Category: Stock Market News

Splunk Inc. said Tuesday that it would acquire security firm Phantom Cyber Corporation for about $350 million in cash and stock. “Phantom’s employees and technology significantly expand and strengthen Splunk’s vision for the security nerve center and for business revolution through IT,” Splunk CEO Doug Merritt said in a release. Phantom specializes in Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR), and Splunk says that the combination of its technology and Phantom’s will help reduce staffing and speed up incident response time. The company said the equity part of the deal will result in “less than one percent total dilution” for its shareholders. Mizuho analyst Abhey Lamba wrote Tuesday that the deal “aligns with product strategy.” Splunk shares are down 1% in Tuesday morning trading but up 50% over the past 12 months, while the S&P 500 has gained 17%.

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Retail stocks are rallying across the sector in early Tuesday trading after Macy’s Inc. and Dillard’s Inc. reported earnings that beat expectations. Macy’s and Dillard’s are leading the charge, up nearly 12% and more than 15% respectively. J.C. Penney Co. Inc. is getting a boost as well, up 11.3%. Kohl’s Corp. is up 2.5%, and American Eagle Outfitters Inc. is up 2.7%. Nordstrom Inc. shares have also risen, up nearly 2%. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF is up 12.1% for the last three months, outpacing the S&P 500 index is up 7% for the period.

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Shares of Mallinckrodt PLC soared 24% in early trade Tuesday, enough to make them the biggest gainer on the NYSE, after the specialty drug maker beat profit and revenue expectations. The company swung to net income of $1.61 billion, or $17.41 a share, from a loss of $153.2 million, or $1.45 a share, in the same period a year ago, helped by a $1.5 billion benefit from the recent tax legislation. Excluding non-recurring items, adjusted earnings per share came to $2.01, beating the FactSet consensus of $1.68. Revenue fell to $792.3 million from $829.9 million, but was above the FactSet consensus of $768.4 million. Specialty generics sales fell 8.0% to $195.8 million, while specialty brands sales rose 3.5% to $582.2 million. For 2018, the company expects adjusted EPS of $6.00 to $6.50, below expectations of $7.14, but expects revenue to rise 3% to 6%, while the FactSet consensus of $3.19 billion implies a 0.9% decline. The stock, which closed at a record low earlier this month, has tumbled 63% over the past 12 months, while the SPDR S&P Pharmaceuticals ETF has gained 1.9% and the S&P 500 has climbed 24%.

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Fitbit Inc. fell 12% into record-low territory after reporting weaker-than-expected results late Monday, but Oppenheimer analyst Andrew Uerkwitz reiterated his optimism. Though sales of the new Ionic smartwatch fell short of the company’s own expectations, Uerkwitz saw some positive signs in Fitbit’s earnings report. The company reported 9% growth in active users during the year and said that 37% of activations came from repeat customers. “With reactivations, cash being essentially flat, and recent digital health acquisitions, we remain ever the optimists,” Uerkwitz wrote. He has an outperform rating on shares and an $8 target price. Fitbit shares have fallen 14% over the last 12 months, as of Monday’s close, while the S&P 500 Index is up 17%.

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Stocks were flat to slightly higher at the opening bell on Tuesday after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell released his written remarks ahead of Congressional testimony this morning. The S&P 500 was up by 2 points at 2,781. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 14 points to 25,723. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down by 2 points to 7,420. Powell said he wanted to strike a balance between preventing the economy from overheating while adjusting monetary policy to hit the 2% inflation target.

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Market research firm IDC said Tuesday that global smartphone shipments declined 0.5% in 2017, but it predicts that shipments will return to growth in 2018 and beyond. Shipments in China dropped 5%, while U.S. shipments were near flat. Apple Inc. iPhone shipments grew 0.2% in 2017 after posting a decline the prior year, according to IDC data, and the company is making up for that slow growth through higher selling prices for its devices. IDC sees iPhone volumes growing at a 2.4% annual rate through 2022. Average selling prices for phones running Alphabet Inc.’s Android software grew for the first time since 2010, IDC added, mainly because the cheapest players moved toward “mid-tier pricing.” Alphabet shares are up 35% over the past 12 months, while Apple shares have gained 31%. The S&P 500 Index is up 17% in that time, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 23%.

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Shares of iRobot Corp. rose 0.8% in premarket trade Tuesday, after the consumer robot company said it launched a $50 million stock buyback program, that runs from March 28 to Dec. 28, 2018. The company did not repurchase any shares in fiscal 2017, according to recent regulatory filings, after spending a total of $134.4 million on repurchases in 2016 and 2015. Based on Monday’s closing stock price of $69.62, the company could buy back about 718,184 shares, or about 2.6% of the shares outstanding. “With a strong balance sheet and cash flows, we believe we can take advantage of volatile market conditions to buy back our shares while maintaining the flexibility to make strategic investments in our future,” said Chief Executive Colin Angle. The stock was little changed over the past three months through Monday, while the S&P 500 had gained 6.9%.

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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – An early look at U.S. trade patterns in January points to another increase in the nation’s trade deficit that is likely to act as a drag on first-quarter gross domestic product. The trade gap in goods – services are excluded – rose 3% to $74.4 billion last month, the government said Tuesday. The government will release overall trade numbers for January next week, but the size of the deficit is tied to changes in exports and imports of goods. Trade patterns involving services rarely change much from month to month. Advanced reports for retail and wholesale inventories, meanwhile, both increased in January. Retail inventories jumped 0.8% and wholesale inventories climbed 0.7%.

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Walt Disney Co. said on Tuesday it plans to invest 2 billion euros for a multi-year expansion of its Disneyland Paris theme park and resort. Disney plans to add three new areas based on Marvel, Frozen and Star Wars, along with multiple new attractions and live entertainment experiences to Europe’s most-visited theme park; the resort accounts for roughly 6.2% of France’s tourism income. According to a news release, the 2 billion euro expansion is one of the most ambitious development projects at the Paris park since it opened in 1992. The multi-year expansion will begin in 2021, but Disney did not give an estimate on when it could be completed. Disney shares are down less than 1% in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 index is up more than 17% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up more than 23%.

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U.S. stocks-market futures added to modest losses on Tuesday as investors digested the written remarks by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who begins his testimony in front of lawmakers later this morning. The remarks were released at the same at as other economic data. U.S. durable goods orders sank 3.7% in January. The S&P 500 futures were off 6 points, or 0.2%, to 2,778. The Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 52 points, or 0.2%, to 25,706. The Nasdaq-100 futures were off 13 points, or 0.2% to 6,987.

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