Category: Stock Market News

Shares of McDonald’s Corp. were sinking sharply lower on Friday and on pace to register its worst dollar decline in its history as a publicly traded company and its worst percentage drop since October of 2008, according to FactSet data, which has McDonald’s data going back to 1972. McDonald’s become a publicly traded company in 1965. The decline for shares of the fast-food chain also put it in position to book the worst weekly drop since 2008 and the sharpest total dollar decline for a week ever. Shares of the component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average were most recently off 4.9% or $7.67, weighing on the price-weighted blue-chip benchmark. For the week, McDonald’s shares are off 9.4%. Friday’s drop came as RBC Capital Markets cut its price target for the company to $170 from $190. The bank also cut its U.S. same-store expectations after a slow start to the $1 $2 $3 menu. RBC maintained its outperform rating on the fast-food giant’s stock. Analysts say “deteriorating industry conditions” and “disappointing” sales of the new value menu drove the U.S. same-store sales forecast for the first quarter down to 1% from 3.5%.

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Biogen Inc. and AbbVie Inc. said early Friday that the companies are voluntarily withdrawing their relapsing multiple sclerosis drug, Zinbryta, from global markets. Evaluating the drug’s “complex and evolving benefit/risk profile… will not be possible going forward given the limited number of patients being treated,” the companies said. The withdrawal is in patients’ best interests, said Biogen Chief Medical Officer Alfred Sandrock. Zinbryta, which the companies said is generally used in patients who have tried two or more other multiple sclerosis medications unsuccessfully, is currently sold in the U.S., where it was approved in May 2016, along with Europe, Switzerland, Canada and Australia. Earlier this year, restrictions to minimize risk of serious liver injury with Zinbryta were adopted in Europe. The European Medicines Agency is also investigating reports of inflammatory encephalitis and meningioencephalitis, two kinds of brain inflammation typically caused by infection; those and other safety issues like liver toxicity, hypersensitivity reactions and inflammatory/immune toxicity have limited the drug’s profitability “in the context of a number of better options for the disease,” said RBC Capital Markets analyst Brian Abrahams. The decision to pull the drug was made by the companies and not because of any Food and Drug Administration action, according to a FDA spokesperson. The spokesperson also said that the FDA believes the drug will stay on the market while a plan is developed. Patients taking Zinbryta should speak with their doctors, and shouldn’t stop taking the medication without consulting their doctors, the spokesperson said. Zinbryta has been the least profitable of Biogen’s stable of multiple sclerosis drugs, bringing in just $12 million in sales in the fourth quarter, about $53 million in global revenue last year and about $8 million the prior year. AbbVie and Biogen “essentially split profits” on the therapy, according to Abrahams, and Zinbryta revenues aren’t broken out in AbbVie’s financial results, which list only key product revenues. Company shares initially declined in premarket trade but later rebounded. Biogen shares have dropped 10.8% over the last three months and AbbVie shares have surged 19%, compared with a 1.3% rise in the S&P 500 .

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Gold prices jumped on Friday, settling with a sharp gain as the threat of a global trade war pushed stocks and the dollar lower, underpinning a flight to the perceived safety for assets such as precious metals. April gold finished up $18.20, or 1.4%, at $1,323.40 an ounce, but the metal ended with a weekly decline of about 0.5% based on last Friday’s settlement. Friday’s climb also helped gold futures halt a three-session decline. The yellow metal traded came amid a rout in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 index , which have been rattled by the threat of a global trade war, which could result in higher prices and inflation. That is a scenario that may be beneficial for gold. Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar, as measured by the ICE U.S. Dollar Index was off 0.3% at 90.01. A weaker buck can make dollar-priced gold more appealing those buying using other currencies.

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Oil futures maintained small gains after oilfield services firm Baker Hughes said the number of U.S. oil rigs rose by one this week to a total of 800. West Texas Intermediate crude for April delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 25 cents, or 0.4%, to $61.24 a barrel.

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded off its lows on Friday but the blue-chip gauge was being weighed by a sharp drop in shares of McDonald’s Corp. . Shares of the fast-food giant were exacting a roughly 56-point toll on the price-weighted Dow , with its shares off 5.2% or $8.10. A $1 move in any one of the Dow’s 30 components equates to a 6.89-point swing in the average. McDonald’s decline put the company on pace to book its sharpest percentage decline since October of 2008, according to FactSet data. Its shares were down following a research note from RBC Capital Markets, which cut its U.S. same-store expectations after a slow start to the $1 $2 $3 menu. The Dow had been down by as much as 391 points or 1.6% intraday on the back of worries about a trade war following President Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

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The European Union could impose a 25% levy on U.S. imports worth as much as $3.5 billion, according to a Reuters report citing EU sources. The retaliatory tariffs would come in response to President Trump’s global steel and aluminum tariffs, which are due to be announced officially next week. Trump’s metals tariffs, which he revealed on Thursday, would amount to 25% on steel imports and 10% on aluminum imports. The EU would join other countries in challenging Trump’s action before the World Trade Organization, and could implement safeguard measures to avoid steel imports intended for the U.S. to come to Europe. There could be further measures to target a rebalancing of U.S.-EU trade in the future, the Reuters report said.

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Snap Inc. shares rallied in mid-morning trading Friday and are up 4.1%, after being down as much as 2.8% earlier in the session. According to a report from Cheddar, Snap is working on two new versions of its Spectacles glasses, including one that will focus on “performance improvements” and another that will feature two cameras. The company is reportedly also interested in licensing its cameras to traditional glasses companies, including Luxottica Group . Snap’s first-generation Spectacles are considered to have been a flop, with the company saying in November that it had to write down almost $40 million in relation to the Spectacles, mostly due to ” excess inventory and purchase commitment cancellations.” Snap shares are down 27% over the past 12 months, with Friday marking the anniversary of the company’s first trading day. The S&P 500 Index is up 12% over the last year.

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The Russell 2000 index of small-capitalization shares turned positive in midday trading on Friday, as concerns over the impact of a potential trade war on the index faded. The Russell rose 0.3%, easily outpacing the moves seen in other major indexes. The index is seen as having less sensitivity to the prospect of increased trade protectionism, something that served as a larger headwind for the Dow and the S&P 500, as the components of the Russell are seen as having a higher concentration of domestic revenue, and less international exposure. On Thursday, when the Dow fell 1.7% and the S&P lost 1.3%, the Russell ended down a comparatively minor 0.3% on the day. The moves on Friday came after President Donald Trump declared that “trade wars are good” a day after announcing that the U.S. would impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.1% on Friday while the S&P 500 was off 0.3%. The Nasdaq Composite Index was flat on the day.

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Trading volume in the U.S. stock market spiked over the month of February, with average daily activity hitting a two-year high as volatility returned to Wall Street in a big way. According to the WSJ Market Data Group, an average of 8.19 billion shares were traded in each session of February, the highest daily average for a month since February 2016. The spike came as the Cboe Volatility Index jumped 46.6% over the month, its biggest one-month percentage jump since August 2015. The return of volatility meant big moves in both directions for the major indexes; over the course of February, the S&P 500 saw both its best weekly performance since 2013, and its worst week in two years. The swings follow an atypically quiet market throughout 2017, which was bereft of volatility as the VIX hit two all-time closing lows. As a result, daily trading volumes over 2017 came in at a three-year low. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.3% on Friday, on track for its fourth straight day with a 1% decline. The S&P 500 was down 0.6% while the Nasdaq Composite Index was off 0.3%.

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Two people were shot and killed on the campus of Central Michigan University early Friday. The university, in Mount Pleasant, Mich., said via Twitter that the people killed were nonstudents and that the university’s police department believed the shooting was linked to a “domestic situation.” The suspect remained at large as of approximately 11 a.m. Eastern time, and the campus remained on lockdown, according to a statement from the university’s communications department.

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