist parties staged a strong showing in Sunday’s vote, and polls showed that they won about half of all votes cast. The results were seen as underscoring the depth of anger among Italians at the country’s direction and the continued power of right-leaning populist parties in European politics. If confirmed, the outcome could crack the door open to the possibility of an alliance between antiestablishment parties to form a new government. While the results indicated heightened political uncertainty in the short term, BlackRock’s Dhanraj said he doesn’t “see this as a sustained negative for the euro or regional equities,” although “political noise is poised to remain high until a sustainable coalition emerges.” The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4% on Monday while the S&P 500 was up 0.5% and the Nasdaq Composite Index was up 0.4%.

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.

…read more

From:: Stock Market News

The Dow Jones Industrial Average late-morning on Monday was tipping higher, erasing a triple-digit decline to trade modestly in positive territory. That bounce was partly aided by share gains in Caterpillar Inc. [: CAT] and McDonald’s Corp. , which had marked its worst percentage decline since 2008 on Friday, both combining to lift by the price-weighted Dow by 25 points. U.S. equities have been under pressure on news that President Donald Trump will impose import tariffs later this week on steel and aluminum, raising the specter of a global trade war. The fear is that many large U.S. corporations would see costs increase in such an environment. The Dow was most recently up 80 points, or 0.3%, at 24,616, the S&P 500 index was up 0.4%, while the Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.3% at 7,281. All three benchmarks were off their lows, wiping out firm losses from the open.

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.

…read more

From:: Stock Market News