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Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. said Wednesday it will begin search for a new chief executive officer, as current CEO Steve Ells, who is also chairman and the Mexican food chain’s founder, will transition to executive chairman. Ells founded the company in 1993, and was appointed chairman in 2005. “I am incredibly proud of Chipotle and our people–and grateful to our loyal customers–and while we are continuing to make progress, it is clear that we need to move faster to make improvements,” Ells said. “Simply put, we need to execute better to ensure our future success.” Chipotle’s stock fell 0.3% in premarket trade after a halt was lifted. The stock has tumbled 24% year to date, as the company continues to struggle with the fallout from E. coli and norovirus outbreaks in late 2015. In comparison, the SPDR Consumer Discretionary Select Sector ETF has rallied 18% this year and the S&P 500 has gained 17%.

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Beijing-based ReTo Eco-Solutions, Inc. , a green building materials maker, said Wednesday it has priced its initial public offering at $5 a share. The company sold 2.8 million shares to raise about $14 million. Shares are expected to begin trading Wednesday on Nasdaq, under the ticker symbol ‘RETO.” ViewTrade Securities Inc. was sole bookrunner on the deal.

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Shares of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. gained 0.5% in premarket trade Wednesday, after the discount retail giant was upgraded at RBC Capital, which said significant positive changes made to its business offsets an “expensive” stock price. Analyst Scot Ciccarelli raised his rating to sector perform, after being at underperform since he started coverage in May 2016. That leaves only one analyst of the 34 surveyed by FactSet–Wolfe Research’s Scott Mushkin–that still has a bearish rating on Wal-Mart. Ciccarelli raised his stock price target to $96 from $92. “We still believe the company is in the midst of a multi-year investment cycle that will continue to suppress earnings growth,” Ciccarelli wrote in a note to clients. “However, many changes/investments should ultimately improve Wal-Mart’s longer-term strategic positioning and as investors increasingly view it as a consumer staple and a true competitor to Amazon, [Wal-Mart] may continue to re-rate to the upside.” The stock has soared 40% year to date through Tuesday, while Amazon.com Inc. shares have climbed 59% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average has climbed 21%.

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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Shares of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. gained 0.5% in premarket trade Wednesday, after the discount retail giant was upgraded at RBC Capital, which said significant positive changes made to its business offsets an “expensive” stock price. Analyst Scot Ciccarelli raised his rating to sector perform, after being at underperform since he started coverage in May 2016. That leaves only one analyst of the 34 surveyed by FactSet–Wolfe Research’s Scott Mushkin–that still has a bearish rating on Wal-Mart. Ciccarelli raised his stock price target to $96 from $92. “We still believe the company is in the midst of a multi-year investment cycle that will continue to suppress earnings growth,” Ciccarelli wrote in a note to clients. “However, many changes/investments should ultimately improve Wal-Mart’s longer-term strategic positioning and as investors increasingly view it as a consumer staple and a true competitor to Amazon, [Wal-Mart] may continue to re-rate to the upside.” The stock has soared 40% year to date through Tuesday, while Amazon.com Inc. shares have climbed 59% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average has climbed 21%.

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 Medicines Co. said Wednesday it has agreed to sell its infectious disease unit to Melinta Therapeutics Inc. for $270 million in upfront consideration, guaranteed payments of $215 million in cash and $55 million of Melinta common stock, as well as tiered royalty payments of 5% to 25% on sales of Vabomere, Orbactiv and Minocin IV. Clive Meanwell, Chief Executive of The Medicines Co., said the deal will allow the company to achieve three critical goals. The first is to provide the cash to advance inclisiran, a hypercholesterolaemia treatment, through a Phase III program in the second half of 2019 and associated manufacturing development. The second is to provide the resources to promote inclisiran, which the company believes has blockbuster potential, and the third to recognize the value of the three drugs mentioned above. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter. The Medicines Co. shares fell 5.7% in premarket trade. Melinta stock surged 6% after resuming trade following a halt. The stock has gained 7% in 2017 through Tuesday, while the S&P 500 has gained 17%.

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The Trump administration doesn’t plan to recommend stripping regulators of their power to seize and unwind a failing financial firm in a crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Maintaining this power is seen as a substantial win for backers of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial law. The Treasury Department, in an upcoming report on the Dodd-Frank provision known as orderly liquidation authority, plans to propose changes without scrapping the policy wholesale, the Journal reported. Repealing the orderly liquidation authority would require an act of Congress, but a recommendation from Treasury to toss out the provision would have added firepower to Republican lawmakers’ efforts to dismantle much of the post-financial crisis law.

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Police in Tampa, Fla., said Tuesday night they had a suspect in custody who would be arrested and charged in four fatal shootings over the past two months. The apparently random slayings, which all occurred in the Seminole Heights neighborhood, had neighbors and authorities worried a serial killer was roaming the area. The suspect was brought in for questioning earlier Tuesday after being confronted by police at a local McDonald’s following a tip, local news reports said. He was reportedly armed with a handgun that authorities suspect was used in the killings.

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Aratana Therapeutics Inc. canceled plans for a stock offering Tuesday afternoon, one day after it announced the equity issuance and saw its share price plunge in response. The pet-medicine company said in a news release late Tuesday that it was canceling the offering because “current market conditions are not conducive for an offering.” After announcing plans to sell at least $35 million in fresh shares Monday evening, Aratana stock plunged 19% in Tuesday’s regular trading session to close at $5.86. The stock rebounded after the offering was canceled Tuesday, gaining more than 10% to hit $6.50 in after-hours trading.

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A Canadian man pleaded guilty Tuesday to hacking Yahoo email accounts on behalf of Russian government agents in a breach that eventually netted information on 500 million Yahoo users. Karim Baratov, 22, admitted to tricking webmail users into providing their passwords, then selling the passwords to Dmitry Dokuchaev, who allegedly worked with two other Russians — Igor Sushchin and Alexsey Belan — to compromise Yahoo’s network with that access and access Yahoo accounts. Two of the three Russians are officers in the Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB, the FBI said; all three are at large in Russia while facing U.S. charges for the hack. The breach was one of two embarrassing hacks for Yahoo Inc., which eventually gave an acquisition discount to Verizon Communications Inc. because of the breaches. Baratov pleaded guilty to eight charges, and faces up to 26 years in prison when sentenced in February. As part of the plea agreement, he has agreed to pay restitution to the victims and a fine of up to $2.25 million, according to the Department of Justice’s announcement.

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