Category: Stock Market News

Shares of Imax Corp. fell nearly 2% in early trade on Thursday, a day after the film exhibitor’s Chinese arm said two of its original private equity investors sold their 5.9% post-IPO stake to an investment bank for HK$39.72 per share. Imax owns 68.2% of Imax China. CMC Capital Partners and FountainVest Partners, the two original investors, took a stake in Imax China ahead of its Hong Kong IPO in 2015. B. Riley analyst Eric Wold wrote in a note to clients the news should amount to nothing more than noise for U.S.-based Imax investors, but also that it wouldn’t be a surprise if it caused weakness in shares on Thursday seeing as the decline in Imax China shares on the Hong Kong exchange would equate to roughly a 5% decline in Imax’s consolidated valuation. “While we cannot speak to the reasons for these two investors monetizing their stakes in Imax China, we believe their partnerships with Imax will continue to be instrumental in furthering Imax China’s relationship with the Chinese government as in the advancement of its China film fund,” Wold wrote. He also said that with any weakness in Imax shares investors should add to stakes in the company ahead of a Imax-friendly film slate and expansion in 2017. Shares of Imax have gained nearly 8% in the trailing 12-month period, while the S&P 500 index is up 14% during the same period.

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Shares of Advanced Micro Devices fell more than 8% on Thursday after Goldman Sachs initiated coverage on the stock with a sell rating. Analyst Toshiya Hari slapped an $11 12-month price target on the stock, which implies 22% downside from Wednesday’s close price of $14.17. While Hari acknowledged the strides AMD has made under Chief Executive Officer Lisa Su since she was appointed in 2012, he said the stock seems to have already priced in a sharp improvement in its competitive and financial position. He finds current valuation metrics difficult to justify and expects shares to underperform the market after AMD’s analyst day in May. Among the problems facing AMD is competition from Intel Corp. and Nvidia Corp. , which Hari said will likely offset any meaningful traction AMD gets with new products. Shares of AMD have increased 25% in the past three months and more than 400%in the past year, vastly outperforming the S&P 500 , up 3% and 14%, respectively.

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Shares of Virginia-based Hooker Furniture Corp. surged more than 20% in early trade Thursday, after the designer and importer of furniture for the residential, hospitality and contract markets blew past per-share earnings estimates for its fourth quarter. The company said it had net income of $11 million, or 95 cents a share, for the quarter, up from $4.1 million, or 38 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Sales rose to $173.9 million from $60.6 million, boosted by the acquisition of Home Meridian International which closed on Feb 1, 2016. Sales from that business were not included in the year-earlier results. The FactSet consensus was for EPS of 66 cents. Chief Executive Paul Toms said earnings were driven by Home Meridian’s “significant backlog” at the end of the third quarter, which led record shipments in the fourth quarter. “With sales recovering at both Home Meridian and Hooker legacy brands, we demonstrated the significant earnings leverage possible with our asset-light, low fixed cost business model,” he said. Hooker Furniture designs and imports casegoods, or wooden and metal furniture, leather furniture and furniture upholstered with fabric. Shares are down 0.4% in 2017, while the S&P 500 has gained 5%.

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House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes will temporarily step aside from a probe into Russian meddling into the 2016 election, Politico reported. The probe includes possible contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. The investigation will be taken over by three other Republican congressmen, Politico said.

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U.S. stocks on Thursday began trade near break-even levels, as investors attempted to shake off Wednesday’s about-face that saw the Dow erase a 200-point advance, partly based on worries about the Federal Reserve’s plan to shrink its $4.5 trillion balance sheet this year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened flat at 20,638, but tilting lower, the S&P 500 index was about a point lower, or less than 0.1%, at 2,351, while the Nasdaq Composite Index was steady at 5,867.
Weighing on investors’ minds are concerns that President Donald Trump’s tax-reform plans will take longer than expected, as were jitters over a meeting between Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. On the economic front, a report on jobless claims showed that the number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits last week sank by 25,000 to 234,000, marking the second-lowest level of the current economic expansion. The report comes ahead of the closely watched nonfarm-payrolls report due Friday and a health private-sector employment report on Wednesday. In corporate news, Amazon.com Inc. said it plans on hiring 30,000 part-time workers in 2018.

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Coach Inc. said Thursday that it has named Ian Bickley to a newly-created role in the company, president of global business development and strategic alliances, effective July 2. Bickley will be responsible for strategic partnerships, oversee real estate development, and lead strategic distributor relationships, licensing partnerships and other collaborations. Bickley is currently Coach’s president of the international group and has been with the company for 24 years. Coach shares are inactive in premarket trading, but up 12.3% for the year so far. The S&P 500 index is up 5.1% for the year to date.

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Warner Music Group’s Latina division and Natcom Global said on Thursday they’ve reached an agreement to collaborate on production and distribution of online video. The video will be distributed through Natcom’s Vidweb platform to online publishers and will be regionally focused, as well as available in English, Portuguese and Spanish. Video will include everything from artist interviews, red carpet events and behind the scenes footage. And Warner Music Latina and its artists will share in any advertising revenue generated by video on third-party platforms.

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Tanger Factory Outlet Centers Inc. said Thursday that it has raised its annual dividend by 5.4%, to $1.37 per share from $1.30 per share. The company has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.3425 per share for the first quarter ending March 31, 2017. The cash dividend is payable on May 15, 2017 to shareholders of record as of April 28. Tanger Factory Outlet shares are inactive in premarket trading, and down 11.1% for the past year. The S&P 500 index is up nearly 14% for the last 12 months.

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Jazz Pharmaceuticals PLC shares surged as much as 6.6% in premarket trade on Thursday after the company said it had reached a settlement with Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC over Hikma’s plans for a generic version of Jazz Pharma’s narcolepsy drug Xyrem. The agreement allows Hikma to sell an authorized generic of Xyrem starting in 2023 but also grants Jazz a royalty on net sales. Hikma can sell the authorized generic for six months to five years total, and Jazz receives a “substantial” increase in its royalty rate if Hika sells the drug for more than a year. Hikma will also pay Jazz to supply the authorized generic drug, and reimburse Jazz for some distribution costs and part of the cost of marketing the authorized generic drug, which will happen through Jazz’s program. After the end of the authorized generic period, Hikma can sell its generic drug on its own. Janney upgraded Jazz on the settlement to buy, saying “while this comes about three years earlier than previous settlements with other generic filers, it eliminates the risk of an earlier launch.” Jazz is also receiving royalties, has the option to launch its own authorized generic and can allow other authorized generics after Hikma’s 180-day exclusivity period, Janney analyst Ken Trbovich said. Jazz shares were valued at $140.65 as of Wednesday’s close. Shares have surged 22.1% over the last three months, compared with a 3.3% rise in the S&P 500 .

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Twitter Inc. unveiled a low-data, mobile Twitter feature Thursday called “Twitter Lite.” Twitter Lite works as a mobile site, not through the Twitter app, minimizes data usage and loads quickly on slow internet connections. Users will still see their timeline, tweets, direct messages and other notifications with the option to load the visual content. The feature is meant to tackle issues users have faced loading the site in slow mobile network areas, such as in the Asia Pacific, India, Latin America and Africa, as well as issues with expensive data plans or lack of storage. Shares of Twitter were up 0.5% in premarket trade Thursday. Shares of Twitter have fallen 6% in the past month, compared to the S&P 500’s loss of 1%.

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