Category: Stock Market News

Food packaging company Sealed Air Corp. said Monday it has agreed to sell its Diversey Care division and the food hygiene and cleaning business of its food care division to private-equity firm Bain Capital in a deal worth about $3.2 billion. Sealed Air will use the proceeds to pay down debt, buy back shares and fund growth initiatives, including possible acquisitions for its food and product care divisions. The company’s board has approved an additional $1.5 billion for its share buyback authorization, bringing the total to about $2.2 billion. The sale of New Diversey is expected to close in the second half. The business has about 8,600 workers globally and along with the food hygiene business generated sales of about $2.6 billion in 2016. Sealed Air shares were flat premarket, but are down 1.5% in the year so far, while the S&P 500 has gained 4.7%.

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Shares of Snapchat parent Snap Inc. surged 3.6% in premarket trade Monday, after a number of Wall Street analysts started coverage of the social media company with bullish ratings and price targets. No less than eight analysts initiated coverage of Snap, according to FactSet, with five of them giving the company the equivalent of buy ratings, and three placing hold ratings, with price targets ranging from $23 to $31. That brings the average rating of the 25 analysts surveyed by FactSet to hold, and the average price target to $23.27, which was 2.3% above Friday’s closing price of $22.74. Analyst Mark Mahaney at RBC Capital, which was not among the lead underwriters, initiated Snap at outperform and set the highest of the price targets at $31, saying the company has become an innovation leader for consumers and advertisers in the fastest advertising medium, mobile. “We believe that if it sustains its current level of innovation, it can sustain premium growth for a long time and scale to profitability,” Mahaney wrote in a note to clients. Through Friday, the stock has lost 7.1% since its closed at $24.48 on its first day of trade, which was 44% above its IPO price of $17. The S&P 500 has lost 1.6% over the same time.

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EBay Inc. founder Pierre Omidyar on Monday informed PayPal Holdings Inc. he won’t stand for re-election to the payment company’s board, PayPal said in a filing Friday. Omidyar’s term expires at the company’s shareholder meeting later this year. Omidyar’s decision “was not a result of any disagreement with the company,” PayPal said. PayPal, spun off from eBay in 2015, held last year’s annual meeting in May and so far does not appear to have scheduled its 2017 meeting. Shares of the company were flat in late trading after ending the regular session down less than 0.1%.

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U.S. stocks ended mostly lower on Friday as House Republicans withdrew the American Health Care Act after determining that they did not have enough votes to pass the bill. The withdrawal is a major setback for President Donald Trump who had made the repeal and the replacement of the existing Affordable Care Act one of his main campaign pledges. The S&P 500 dropped 1 point to close at 2,344, down 1.4% for the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 57 points, or 0.3%, to end at 20,599 for a weekly decline of 1.5%. The Nasdaq Composite bucked the trend to rise 11 points, or 0.2%, to close at 5,828 but finished out the week 1.2% lower.

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From:: Stock Market News

A popular measure of implied volatility on Friday hit its highest level since November, as the likelihood of a key health-care vote came into question. The CBOE Volatility Index, also known as the VIX , , jumped nearly 7% to 14.16 on Friday, pushing it above its 200-day moving average of 13.54 for the first time since December. The spike in the VIX caps six consecutive days of advances in the gauge. The VIX measures market expectations for volatility over the next 30 days. The rise in the “fear gauge” comes as stocks faced choppy afternoon trade, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling by as much as 100 points before recovering some of those losses later. The blue-chip gauge is off 0.1% at 20,635, the S&P 500 is down 0.1% at 2,348, while the Nasdaq Composite Index , bucking the trend, was up 0.4% at 5,842.

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House Speaker Paul Ryan will hold a news conference at 4 p.m. Eastern, his office announced. The event comes as Republicans were planning to vote on their health-care bill Friday afternoon and reports said the bill has been pulled.

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Oil prices settled higher on Friday, as traders waited to hear the outcome of a meeting Sunday of major crude producers to discuss compliance with the output cut deal that was implemented at the start of the year. For the week, however, prices still lost roughly 1.7% as growing U.S. production threatened to offset the impact of the global output cuts. May West Texas Intermediate crude rose 27 cents, or 0.6%, to settle at $47.97 a barrel.

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Gold futures settled higher on Friday to tally a weekly gain of about 1.5%, with uncertainty offering prices a boost ahead of a vote on the U.S. health care bill set for later in the day. The yellow metal also found support as U.S. equities and the dollar looked ready to end the week lower. April gold rose $1.30, or 0.1%, to settle at $1,248.50 an ounce.

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President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan were still meeting at the White House early Friday afternoon to discuss the “way forward” on the Republican health-care bill, press secretary Sean Spicer said. Spicer said a vote was still planned for Friday afternoon. But at least one report said Ryan would tell Trump they did not have the votes.

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From:: Stock Market News

House Speaker Paul Ryan is heading to the White House Friday afternoon to meet with President Donald Trump about the planned vote on the American Health Care Act, reports say. Ryan and Trump have been furiously trying to round up support for the bill. A number of House conservatives have come out against it however and the vote is expected to be extremely close. Ryan’s briefing Trump could be a sign that they don’t yet have the required amount of votes.

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From:: Stock Market News