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Shares of United Continental Holdings Inc. climbed 3.5% in afternoon trade Friday, enough to make them the biggest percentage gainer among components of the Dow Jones Transportation Average . The air carrier disclosed in a filing late Thursday that it now expects to buy back about $1.5 billion worth of its common stock during the first quarter, compared with its previouly-announced plan to repurchase “about $750 million” of its shares. “It is obvious there is a newfound sense of urgency at UAL, which we could clearly see when we went out there two weeks ago with investors,” analyst Hunter Keay at Wolfe Research wrote in a note to clients. “It’s also likely that UAL’s board is listening to their biggest and/or more ‘active’ owners.” Even with Friday’s gain, the stock has dropped 19% over the past 12 months, while the S&P 500 has slipped 8.6%.

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Icahn Enterprises L.P.’s stock tumbled 5.9% in afternoon trade Friday, sharply extending losses after Standard & Poor’s placed the investment holding company’s credit rating on watch with negative implications. A downgrade of the credit rating, currently at BBB-, would put it into junk territory. The stock was down about 0.6% just before S&P’s announcement. “The CreditWatch action reflects declining investment values in the firm’s portfolio that we believe have very likely led to the firm exceeding a 45% loan-to-value (LTV) ratio, which we previously cited as a key threshold for the rating,” said S&P credit analyst Clayton Montgomery. Montgomery said he believes it’s possible that Chairman Carl Icahn, the company’s largest shareholder, could initiate an equity raise to support the capitalization, but that assumption isn’t included in the current rating or outlook. Icahn owns 117 million common shares of the company, or about 91% of the shares outstanding, according to FactSet. The stock has tumbled 47% over the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 has lost 8.7%.

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Gold futures ended higher Friday, but registered their first weekly loss in about a month in an up-and-down stretch for stocks marked by a multisession rally in the early part of the holiday-shortened week. April gold ended $4.50, or 0.4%, higher to settle at $1,230.80 an ounce, but logged a weekly decline of 0.7%.

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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From:: Stock Market News

Gold futures ended higher Friday, but registered their first weekly loss in about a month in an up-and-down stretch for stocks marked by a multisession rally in the early part of the holiday-shortened week. April gold ended $4.50, or 0.4%, higher to settle at $1,230.80 an ounce, but logged a weekly decline of 0.7%.

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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The number of U.S. oil rigs fell by 26 to a total of 439 in the latest week, oil-services firm Baker Hughes reported Friday, marking the ninth straight week of declines. The number of rigs has fallen by 606 from a year ago. Oil futures remained lower after the data, with West Texas Intermediate crude for March delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange down $1.19, or 3.9%, at $29.58 a barrel.

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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – The executive board of the International Monetary Fund, as expected, on Friday said it has selected IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde to serve a second five-year term as head of the international financial organization. Lagarde was the only candidate nominated for the top spot at the IMF after leading countries indicated they planned to support her bid last month. Aleksei Mozhin, the IMF executive director for Russia and the dean of the IMF’s executive board, said in a statement that Lagarde had revitalized the IMF’s relations with emerging market and developing countries during her first term.

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Standard & Poor’s on Friday downgraded Nordstrom Inc.’s rating by one notch to A-minus from BBB-plus, citing weaker credit metrics and the expectation that the retailer will keep leverage above 2.0 times for some time. “Weaker performance became apparent in the third quarter of fiscal 2015, a result of unseasonably warm weather denting sales of winter apparel and a protracted promotional environment that continued into the fourth quarter, which contributed to continued weak holiday sales with 1% consolidated same-store sales,” analyst Helena Song said in a statement. The outlook is stable, which means S&P is not expecting to change the rating again in the medium term. Nordstrom shares were trading down 9%, while the s&P 500 was down 0.3%.

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Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. was initiated at Nomura with a neutral rating based on the company’s unclear path to sales recovery. The bank set a price target of $420. Shares are trading at about $513 on Friday. “Management has laid out plans for investments to improve in these areas in 2016, but it is difficult to pinpoint when these efforts will translate into historical levels of customer traffic,” analysts wrote in a Friday note. Nomura is also concerned about potential food safety issues in the future, the battle between results and estimates, and rising labor costs. However, analysts believe Chipotle has a number of favorable qualities, including differentiated “Food With Integrity” brand positioning and opportunities for market share gains. Chipotle shares are down 23.7% for the past 12 months, but up 7% for the year-to-date. The S&P 500 is down 6.8% for the year so far.

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