Category: Stock Market News

Snapchat parent Snap Inc. was initiated at Susquehanna Financial with a neutral rating, saying any upside from near-term “eurphoria” and potential product innovations are offset by concerns over competition and valuations over the longer term. Analyst Shyam Patil set a $22 price target on the stock, which is 29% above Snap’s IPO price of $17, but 2% below Thursday’s first-day closing price of $24.48. “Euphoria could cause a short-term disconnect between fundamentals and valuation, but longer-term we struggle to see Snap as an investment with meaningful upside potential from current levels,” Patil wrote in a note to clients. Patil expects new products to help daily average users (DAU) rebound in the near term, and believes Snap’s total addressable market is “undeniably large,” he is concerned about competitive positioning over time with the launch of Facebook Inc.’s Instagram Stories. On Thursday, Instinet started coverage of Snap with a reduce rating and Pivotal Research initiated it with a sell. Currently, the average rating of the six analysts surveyed by FactSet is the equivalent of underweight and the average stock price target is $16.50. Meanwhile, the stock gained 0.7% in premarket trade, while early indications suggested a 0.1% decline for the S&P 500 .

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The Mexican peso shot higher on Friday after Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said during an interview on CNBC that the battered Mexican currency could receive a boost if the U.S. and its southern neighbor manage to work out a good trade deal. The dollar was off 1.3% at 19.75 pesos in recent trade, compared with 20 pesos late Thursday in New York. Ross also spoke of the need to implement some kind of stability mechanism for the Mexican currency, which has been extremely volatile in recent months. The peso has fallen in part because President Donald Trump has pledged to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

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ChemChina’s planned $43 billion purchase of Swiss firm Syngenta and the combination of Dow Chemical and Dupont are nearing European antitrust clearance, the Financial Times reports Friday, citing inside knowledge from an unnamed participant in the Dow-DuPont talks. It’s believed that approval for that deal would clear the way for ChemChina and Syngenta. These are the first two of three politically charged mega mergers worth nearly $250 billion in the global food industry. Dow-DuPont’s $140 billion merger is reportedly on track for approval in March after the companies offered to sell some research and development capability, according to people involved in the process, the FT said. The third big deal is Bayer’s $66 billion purchase of Monsanto , which was announced last September and will start its European approval process before the summer.

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Big Lots Inc. reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings of $90.1 million, or $1.99 a share, compared with $94.5 million, or $1.91 a share, in the same period a year ago. Excluding non-recurring items, adjusted earnings per share came to $2.26, above the FactSet consensus of $2.22. Revenue fell 0.3% to $1.58 billion, just shy of the FactSet consensus of $1.59 billion. The closeout retailer attributed the decline in sales to same-store sales growth of 0.3%, which missed expectations of a 1.1% increase, that was offset by a lower store count. Looking ahead, the company expects first-quarter EPS of 95 cents to $1.05 and 2017 EPS of $3.95 to $4.10. The FactSet consensus is $1.01 for the first quarter and $4.45 for the year. Big Lots expects first-quarter same-store sales to be flat to up 2%, surrounding the FactSet consensus of up 0.4%. The stock, which is still inactive in premarket trade, has gained 1.7% over the past three months, while the SPDR S&P Retail ETF has lost 5% and the S&P 500 has climbed 8.7%.

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Immersion Corp. shares plunged in the extended session Thursday after the touch-feedback technology, or haptics, company reported a wider-than-expected loss for the quarter and an outlook that fell short of Wall Street estimates. Immersion shares dropped 17% to $8.90 after hours. The company reported an adjusted loss of 27 cents a share on revenue of $9.3 million. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had estimated a loss of 16 cents a share on revenue of $10.3 million. For 2017, the company forecast an adjusted loss of 76 cents to $1.05 a share on revenue of $38 million to $42 million. Analysts had estimated a loss of 21 cents a share on revenue of $54.1 million. “In addition to normal considerations, our guidance for 2017 takes into account the ongoing litigation with Apple and the current unlicensed status of Samsung,” Immersion said in a statement. Last year, Immersion filed patent infringement lawsuits against Apple Inc. for technology used in iPhones and the trackpads used in MacBooks.

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Caterpillar Inc. late Thursday said that a raid by federal authorities was likely the result of a tax matter contested by the company. In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Caterpillar said it is fighting Internal Revenue Service tax increases and penalties of up to $2 billion over how it booked transactions with its Swiss unit CSARL. “While the warrant is broadly drafted, we believe the execution of this search warrant is regarding, among other things, export filings that relate to the CSARL matter,” Caterpillar said in a statement. The company said it is cooperating with authorities. Shares of Caterpillar slipped 0.4% to $94.01 after hours, following a 4.3% drop in the regular session.

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Apple Inc. has filed another lawsuit – its fourth – against Qualcomm Inc. related to a battle over licensing fees, according to a report by Bloomberg. The iPhone maker filed the suit in a U.K. court, expanding similar legal cases it has against Qualcomm, one of its long-time suppliers, in California and China. The lawsuit reportedly claims that Qualcomm unfairly charged royalties for technologies that weren’t covered by their long-time agreement and would use its position as the world’s biggest smartphone chip maker to bully Apple into paying more than it should have. According to the Verge, Apple says the lawsuit was filed back in January alongside the other lawsuits, but just now is being brought to the surface because of a refiling in the U.K. Shares of Qualcomm, which saidearnings were hit last quarter in part because of high legal fees, fell 0.2% in after-hours trade.

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The Australian, New Zealand and Canadian dollars weakened against the dollar on Thursday as commodity prices tumbled and rising interest-rate expectations bolstered the greenback. The Australian dollar tumbled 1.4% to 75.71 cents, its weakest level in a month, its largest one-day drop since Dec. 15, the day after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates at its December meeting. By comparison, it traded at 76.75 cents late Wednesday. The New Zealand dollar fell 1.14% to 70.63 cents, compared with 71.45 cents. The dollar rose 0.5% to C$1.3392, its strongest level in two months, compared with C$1.3329 late Wednesday. In recent days, a bevy of Fed officials have talked up the likelihood that the central bank will raise interest rates at its meeting later this month, sending market-based expectations of a hike to 80%, according to CME Group data. “I think its an overall very dollar positive market right now,” said Juan Perez, a currency trader at Tempus Inc. The price of a barrel of oil fell 2.2% to $52.63 in recent trade. The three dollars are commonly referred to as the “commodity dollars” because Canada, Australia and New Zealand are all major commodity exporters.

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Prominent Democratic senators on Thursday wrote to President Donald Trump to urge him to support the work of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The BLS produces economic statistics that Trump questioned as a candidate. The Thursday letter noted his “clear skepticism and distrust” of such data and urged him to “commit to supporting and standing by the independence and integrity” of the department.

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Costco Wholesale Corp. shares fell more than 4% late Thursday after the retailer reported fiscal second-quarter per-share earnings and sales below expectations and said it plans to raise membership fees in June by $5 to its U.S. and Canadian members. Costco said it earned $515 million, or $1.17 a share, in the quarter, compared with $546 million, or $1.24 a share, in the year-ago period. Net sales for the quarter rose 6% to $29.13 billion, from $27.57 billion a year ago. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected earnings of $1.36 a share on sales of $29.85 billion. Comparable-store sales for the quarter rose 3%, while the FactSet analysts had expected a 3.6% increase. The company also announced that, effective June 1, it will increase annual membership fees by $5 for U.S. and Canada individual, business, and business add-on members, which will cost $60 annually. Also effective June 1, annual fees for “executive” memberships in the U.S. and Canada will increase from $110 to $120, and the maximum annual 2% reward associated with the executive membership will increase from $750 to $1,000. The fee increases will impact around 35 million members, roughly half of them executive members, Costco said. Shares of Costco ended the regular trading day up 0.1%.

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