Category: Stock Market News

Shares of Ulta Beauty Inc. fell 3.6% late Thursday after the beauty products retailer reported quarterly earnings and sales above expectations but predicted slightly lower-than-expected sales in the fiscal first quarter and planned on more store openings this year. Ulta said it earned $140.2 million in the fourth quarter, or $2.24 a share, compared with $107.8 million, or $1.69 a share, in the year-ago period. Sales rose to $1.58 billion, from $1.27 billion a year ago. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected earnings of $2.14 a share on sales of $1.54 billion. Comparable-store sales rose 17% in the quarter, Ulta said. For the first quarter of fiscal 2017, the company said it expects net sales in the range of $1.24 billion to $1.27 billion. The analysts surveyed by FactSet expect sales around $1.28 billion. Ulta’s board of directors also authorized a $25 million share buyback program. Ulta shares ended the regular session down 0.6%.

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Finisar Corp. shares dropped in the extended session Thursday after the fiber-optics equipment company’s quarterly earnings and outlook fell below Wall Street views. Finisar shares dropped 17% to $29.10 after hours. The company reported adjusted fiscal third-quarter earnings of 59 cents a share on revenue of $380.6 million. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had estimated 62 cents a share on revenue of $389.7 million. For the fourth quarter, Finisar said it expects adjusted earnings of 50 cents to 56 cents a share on revenue of $360 million to $380 million. Analysts expect 58 cents a share on revenue of $393.4 million.

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The Kroger Co. said Thursday its board has approved a new $500 million share buyback program. The new authorization will add to the $120 million remaining in the last program as of March 8. Shares were flat Thursday, but are down 23% in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 has gained 19%.

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Oil prices settled under $50 a barrel on Thursday, at their lowest level since November. Recent U.S. government data showing a ninth weekly rise in domestic crude supplies, as well as total production at a more than one-year high, raised concerns that OPEC-led output cuts won’t be enough to rebalance the market. April West Texas Intermediate crude lost $1, or 2%, to settle $49.28 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest finish for a front-month contract since Nov. 29, according to FactSet data.

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New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Thursday he is joining the lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s latest immigration ban. Schneiderman says he will join Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson and fellow attorneys general in the suit, which was filed in the Western District of Washington. “President Trump’s latest executive order is a Muslim Ban by another name, imposing policies and protocols that once again violate the Equal Protection Clause and Establishment Clause of the United State Constitution,” Schneiderman said in a statement. He praised the “smart, aggressive” litigation by state attorneys general and civil rights advocates that brought down the first ban, which was imposed on seven Muslim-majority countries. The White House’s latest version excludes Iraq from the list. “I am pleased that as state AGs, we are now marshaling our resources to fight Trump’s latest, unconstitutional decree in the Ninth Circuit,” he said.

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Health policy experts at the Brookings Institution said Thursday that they expect the independent Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of House Republicans’ health care bill to project a loss of health care coverage for at least 15 million people over ten years. “Estimates could be higher, but it’s unlikely they will be significantly lower,” the Brookings experts said. House Republicans’ plan, released this week and titled the American Health Care Act, is expected to have a CBO score by the end of the week. The Brookings researchers noted a CBO estimate that repealing the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate alone would likely reduce the insured population by 15 million. Other factors should increase that number, the experts said, such as cuts to state Medicaid programs and changes to individual market subsidies, both laid out in House Republicans’ “Trumpcare” plan. The bill could have some positive effects on insured populations, including its penalty for those who don’t maintain continuous health care coverage, the experts said. But “it’s plausible that the AHCA will increase the number of uninsured persons by more than 15 million, and unlikely that we’ll see a number much less than 15 million from the CBO,” the experts said. Health Care Select Sector SPDR has surged 9.5% over the last three months, compared with a 4.3% rise in the S&P 500 .

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White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday the Trump administration would work with Congress to address the issue of the debt limit. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin wrote to congressional leaders in a letter dated March 8 that the limit should be raised “at the first opportunity.” The suspension of the debt limit expires next week but analysts say the government will be able to take measures to meet obligations through the fall.

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Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration Thursday showed that domestic supplies of natural gas fell by 68 billion cubic feet for the week ended March 3. Analysts expected inventories to decline by 58 billion cubic feet, on average, according to S&P Global Platts. The EIA said its figures included a “reclassification” of stocks, which resulted in a decrease of about 4 bcf in one specific region. Total stocks now stand at 2.295 trillion cubic feet, down 192 billion cubic feet from a year ago, but 363 billion cubic feet above the five-year average, the government said. April natural gas rose 5.6 cents, or 1.9%, from Wednesday’s settlement to $2.956 per million British thermal units.

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Shares of energy companies were mostly lower Thursday, after crude futures dropped below $50 a barrel for the first time in 2017. The April contract slid $1.41, or 2.8%, to $48.88 a barrel, while May Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange slid $1.42, or 2.7%, to $51.69 a barrel. Traders in London said the drop came as traders stopped betting oil prices will go higher and sold out of their long positions. The selling intensified in premarket trade, but eased after the market open as crude prices pared their losses.Halliburton Co. fell 1.4%, Occidental Petroleum Corp. fell 1.1% Devon Energy Corp. was down 1.4%. Cimarex Energy Co. was down 0.1%. Among oil majors, Exxon Mobil Corp. fell 0.1%, Chevron flat. The U.S. Oil Fund exchange-traded fund was down 1.4%. The S&P 500 gained 0.1%. Marathon Oil outperformed, gaining 4.2%, after it announced it is selling its Canadian subsidiary for $2.5 billion in cash, and buying about 70,000 net surface acres in the U.S.’s Permian Basin from BC Operating Inc. and other entities for $1.1 billion in cash.

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The euro [s:eurusd] jumped to an almost one-week high against the dollar on Thursday, after signals from the European Central Bank President Mario Draghi that interest rates are unlikely to be cut further. The shared currency bought as much as $1.0617, its highest level since last Friday. The euro traded at $1.0542 late Wednesday in New York. Draghi noted that the ECB no longer feels it needs to convey a “sense of urgency” in taking further action to ease policy. He also said the policy makers had not discussed another round of cheap loans to banks in the form of targeted longer-term refinancing operations, or TLTROs. “Deflation is no longer the concern for the ECB — prices are not rising fast enough to warrant tapering or higher rates, but the imminent risk of deflation has passed. That’s something of a watershed moment — the end of the beginning in terms of unconventional monetary policy tools perhaps,” said Neil Wilson, senior market analyst at ETX Capital, in a note.

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