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Cisco Systems Inc. was upgraded to neutral from sell at Macquarie Research on Monday ahead of the company’s quarterly earnings results on Thursday. While the bank said it still has long-term fundamental concerns about the industry and the impact to Cisco’s routing and datacenter switching business, it said it’s “hard to see significant further downside from a financial perspective,” given the recent sell-off in Cisco’s shares, and believes the company has an adequate free cash flow cushion to maintain and grow its dividend. Macquarie maintained a $26 12-month price target on the stock. Shares of Cisco fell 2.3% to $22.37 in premarket trade. They have declined 20% over the last three months, versus a 10% decline for the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

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Home Depot Canada said it will hire 6,000 associates for its busy spring season, up from 5,500 last year. The home improvement retailer is looking for full-time, part-time and seasonal workers for its 182 stores, it said in a Monday release. Home Depot said last week that it planned to hire more than 80,000 U.S. workers for spring, the same number as last year. Home Depot shares are down 1.4% in premarket trading, and down 12% for the year so far. The S&P 500 is down 8% for the year so far.

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Brixmor Property Group announced the resignation of its CEO, CFO and two other executives on Monday following an unfavorable audit committee review of the company’s non-GAAP reporting measure. In a statement, Brixmor said the review led the board to conclude that specific accounting and financial reporting personnel were “smoothing income items, both up and down,” to show consistent quarterly same property net operating income growth, an industry non-GAAP financial measure. Brixmor said it doesn’t believe the amounts involved were material to financial results, and does not believe it will be required to restate historical financial results. However, the company has named Daniel Hurwitz as interim CEO, effective immediately. Shares of Brixmor were inactive in premarket trade. They have risen 6% over the last three months, versus a 10% decline for the S&P 500.

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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Brixmor Property Group announced the resignation of its CEO, CFO and two other executives on Monday following an unfavorable audit committee review of the company’s non-GAAP reporting measure. In a statement, Brixmor said the review led the board to conclude that specific accounting and financial reporting personnel were “smoothing income items, both up and down,” to show consistent quarterly same property net operating income growth, an industry non-GAAP financial measure. Brixmor said it doesn’t believe the amounts involved were material to financial results, and does not believe it will be required to restate historical financial results. However, the company has named Daniel Hurwitz as interim CEO, effective immediately. Shares of Brixmor were inactive in premarket trade. They have risen 6% over the last three months, versus a 10% decline for the S&P 500.

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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Apollo Education Group will be taken private as it is acquired by a group of investors for $1.1 billion. The investors will pay $9.50 in cash per share, which is 30% above the company’s 30-day volume weighted average stock price for the period ending Feb. 5, 2016. Tony Miller, chief executive of The Vistria Group, one of the investors, will become chairman of the board for the Apollo Education Group once the transaction is completed. The other investors included Apollo Global Management, LLC and Najafi Companies.

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Hasbro Inc. said Monday it had net income of $175.8 million, or $1.39 a share, in the fourth quarter, up from $169.9 million, or $1.34 a share, in the year earlier period. The toy company said revenue rose to $1.47 billion from $1.30 billion. The FactSet consensus was for EPS of $1.30 and revenue of $1.37 billion. The company said growth in the boys, games and preschool categories in the U.S. offset a decline in the girls category for the full year. The growth was driven by franchise brand Nerf revenues, as well as revenues from Star Wars, Jurassic World and Marvel. The company said it is raising its quarterly dividend by 11% to 51 cents per share. The new payment will be made May 16 to shareholders of record as of May 2. Shares were not yet active in premarket trade, but are up 33% in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 has lost 8.5%.

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Gold prices jumped on Monday to the highest level since October, as a continued risk-off mood in the financial markets boosted the metal’s safe-haven appeal. Gold for April delivery rallied $16.40, or 1.4%, to $1,174.10 an ounce, setting it on track for the highest settlement since Oct. 28. The metal has risen 11% so far in 2016, in a trading environment where stocks and oil have suffered significant losses on the back of global growth concerns and oversupply in the energy market. Gold on Monday also benefited from a weaker dollar, with the ICE Dollar Index off 0.2% at 96.863. A softer greenback makes dollar-denominated commodities such as gold cheaper for foreign buyers.

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U.S. stock futures fell sharply in early trade on Monday, indicating Wall Street may carry on with heavy losses seen at the end of last week. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures slid 179 points, or 1.1%, to 15,958, while S&P 500 futures dropped 20 points, or 1%, to 1,855.50. Nasdaq 100 futures fell 51.2 points, or 1.3%, to 3,970.25. The losses come on the heels of the biggest weekly drop in a month for U.S. equities, with a 3.3% drop for the hard-hit Nasdaq Composite on Friday. Investors will be looking ahead to comments from Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen on Wednesday and Thursday when she testifies to Congress about the economy and monetary policy. And while China’s markets are closed this week for the Lunar New Year holiday, some investors might be watching data over the weekend that showed China’s foreign currency reserves fell by nearly $100 billion, the lowest level in more than three years.

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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