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President Donald Trump said Monday he is nominating Alex Azar as the next health and human services secretary. Azar, who formerly ran Eli Lilly & Co.’s U.S. operations, would replace Tom Price at the department if confirmed. Price resigned in September amid reports he spent more than $1 million in taxpayer dollars on private plane travel. “He will be a star for better healthcare and lower drug prices!” Trump tweeted.

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Shares of General Electric were down about 3% in early Monday trade, representing the biggest weight on the Dow industrials, but Goldman’s stock exacted the biggest point toll on the price-weighted gauge. Shares of GE were cutting only about 5 points from the Dow Jones Industrial Average , off 75 cents, or 3.5%. A $1 move in anyone of the Dow’s components equates to a 6.89-point swing in the average. By comparison, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. shares were down 0.8% but off more than $2.00, translating to a point decline of about 14 points. Most recently, the Dow was off 34 points, or 0.1%, at 23,388, the S&P 500 index was down 0.2% at 2,577, while the Nasdaq Composite Index was down about 0.3% at 6,734.

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Shares of Nektar Therapeutics soared 26% in premarket trade Monday, putting them on track to open at the highest level seen since January 2001, after the biopharmaceutical company announced over the weekend positive data from a trial of its cancer treatment. The company said Saturday that data from the Pivot-02 phase 1/2 study, designed to evaluate the combination of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.’s Opdivo with its investigational medicine NKTR-214, demonstrated “important” response rates across the three types of tumors tested. The company said it and Bristol-Myers are now actively enrolling patients in the phase 2 expansion part of the study in five tumor types. Nektar’s stock has rocketed 165% year to date through Friday, while Bristol-Myers shares have tacked on 4.1%, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF has climbed 18% and the S&P 500 has gained 15%.

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GGP Inc. shares surged nearly 6% Monday morning after Brookfield Property Partners L.P. offered to buy the retail real estate company. Brookfield presented the offer to GGP’s board on Saturday. Under the deal, which values the company at $21.8 billion, Brookfield would pay $23 a share, a 3.6% premium to Friday’s closing price, in a combination of cash and units. The combined company would be owned about 30% by existing GGP shareholders. GGP shares are down 11.1% in the year to date, reflecting a difficult environment for retail. The S&P 500 , in contrast, is up 15.3%.

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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TiVo Corp. said Monday it has named Enrique Rodriguez as president and chief executive, replacing Thomas Carson who said earlier this year he would retire. Rodriguez was EVP and chief technical officer at AT&T’s entertainment group, and has also done stints at Sirius XM , Cisco and Microsoft . TiVo shares were not yet active premarket, but are down 19% in 2017, while the S&P 500 has gained 15%.

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Shares of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. shed 2.2% in premarket trade Monday, after the generic drug maker was downgraded at J.P. Morgan to a rare bearish rating, citing concerns over the U.S. generics business and growing debt levels. Analyst Chris Schott cut his rating to underweight, after being at neutral the past 10 months. Only 6% of companies covered by J.P. Morgan analysts have an underweight rating. “While admittedly Teva shares have been under pressure (down 68% in 2017 and 16% since 3Q results), we see an extended road to recovery and no clear fundamental inflection in sight given ongoing challenges in the company’s U.S. generics business (which we do not see growing until 2019), Copaxone generic competition, and growing levels of leverage (>5x in 2018 based on our estimates). Last week, Fitch Ratings downgraded Teva’s credit rating in “junk” territory. Teva’s stock has underperformed its peers and the broader market by a wide margin, as the SPDR S&P Pharmaceuticals ETF has gained 5.7% year to date and the S&P 500 has climbed 15%.

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Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. said Monday it was launching a private offering of $750 million worth of notes due 2025, paying 5.500%. The drug maker plans to use the proceeds from the debt offering to repay a portion of term loan facilities due 2022. In comparison, 7-year Treasury notes yielded 2.27% on Friday. Valeant’s long-term credit rating is B3 at Moody’s, which is in junk territory. Valeant said last week that it was on track to pay down more than $5 billion in debt ahead of its previous February 2018 goal. Valeant’s stock slipped 0.5% in premarket trade. It has gained 5.9% year to date through Friday, while the SPDR S&P Pharmaceuticals ETF has tacked on 5.7% and the S&P 500 has climbed 15%.

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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