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Oil prices pared gains on Wednesday after the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported an increase of 3.1 million barrels in crude supplies for the week ended Oct. 2. Analysts polled by Platts expected supplies to be up by 1.75 million barrels, while the American Petroleum Institute Tuesday said inventories fell 1.2 million barrels, according to sources. Gasoline supplies climbed by 1.9 million barrels, while distillate stockpiles fell 2.5 million barrels last week, according to the EIA. November crude was at $48.95 a barrel, up 42 cents, or 0.9%, on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices traded at $49.53 before the report.

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Pure Storage , an enterprise storage company, was trading at $16.83 in the first minutes of trading Wednesday, below its initial public offering issue price of $17. In its prospectus, the company had set a share range of $16 to $18 and said it would offer 25 million shares to raise $400 million to $450 million. It listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Morgan Stanley and Goldman, Sachs & Co. were the lead book-running managers for the offering.

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American Airlines Group Inc.’s stock surged 1.4% in morning trade Wednesday, after S&P Dow Jones Indices said the airline will become a component of the 131-year-old Dow Jones Transportation Average , effective Oct. 15. The Dow transports will then include six airline companies, the most since December 2002. American Airlines will replace Con-way Inc. , which is being acquired by XPO Logistics Inc. . The airline companies currently in the index are United Continental Holdings , Southwest Airlines Co. , Delta Air Lines Inc. , JetBlue Airways Corp. and Alaska Air Group Inc. . The Dow transports is the first Dow Jones stock index through a predecessor index, assembled by Charles Dow in 1884. That predates the Dow Jones Industrial Average , which made its debut in May 1896.

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Alcoa Inc. said in a statement that it has agreed to supply titanium to Lockheed Martin Corp. for its F-35 Lightning II aircraft program, a contract worth an estimated $1.1 billion given projected build rates. Under the agreement, Alcoa will be the titanium supplier for all three variants of the F-35 fighter aircrafts between 2016 and 2024. It already supplies components for the F-35, including aluminum bulkheads and die forgings. Alcoa stock is down 30.9% for the year so far. Lockheed Martin stock is up 11% for the same period. The S&P is down 3% for the year to date.

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Carmike Cinemas Inc. shares were up more than 5% in early Wednesday trade, after it said late Tuesday it acquired actor Robert Redford’s Sundance Cinemas for $36 million. The deal adds five theaters and 37 screens to Carmike’s U.S. operations, according to a news release. The company now has 274 theaters and 2,900 screens in 41 states. B. Riley & Co. analyst Eric Wold said the acquisition should bring stronger producing assets at an attractive multiple to the Carmike circuit. “We believe this transaction clearly demonstrates management’s ability to find high-quality assets–Sundance generates 3x the cash flow per screen of [Carmike]–for an attractive valuation,” Wold wrote in a note. Wold noted that this is Cirmike’s first acquisition since May 2014. Investors were getting impatient, but he said this deal should help boost their confidence as management will likely use the remaining balance sheet to drive shareholder value through selective acquisitions. In a statement, Carmike said Sundance Cinemas had net income of $2.6 million for the 12 months ending June 30, while its pro-forma earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) were just under $5.6 million. Shares of Carmike are down nearly 12% in the year to date, while the S&P is down 3%.

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Freeport McMoRan Inc. said Wednesday it has appointed two new directors to its board as part of an agreement with its biggest shareholder, investor Carl Icahn. The copper mining company said Andrew Langham and Courtney Mather will join its board, increasing it to eleven directors, nine of which are independents and two of which are executive directors. Langham has been general counsel at Icahn Enterprises L.P. since January after serving as assistant general counsel since 2005, while Mather has served as managing director of Icahn Capital LP since April of 2014. Icahn owns about 100 million Freeport shares, equal to about 8.8% of its outstanding stock, making him the biggest shareholder, according to FactSet data. Vanguard is the second-biggest shareholder with a 5.3% stake.

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TJX Companies Inc. board of directors will elect Ernie Herrman chief executive officer, effective Jan. 31, 2016, the beginning of the company’s fiscal year. Herrman has already been elected director and he will continue as president, a position he’s held since Jan. 2011, after becoming chief executive. Carol Meyrowitz, the company’s chairman and CEO for the past nine years, will become executive chairman of the board at the time of the CEO transition. According to her new three-year agreement, she will remain an active executive, part of the executive management team and an advisor to Herrman. TJX operates 3,461 stores in seven countries. They include T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods. TJX stock is up 3.2% for the year to date. The S&P is down 3.8% for the same period.

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U.S. stocks opened higher Wednesday, thanks to gains in energy and materials stocks which followed rising oil prices higher. The S&P 500 opened 10 points, or 0.5%, higher at 1,989. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 100 points, or 0.6%, to 16,889. The Nasdaq Composite began the day up 17 points, or 0.4%, at 4,765.

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Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia now owns more than 5% of Twitter , making him the second-largest shareholder in the company, according to FactSet. The largest shareholder is co-founder Evan Williams. who has a 6.9% stake, according to FactSet. An SEC filing dated October 6 shows that Prince Alwaleed owns 34,948,975 shares, which translates to a 5.17% stake. Jack Dorsey, who was named Twitter’s CEO Monday, owns 3.2%. Shares of Twitter have fallen 2% in the last month, compared to the S&P 500’s gain of 4%

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Shares of GoPro Inc. fell more than 2.5% in premarket trade Wednesday after Morgan Stanley analysts nearly halved their 12-month price target on the stock, saying disappointing sales of the Hero4 Session are a “harbinger of future disappointments.” The analysts axed their stock target to $35 from $62 and reiterated an equal-weight rating. Recent checks regarding demand for GoPro’s tiny new camera were “decidedly more negative” than they had been when the product launched in July, they said. Last week, GoPro cut the price of the camera to $299, from $399. The analysts also railed into GoPro’s editing software, saying that while certain features on the GoPro mobile app are “steps in the right direction,” many of the features already exist elsewhere on iOS and Android. Without compelling differences in software, they said, “GoPro devices will remain a niche alternative to smartphone video capture and growth will continue to slow and fall in-line with the broader digital camera market.” Morgan Stanley is one of the most bearish brokerages on GoPro. The average rating on GoPro is overweight, and the average price target is $65.25, according to a poll of 18 analysts on FactSet. Shares of GoPro were on track to open down around $29.85. Its stock is down more than 41% over the last three months, vastly underperforming the S&P 500, down just 5%.

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From:: Stock Market News