Category: Stock Market News

Amazon.com Inc.’s 12-month price target was raised to $975 from $885 on a buy rating at CFRA Research on Monday. The brokerage cited investments Amazon has made in fulfillment, content, hardware devices and international expansion, which are expected to streamline the business over time and improve sales. CFRA lowered its fiscal 2017 and fiscal 2018 earnings per share estimates, however, saying those investments will have a near-term effect on earnings. The recommendation hinges on continued market share gains over traditional brick-and-mortar retailers and growth in both Prime membership and Amazon Web Services. Shares of Amazon closed up 0.6% to $891.51 on Monday. They’ve rallied more than 18% in the past three months and 49% in the past year, outperforming the S&P 500 , which is up 5% and 14% over those periods, respectively.

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Paratek Pharmaceuticals Inc. shares surged in the extended session Monday after the small biotech company reported a late-stage study of its bacterial pneumonia drug met its endpoints. Paratek shares jumped 30% to $24.10 after hours, following a brief trading halt. The company said its community-acquired bacterial pneumonia antibiotic omadacycline was not inferior to the antibiotic moxifloxacin. Paratek said it plans to file a marketing application with the Food and Drug Administration as early as the first quarter of 2018.

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Oil futures ended lower Monday, giving back some of the previous week’s gains, as Libyan oil production resumed over the weekend. West Texas Intermediate oil for May delivery at the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 36 cents, or 0.7%, to end at $50.24 a barrel. Libya boosted production backed to around 700,000 barrels a day as its largest oilfield came back on line a week after local militia had cut output by around a third.

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J. Crew’s creative director and president Jenna Lyons is stepping down from her post, according to The Wall Street Journal. Lyons, who has been with the company for 26 years and is second in command after Chief Executive Mickey Drexler, will stay on with the company as a consultant until her contract expires in December. Somsack Sikhounmuong, J. Crew’s head of women’s design, will become chief design officer, though Lyons will not be replaced. Sikhounmuong, who has been with the company since 2001, has also overseen J. Crew’s Madewell label. Lyons became a fashion icon and J. Crew, a trendsetting label, under her leadership. The brand has struggled with sliding sales of late, with revenue decreasing to $572.6 million in the fiscal fourth quarter from $604.5 million last year. Madewell’s revenue grew to $102.9 million from $92.5 million year-over-year. Moody’s downgraded J.Crew to Caa3 from Caa2 at the end of March due to concerns about its debt level and its ability to return to growth. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF is down nearly 10% for the last year while the S&P 500 index is up 13.4% for the same period.

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Gold prices ended in positive territory Monday, with the precious metal shaking off early softness to log a second straight gain, as assets perceived as risky came under pressure in late-morning trade in New York. June gold settled up $2.80, or 0.2%, at $1,254 an ounce, adding to Friday’s advance. The move for the precious metal comes as U.S. equity benchmarks, notably the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 index , retreated firmly to kick off second-quarter trade, following a report on U.S. manufacturing that disappointed Wall Street traders. The Institute for Supply Management said its manufacturing index fell slightly to 57.2% last month from 57.7% in February. That reading was a bit below the 57.8% forecast of economists polled by MarketWatch. A reading of 50 or better indicates economic expansion. Precious metals also gained amid news of explosions on a St. Petersburg’s subway on Monday which killed at least 10 people. Seen as a haven asset, gold tends to draw bidders on news of attacks or during political uncertainty.

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Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware became the 41st Democrat to announce he’ll join a filibuster against Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court. The move means Democrats have enough votes to block Gorsuch — but Senate Republicans may respond by triggering what is known as the nuclear option, or changing Senate rules to confirm him with a simple majority.

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Mylan NV’s EpiPen recall, which the company said late last week would extend to the U.S., will likely have a low impact on the company’s revenue, Evercore ISI analyst Umer Raffat said Monday. The main cost to Mylan will be replacing the recalled EpiPens, all of which are expiring in the next several months, and thus delaying the purchase of new EpiPens for affected patients by about a year, Raffat said. He estimated the cost at about 3%, or $21 million of Mylan’s expected $650 million in U.S. EpiPen sales this year. The EpiPen recall, which Mylan had previously said was confined to about 81,000 EpiPens distributed in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and Japan, was expanded to the U.S. on Friday as a “precautionary measure,” since there is the possibility the products have a defective part and might not work in an emergency situation, Mylan said. The U.S. recall applies to 13 lots distributed between December 2015 and July 2016, which Raffat estimated at about 260,000 devices. The products affected by the recall are expected to expire in April, September and October of this year. The recall was prompted by reports of two EpiPens outside of the U.S. failing to activate, and the single lot they were from has already been recalled, Mylan said. Raffat said that it’s “comforting to know that this additional recall is more precautionary rather than on the heels of additional malfunction cases.” Mylan hasn’t filed any financial disclosures about how the recall will affect its business but, according to Bernstein analyst Ronny Gal, “Mylan is doing the math and will consider putting out some disclosure on financial implications.” Mylan shares declined 8.6% over the last three months, compared with a 4.2% rise in the S&P 500 .

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South Africa’s currency and its stocks tumbled on Monday after S&P Global Ratings cut the country’s sovereign credit rating into junk territory. The ratings agency cited last week’s firing of respected finance minister Pravin Gordhan by President Jacob Zuma as the catalyst for the decision, saying Gordhan’s ouster “increased the likelihood that economic growth…could suffer.” The rand fell 2% to 13.68 to the dollar following the decision, compared with 13.42 late Friday in New York. The iShares MSCI South Africa Exchange-Traded Fund, which track’s the country’s stock market, was off 1.5% at $54.38 in recent trade. Both the rand, and the country’s stocks, sold off sharply last week after Zuma recalled Gordhan from an investor roadshow abroad, igniting speculation that the finance minister would soon be fired. The rand had been until recently one of the best-performing emerging-market currencies, but has fallen about 7% against the dollar in the past week. Both Fitch and Moody’s Investors Service maintain investment-grade credit ratings on the country’s debt.

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Shares of Panera Bread Co. soared to a record high in midday trade Monday, after Bloomberg reported that the fast-casual restaurant chain was exploring a possible sale. The stock was trading up about 1.2% just before noon ET, then shot up as much as 12% in intraday trade, before paring some gains to trade up 10%. Panera is working with advisers to study its options after receiving takeover interest, Bloomberg reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter. The company’s current market capitalization is $6.48 billion, according to FactSet. The stock has soared 40% year to date, while the S&P 500 has gained 4.8%.

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In a sign of how the market’s upward trend has been waning, both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 are mere points from their 50-day moving averages, a level that is often seen as a measure of near-term momentum. If the indexes close below the technically significant point, that would represent the first time that they did so since Nov. 8 – the day of the U.S. presidential election, where Donald Trump’s victory spurred an extended rally that took indexes to repeated records. The indexes did break below the moving average on a session in late March, but they subsequently recovered to end above it. Were they to close below the level, that could spur additional selling. At 20,567, the Dow is currently 0.1% above its 50-day moving average of 20,547.48, according to FactSet. The S&P is 0.3% above its moving average of 2,340.96. Both indexes are down about 0.5% on Monday. The Nasdaq Composite Index , which has been a stronger performer thus far in 2017, is 1.6% above its 50-day moving average.

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