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Shares of Riot Blockchain Inc. Wednesday afternoon were trading nearly 11% lower, even as bitcoin prices tilted slightly higher at around $15,000. Riot Blockchain started life as diagnostic machinery biotech stock Biopix Inc., before pivoting to cryptocurrencies and changing its name. The company aims to support blockchain technologies, which underlie digital currencies, such as bitcoin . Over the past week, Riot’s shares are down 12.4% so far this week as bitcoin prices have stalled since the digital currency hit a mid-December peak near $20,000. For Riot’s part, the company still boasts a 66% gain over the past 30 days and a 208% return over the past three months, according to FactSet data. Comparatively, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has climbed about 0.7% on Wednesday, 2.7% over the past week, and about 10% over the past three months. Meanwhile bitcoin futures traded on the CME Group Inc. for January were up 1.7% at 15,105, while those for the Cboe Global Markets Inc. for the same month rose 0.6% at $15,150.

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SunTrust Robinson Humphrey revised McDonald’s Corp.’s price target down to $187, reversing an earlier note that moved the price target to $205 from $178. “[W]e overestimated the impact of tax reform on McDonald’s tax rate, by mistakenly holding the foreign tax rate steady,” SunTrust analysts say in the revision. “We now estimate the foreign tax differential to be +3.3% vs. -4.5% prior, which increases our ’18/’19 tax rate estimate to 26.1% vs. 18.3% prior, down from 32.6% in ’17.” Other price target moves in the earlier note include Wendy’s Co. to $22 from $17, Shake Shack Inc. to $60 from $50, and Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. to $363 from $355. McDonald’s shares are up 44% for the last year while the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up nearly 25% for the period.

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SunTrust Robinson Humphrey revised McDonald’s Corp.’s price target down to $187, reversing an earlier note that moved the price target to $205 from $178. “[W]e overestimated the impact of tax reform on McDonald’s tax rate, by mistakenly holding the foreign tax rate steady,” SunTrust analysts say in the revision. “We now estimate the foreign tax differential to be +3.3% vs. -4.5% prior, which increases our ’18/’19 tax rate estimate to 26.1% vs. 18.3% prior, down from 32.6% in ’17.” Other price target moves in the earlier note include Wendy’s Co. to $22 from $17, Shake Shack Inc. to $60 from $50, and Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. to $363 from $355. McDonald’s shares are up 44% for the last year while the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up nearly 25% for the period.

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Verizon Communications Inc. said on Wednesday that it has signed a new partnership with A&E Networks to give Verizon customers free access to stream content from A&E, including from Lifetime, the History channel and Viceland. A&E is co-owned by Walt Disney Co. , Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal and Hearst Communications. This deal follows a similar Verizon announcement last month that the company had entered a deal with the National Football League to stream games beginning in January. Verizon will provide its customers with A&E content across its media brands, including Yahoo and AOL. The deal also gives Verizon first rights to content from A&E’s in-house branded content agency 45th & Dean. “This partnership expansion is yet another example of how we’re fueling our new Oath media brands,” said Brian Angiolet, Verizon’s chief media and content officer, in a statement. Shares of Verizon were down nearly 2% during intraday trade on Wednesday and have declined close to 4% in the trailing 12-month period. By comparison, the S&P 500 index is up 20% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up almost 25%.

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Netflix Inc. on Wednesday confirmed that it has ordered a sequel to it’s Dec. 22 fantasy cop ride along original film “Bright.” The sequel will again star Will Smith and Joel Edgerton, and David Ayer will write and direct it. Netflix said that “Bright,” which was widely panned by critics and has a 28% Rotten Tomatoes score, was the company’s highest viewed original film ever on the service in its first week, and one of the platform’s biggest original productions (including sequels, series and additional seasons). The company also said “Bright” is the top movie on Netflix in every country the service is in, with more people overseas watching it than are watching it domestically. The film, costing a reported $90 million to produce, garnered 11 million viewers in its first three days, according to Nielsen measurements, which MarketWatch calculated would be equal to about a $95 million Friday-to-Sunday opening weekend at the box office. Netflix didn’t provide a release date for the “Bright” sequel. Shares of Netflix have gained 59% in the trailing 12-month period, while the S&P 500 index is up 20% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up nearly 25%.

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ANGI Homeservices Inc. shares rose 5.3% in Wednesday trading after the company was upgraded to buy from neutral at MKM Partners due to the opportunity in the home services sector. ANGI Homeservices’ portfolio includes Angie’s List, HomeAdvisor and HomeStars. “The home services sector is one of the largest opportunities still relatively untouched by internet platforms and we think that a digital marketplace will become a primary source of business origination over time,” wrote analyst Rob Sanderson in a note. “If management can deliver on its post-merger targets, we think the company could be worth $13 billion to $16 billion by 2022, a 2.3X to 2.8X increase from current valuation.” The merger with HomeAdvisor and Angie’s List took place in September. ANGI shares up nearly 48% for the last 12 months while the S&P 500 index has rise nearly 20% for the period.

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Skechers USA Inc. global business is “accelerating into 2018” based on checks conducted by Wedbush, which has raised the company’s price target to $45 from $39. Wedbush maintains its outperform stock rating. Analyst Christopher Svezia believes consensus estimates for fiscal 2018 revenue growth are too low, especially for the first half of the year, given the strength across kid’s, men’s and wholesale. “The stronger top line, coupled with a margin story less reliant on SG&A leverage for fiscal 2018 leave us bullish on the shares,” Svezia writes. He also sees further opportunity internationally. Skechers shares are up 1.6% in Wednesday trading, and up 57% for the past year, outpacing the S&P 500 index , which has risen 19.7% for the last 12 months.

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U.S. stocks indexes opened modestly higher on Wednesday, following a fresh round of record closes for the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 index to kick off the new year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average looked to carve out its first record in 2018, up about 30 points, or 0.1%, at 24,856. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 index rose 0.2% at 2,700, marking an intraday high, and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.3% at 7,029, adding to the tech-heavy index’s push above the psychologically significant level at 7,000. Wall Street is awaiting further clues from central bankers, with minutes from the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting last month set to be released at 2 p.m. Eastern. Investors will pore over the minutes to glean insights about the pace of rate hikes in 2018, which could influence the U.S. dollar and the benchmark 10-year Treasury .

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Roku Inc. said Wednesday that it plans to release a voice assistant and expand its licensing program to additional home entertainment devices for its TV operating system, Roku OS. Roku stock is up 1.3% in premarket trading Wednesday. The new licensing program will allow third-parties to make hardware such as soundbars, smart speakers and other complex multi-room audio systems and let users control them through Roku’s voice assistant and remote, said Roku vice president of product management Mark Ely. Ely said the licensing program will be called Roku Connect and the company does not expect it to materially affect the company’s revenue. In addition, much like the virtual assistants the likes of Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc. unit Google have built, Roku also plans to roll out its own version of a virtual helper in the fall of this year called Roku Entertainment Assistant. Focused on “home entertainment” functions, the virtual assistant will allow consumers to launch shows and and play music with voice commands, among other functions, Ely said. The company has not yet announced partnerships with music streaming services such as Pandora Inc. Ely said both the virtual assistant and Connect software would be free for users and rolled out via software updates. Since Roku stock began trading in September it has gained 122%, as the S&P 500 index rose 7.4% during the same period.

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Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. shares rose nearly 3% in premarket trade on Wednesday after the company said it used cash on hand to pay down an additional $300 million in senior secured term loans. Valeant said it has now paid down more than $6.5 billion in debt since the first quarter of 2016, with total debt of about $25.7 billion remaining as of the end of 2017. After a series of accounting and drug pricing scandals in 2015, Valeant has also struggled with a significant debt load. In recent months, the company launched a $750 million private debt offering and a $1 billion offering in the bond market in order to repay term loans due in 2022 and 2020, respectively. The company said in late October that it was on track to pay down more than $5 billion in debt ahead of a previously-stated February 2018 goal. However, the company still has long-term debt maturing in the coming years, through 2024. Valeant shares have surged 51.7% over the last three months, compared with a 6.4% rise in the S&P 500 and a 9.6% rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average .

Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.

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