Category: Stock Market News

AMD said late Thursday it has been selected by a Department of Energy “supercomputing” project to help research next-generation supercomputing hardware architecture. The three-year program provides R&D funding “to drive critical advances of next-generation supercomputing hardware technologies,” the company said in a statement. Shares of AMD rose 1.5% in late trading after ending the regular trading session down 2.3%.

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Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, on Thursday unveiled a plan that will unlock some new funding for Greece. Lagarde said she would ask the IMF board to back “the approval in principle” of a new IMF loan for Greece. A full agreement would away agreement on debt relief from Greece’s European creditors that the international financial agency has demanded. The deal will unlock some IMF funding thus “reducing serious stress on the Greek economy,” Lagarde said. Greece is facing debt repayment in July.

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Oil prices settled under $45 a barrel Thursday for a second-straight session. Prices held ground at their lowest finish since mid-November, pressured by concerns surrounding strength in U.S. production and weak domestic gasoline demand in the midst of summer driving season. July WTI crude lost 27 cents, or 0.6%, to settle $44.46 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest finish since Nov. 14, according to FactSet data.

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Twitter Inc. unveiled an updated platform Thursday that puts the user’s profile, additional accounts and privacy in the same tab, which is now a side-navigation menu. Overall, Twitter said it will have fewer tabs at the bottom of its app and has redesigned its icons to be more intuitive. On Twitter for iOS, Twitter for Android and TweetDeck, tweets will be updated instantly if someone replies, retweets or likes it. The changes are scheduled to roll out across the Twitter platforms “over the coming days and weeks.” Shares of Twitter were down 1% Thursday afternoon. Twitter shares have lost 12.6% in the past month, while the S&P 500 has gained 1.2%.

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Snap Inc. hit the company’s initial public offering issue price of $17 for the first time Thursday. Shares were down 4.3% Thursday afternoon, and bounced back slightly to hover above the IPO price. Snap started trading on March 2. It had climbed as much as 73% above its IPO price at $29.44 in intraday trade on March 3. The highest closing price of $27.09, also on March 3, was 59% above the IPO price. Shares of Snap have fallen 18% in the past three months, while the S&P 500 has gained 2%.

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Gold prices settled at their lowest level in three weeks on Thursday, as the U.S. dollar strengthened in the wake of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision Wednesday to raise interest rates. August gold fell $21.30, or 1.7%, to settle at $1,254.60 an ounce. That was the lowest finish for a most-active contract since May 24, according to FactSet data.

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Amazon.com Inc.’s stock extended its recent pullback in midday trade Thursday, along with the rest of its “FAANG” brethren, but the e-commerce giant still managed to pick up yet another four-digit stock price target. The stock dropped 2.1% in midday trade, and has lost 5.4% over the past week. Analyst Anthony DiClemente at Instinet raised his stock price target to $1,100 from $975, as optimism for Amazon’s Alexa and artificial intelligence offerings, the large advertising opportunity and video growth initiatives has increased investor confidence in long-term addressable market opportunities. DiClemente’s new target means that 31 of the 44 analysts surveyed by FactSet have targets above $1,000. Canaccord Genuity’s Michael Graham raised his target Thursday to $1,200, but he was already at $1,150. The average price target is now at $1,109.49, which is 16% above current prices. Amazon’s stock has still gained 12.1% over the past three months, while the Nasdaq 100 has tacked on 4.7% and the S&P 500 has edged up 1.7%.

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Sprouts Farmers Market Inc. said Thursday it was “significantly impacted by deflation, which has been increasing over the last 18 months” because 60% of its sales are in fresh products. Speaking at the Deutsche Bank dbAccess Global Consumer Conference, Sprouts’ Chief Financial Officer Bradley Lukow said the first quarter experienced 300 basis points of deflation, with double-digit deflation in produce. “Into the second quarter of this year, we went from double-digit deflation on cost in produce to almost flat,” Lukow said, according to a FactSet transcript. Amazon.com Inc. announced this morning that it has extended Prime Now one- and two-hour delivery to Denver, including Sprouts merchandise. And Sprouts stock was downgraded Thursday at Morgan Stanley to equal-weight based on valuation. Analysts say they remain positive on Sprouts because it’s a strong player in the natural and organic segment, and was the only food retailer it covers with positive same-store sales. “However, we now believe the shares are fairly valued relative to future growth potential,” the note said. The price target remains at $23. Sprouts shares are down nearly 9% in Thursday trading, but are up more than 19% for the year so far. The S&P 500 index is up 8.5% for 2017 to date.

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Kroger Co.’s stock plunged 18.8% in active morning trade Thursday to pace NYSE decliners, putting them on course to suffer the biggest one-day selloff this millennium, in the wake of the grocery chain’s disappointing profit outlook. Volume spiked to 36.1 million shares, already more than four times the full-day average, and enough to make the stock the third-most active on the major U.S. exchanges. The one-day percentage decline would be the sixth biggest in its history, according to FactSet, and the biggest since it plummeted 24.6% on Dec. 6, 1999. BMO Capital analyst Kelly Bania said that despite the disappointing earnings-per-share and margin guidance, she sees some encouraging signs in that quarter-to-date same-store sales are running positive, and that margins appear on track to improve. The stock has now tumbled 29% year to date, while the S&P 500 has gained 8.4%.

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The Nasdaq-100 is flirting with a trade below its short-term trading average for the first time since early December, highlighting an unraveling in the once high-flying tech sector. The popular gauge that tracks the performance of the 100 largest companies trading on the Nasdaq Composite Index , including Facebook Inc. , Google Inc.-parent Alphabet Inc. , Amazon.com Inc. , Apple Inc. Netflix , the Nasdaq-100 is just a hair’s breadth, at last check, from slipping below its 50-day moving average of 5,630.52, according to FactSet data. The index was most recently at 5,645, about 0.3% shy of dipping below that short-term trend line. Moving averages are often looked at by market technicians as a demarcation between a bullish and bearish trend. The Nasdaq-100 remains well above its 200-day moving average at 5,165. The Nasdaq Composite also is hovering around its 50-day MA, but the tech-heavy index dropped below that level mid-April only to resume its upward trend. Thursday’s action represents an extending downtrend for technology names, with the Nasdaq-100 and the Nasdaq Composite set to end lower for four of the past five sessions. That trend has pressure the broader market lower, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average off 0.4%, and the S&P 500 index eyeing a 0.7% decline.

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