Category: Stock Market News

Fossil Group Inc. shares were downgraded to underperform from market perform at Wells Fargo on concerns about the company’s wearables business going forward. Fossil shares are down 17.1% in Wednesday premarket trading after reporting disappointing earnings results. Among the details analysts highlight are the fourth-quarter sales miss “despite a much-hyped push into wearables (that was three years in the making),” management’s need to reinvest in wearable pricing in order to drive volume, and a plan to relaunch wearables in the third quarter with lower pricing, which will drive down profitability. Analysts anticipate that pricing will be 10% lower. Fossil shares are down 31.4% for the past year while the S&P 500 index is up 25.4% for the same period.

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Billionaire hedge-fund manager David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital bought U.S. -listed shares of Syngenta , as well as shares of Voya Financial , Mylan Inc. , and Rite Aid Corp. in the fourth quarter, while unloading a stake in fashion company Michael Kors Holdings , according to a Tuesday regulatory filing. Among the fund’s fourth-quarter moves, Greenlight held a new stake of 925,000 shares in Swiss-based seed and agricultural chemical company Syngenta as of Dec. 31, according to filings-tracker Whalewisdom.com. Greenlight also upped its stake in Voya by 14%, or 752,552 shares, to nearly 5.921 million shares, and boosted its take in Rite Aid by more than 7 million shares, or 52%, to 20.463 million shares. The fund dumped its stake 3.07 million share stake in Michael Kors. Greenlight also purchased 25 million General Motors call options, which provide the right but not the obligation to purchase shares at a set price. Greenlight also sold 3.832 million GM shares, reducing its stake by 22%. The fund also added 613,300 shares of Apple Inc. , raising his stake by 11% to more than 5.8 million shares. Large investors are required to disclose their long stock-market holdings as of the end of each quarter.

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Shares of Twitter Inc. edged higher in the extended session Tuesday after Chief Executive Jack Dorsey bought a large chunk of shares. Twitter shares advanced 1.4% to $16.74 after hours, following a gain of 4.5% during the regular session, which put shares at a 1.4% gain year to date. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Tuesday, Dorsey disclosed he had purchased 425,998 shares of Twitter at prices ranging from $15.84 to $16.60 a share beginning on Monday. Prior to the filing, Dorsey owned just over 15 million shares, or a 2.1% stake of outstanding shares, according to FactSet data.

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Shares of Fortress Investment Group LLC rallied in the extended session Tuesday after SoftBank Group Corp. said it was acquiring the investment firm for $3.3 billion. Fortress shares jumped 23% to $7.62 after hours. Under the deal, Softbank said each Fortress shareholder will get $8.08 a share. Co-Chairmen Pete Briger and Wes Edens along with Chief Executive Randy Nardone agreed to remain at Fortress, and invest 50% of their after-tax proceeds from the transaction in Fortress-managed funds, SoftBank said. Softbank expects the deal to close in the second half of 2017.

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Shares of Fortress Investment Group rose 22% late Tuesday after Japanese telecommunications and internet company SoftBank Group Corp. was said to be near a deal to buy Fortress for more than $3 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing sources. Fortress shares ended the regular trading day up nearly 7%.

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Paul Singer’s Elliott Management disclosed new stakes in Dell Technologies, and Alcoa Corp. in the fourth quarter, according to a Tuesday regulatory filing. Between the third and fourth quarters, Singer’s fund acquired 7.1 million shares of Dell worth $392 million. That paired with the purchase of Dell call options, which confer an owner the right but not the obligation to buy shares at a set price, representing 2.8 million shares or $154 million, according to file-tracking firm WhaleWisdom.com. The fund picked up 10.2 million shares of Alcoa worth $287 million, and 3 million shares of Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. valued at $168 million, as of Dec. 31. Meanwhile, Elliott reduced call options tied to biopharmaceutical company Allergan , cutting those holdings by the equivalent of 1.1 million shares, or $210 million, as of Dec. 31. It made no change to its direct exposure to Allergan’s stock, retaining a 2.7 million shares worth about $574 million. Large investors are required to reveal their long equity holdings at the end of each quarter in public filings.

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From:: Stock Market News

Paul Singer’s Elliott Management disclosed new stakes in Dell Technologies, and Alcoa Corp. in the fourth quarter, according to a Tuesday regulatory filing. Between the third and fourth quarters, Singer’s fund acquired 7.1 million shares of Dell worth $392 million. That paired with the purchase of Dell call options, which confer an owner the right but not the obligation to buy shares at a set price, representing 2.8 million shares or $154 million, according to file-tracking firm WhaleWisdom.com. The fund picked up 10.2 million shares of Alcoa worth $287 million, and 3 million shares of Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. valued at $168 million, as of Dec. 31. Meanwhile, Elliott reduced call options tied to biopharmaceutical company Allergan , cutting those holdings by the equivalent of 1.1 million shares, or $210 million, as of Dec. 31. It made no change to its direct exposure to Allergan’s stock, retaining a 2.7 million shares worth about $574 million. Large investors are required to reveal their long equity holdings at the end of each quarter in public filings.

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There were no major surprises in activist hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman’s fourth-quarter filing on Tuesday, which showed his Pershing Square Capital boosted its stake in burrito chain Chipotle Mexican Grill and pared its holdings of Valeant Pharmaceuticals . As previously disclosed, Ackman bought more than 2.3 million shares of Chipotle in the fourth quarter, the filing showed, bringing his stake to 2.882 million shares, or 9.96% of the company, as of Dec. 31. Pershing Square and Chipotle reached a settlement in December that gave the fund two seats on restaurant chain’s board. Ackman had also disclosed in December that Pershing Square had cut its stake in Valeant by nearly 3.5 million shares to help generate a loss for tax purposes.

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Shares of Merck & Co. gave up their regular session gains after hours Tuesday when the drugmaker said it was halting a study of an Alzheimer’s drug because it did not appear to be working. Merck shares fell 1.5% to $64.69 after hours, following a 1.4% gain in the regular session. Merck said it stopped a clinical study of the drug verubecestat because a data monitoring committee said there was “virtually no chance of finding a positive clinical effect” for the drug under the study protocol. A different study of the drug for Alzheimer’s, however, will continue, Merck said.

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The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed charges in Florida on Tuesday against Carlos Javier Ramirez, Gold Chasers, Inc., and Royal Leisure International, Inc., for allegedly misappropriating approximately $3.95 million of their customers’ funds, and paying Ponzi scheme profits to some customers in connection with the purported purchase of physical gold. Phony invoices and account statements were allegedly issued to some customers in an attempt to conceal the fraud. According to the complaint, the defendants allegedly fraudulently offered contracts to sell gold to at least 20 customers who reside in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and abroad, marketing one of their schemes through their website, www.mygolddesk.com. They allegedly promised to sell customers gold at a discount, based on the claim that the gold was purchased directly from mines in Central and South America. The CFTC seeks restitution to defrauded customers, the return of ill-gotten gains, fines, and permanent registration and trading bans.

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