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Shares of Pandora Media Inc. rose 3% in Friday morning trading after the company announced that it would allow users of its ad-supported radio service to play songs on demand, in exchange for watching a 15-second video advertisement. Listeners of the free radio product who search for a song will be able to watch an ad to “unlock a Pandora Premium listening session,” the company said in a Thursday afternoon release, in reference to Pandora’s paid on-demand streaming service that launched earlier this year. The ability to play a specific song was the “top request” among listeners of Pandora’s radio product, according to CEO Roger Lynch. Stifel analysts led by John Egbert wrote that while Spotify and YouTube also allow mobile users to listen to music on demand for free, “this feature helps Pandora narrow that gap and could potentially avoid pushing the company’s listeners toward rival services when they’re looking for a specific song.” They added that “investors may be under-appreciating the benefits this product could yield to Pandora, both in terms of audience and ad revenue stabilization.” Stifel has a hold rating on Pandora shares and an $8 price target. Pandora shares have fallen 61% this year, compared with a 19% gain for the S&P 500 Index .

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Express Scripts Holding Co. shares rose 4.3% in heavy Friday morning trade after the company was upgraded to outperform by Baird Equity Research. Baird also issued a $81 price target; Express Scripts shares traded at $71.33 as of Friday morning. “ESRX is cleaning up, competitor shifts may present opportunities, early tone on 2019 selling season is positive, execution has been steady, near-term numbers are going up, anti-[pharmacy-benefit manager] rhetoric may ease,” said Baird analyst Eric Coldwell. “We continue to have a multitude of PBM concerns. But ESRX setup seems most favorable in years.” The Baird upgrade comes at a time of major shifts in the PBM industry, including CVS Health Corp.’s about $69 billion acquisition of health insurer Aetna Inc. and health insurer Anthem Inc.’s plans to form its own PBM. As other companies move away from contracting with a standalone PBM, Express Scripts — the largest standalone PBM — has sought to diversify its offerings through an acquisition of medical benefit management company eviCore health care, announced in early October. Despite a plethora of long-term challenges that could threaten Express Scripts, Coldwell said the CVS-Aetna merger was unlikely to affect the company’s performance in the next year or two, and noted that “ESRX’s early tone on 2019 renewal and selling season was positive.” In addition, new drug price data shows that U.S. drug spending increased at a rate below the increase in overall health care spend, Coldwell said, which “may soften anti-PBM rhetoric, for now.” The company’s divestiture of United BioSource is also positive, he said, because it eliminates a possible conflict of interest between the payers Express Scripts contracts with and UBC’s drugmaker clients. Express Scripts shares have risen 13.8% over the last three months, compared with a 6.8% rise in the S&P 500 and a 10% rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average .

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Shares of Under Armour Inc. soared 8.3% in morning trade Friday toward a 1 1/2-month high, after the athletic apparel and accessories maker was upgraded at Stifel Nicolaus, citing signs that margins are set to improve next year. Analyst Jim Duffy raised his rating to buy, after being at hold the past 14 months, and boosted his stock price target to $17 from $12. He said that while margins may remained pressured in the first half of 2018 given inventory clearance, but he believes investors are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. “With evidence of improving sales quality and cost structure management, we expect the stock begins to anticipated structural capacity for margin improvement before it shows in reported results,” Duffy wrote in a note to clients. The stock has now rocketed 29% since it closed at a 5 1/2-year low of $11.61 on Nov. 3. It was still down 49% year to date, while shares of rival Nike Inc. have run up 28% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average has climbed 25%.

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President Donald Trump said Friday the final Republican tax bill contains a “tremendous” child tax credit, and that it’s “increasing on a daily basis.” He did not elaborate but his comments follow statements by Sen. Marco Rubio, who has said he can only support the bill if it contains a more-generous child tax credit. The text of the bill is expected to be released late Friday afternoon. Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump also said he didn’t want to talk “yet” about pardoning Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser.

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U.S. stock indexes opened higher Friday as investors shrugged off concerns over potential roadblocks to the tax bill. The Dow and S&P are set to notch their fourth week of gains. The S&P 500 rose 8 points, or 0.3%, to 2661. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 138 points, or 0.5%, to 24647. The Nasdaq Composite Index added 26 points, or 0.4%, to 3882.

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Shares of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. rallied 3.5% in premarket trade Friday, after the drug maker announced the exclusive launch of generic Viread 1 tablets (300 milligrams) in the U.S. The rally comes a day after the company said it would cut 14,000 jobs, or more than a quarter of its workforce, which sent the stock down 4.5%. Teva said tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (Viread) tablets are used in combination with other agents to treat HIV-1 in adults and pediatric patients, and are also indicated for the treatment of hepatitis B. Viread is Gilead Sciences Inc.’s product, and had sales of $274 million in the quarter ended Sept. 30, down from $303 million a year ago. Gilead’s stock was little changed ahead of the open. Teva’s stock has tumbled 52.3% year to date through Thursday, while Gilead shares have gained 3.8%, the SPDR S&P Pharmaceuticals ETF has climbed 11.0% and the S&P 500 has run up 18.5%.

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MGM Growth Properties LLC said Friday it will raise its quarterly cash dividend on Class A shares to 42 cents a share, up 6.3% from 39.5 cents a share. The new dividend will be payable Jan. 16 to shareholders of record on Dec. 29. Based on the real estate investment trust’s Thursday stock closing price of $29.10, the new annual dividend rate of $1.68 would imply a dividend yield of 5.77%, compared with the SPDR Real Estate Select Sector ETF’s implied yield of 3.80%. MGM Growth’s stock, which was still inactive in premarket trad, has rallied 15.0% year to date, while the REIT ETF has gained 7.6% and the S&P 500 has climbed 18.5%.

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Shares of Costco Wholesale Corp. shot up 2.9% toward record territory in premarket trade Friday, after the warehouse-club retailer’s better-than-expected fiscal first-quarter results triggered a slew of price-target increases by Wall Street analysts. Of the 30 analysts surveyed by FactSet, 15 have raised their price targets. That raised the average target to $191.93 from $179.09 at the end of November. RBC Capital analyst Scot Ciccarelli raised his target to $202 from $191 and reiterated his outperform rating. “Costco not only has some of the best foot traffic growth we know of in retail, but is also gaining traction with its own e-commerce initiatives,” Ciccarelli wrote in a note to clients. The stock was trading at $191.85 about 45 minutes before the open, above the Dec. 4 record close of $189.56 and the Dec. 5 intraday record of $191.22. The stock has rallied 16.5% year to date through Thursday, while the SPDR S&P Retail ETF has slipped 0.6% and the S&P 500 has gained 18.5%.

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Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. shares rose 5% in pre-market trade Friday after the company said the Food and Drug Administration has lifted a hold on clinical trials for hemophilia therapy fitusiran. Alnylam said it and the regulator previously agreed on various ways to reduce risk for the trials, and the company expects to get back to dosing patients around the end of the year. In September, Alynlam said that it had suspended fitusiran dosing after a patient had a “fatal thrombotic event” in a phase 2 open-label extension study. (That study, along with a phase 3 trial, are among those that can now continue, the company said.) Alnylam and Sanofi are co-developing and co-commercializing fitusiran. Alnylam shares have surged 62.3% year-to-date, compared with a 18.5% rise in the S&P 500 and a 24% rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average .

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Ripple coins, a popular business-focused cryptocurrency, on Friday surpassed bitcoin cash for the title of third most valued cryptocurrency. According to data and research site, Coinmarketcap.com, a single Ripple token was valued at around 77 cents and has jumped more than 230% this week alone to reach a market value at nearly $31 billion, eclipsing bitcoin cash at $28 billion. Bitcoin cash is a spinoff of core bitcoin that offers transaction processing at larger sizes. Ripple, which offers businesses a chance to use its blockchain technolody, or digital-ledger protocol to banks, has been accelerating in popularity in recent weeks alongside bitcoin’s eye-popping rise. Although it isn’t the first time that Ripple has been the third most popular coin by market value, it is the first time its value has exceeded $30 billion. The crypto asset is behind Ethereum, the second most popular cybercoin at $64 billion and core bitcoin at nearly $300 billion.

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