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Shares of International Business Machines Corp. shot up $7.66, or 5.2%, in premarket trade, putting them on track for the biggest percentage gain since July 2011, after the information technology company beat profit and sales expectations. The price gain would be the biggest since January 2013, and would add about 53 points to the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s price. Dow futures were up 73 points in recent trade.

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B. Riley analyst Eric Wold lowered earnings estimates for AMC Entertainment Holding Inc. , Regal Entertainment Group , Cinemark Holdings Inc. and Marcus Corp. as cinema chains have not fared well during the third quarter. Box office revenue in the third quarter was down more than 14% compared with the same period last year. That, coupled with concerns around Hollywood potentially shortening the amount of time films exclusively appear in theaters and industry disruption from MoviePass and digital players, has resulted in all four exhibitors losing share. Wold lowered third quarter AMC revenue estimates to $1.14 billion from $1.18 billion, Regal estimates to $710.70 million from $748.20 million, Cinemark estimates to $696.9 million from $731.80 million and Marcus Corp. revenue estimates for the quarter to $155.0 million from $156.70 million. Wold expects box office trends to turn positive in the fourth quarter and going forward. “With an impressive film slate on tap for the fourth quarter… we continue to project overall Q4 box office should increase by roughly double-digits and drive the full year to flattish overall revenues,” Wold wrote. ” In addition to our continued expectation for box office growth in 2018, we are projecting these trends to continue into 2019.” Shares of AMC have declined more than 59% in the year to date, Regal shares are down more than 22%, Marcus Corp. shares are down more than 13% and Cinemark shares have dropped close to 8%. By comparison, the S&P 500 index is up more than 14% in the year and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up more than 16%.

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SuperValu Inc. reported a net loss of $25.0 million, or 65 cents per share, down from $31.0 million, or 81 cents per share, for the same period last year. Adjusted EPS was 46 cents, beating the 36-cents FactSet consensus. Sales totaled $3.8 billion, up from $2.8 billion last year and ahead of the $3.79 billion FactSet estimate. SuperValu Chief Executive Mark Gross highlighted the company’s wholesale business, which represented more than 70% of sales, in a statement. Wholesale sales were $2.7 billion for the quarter, up from $1.7 billion last year. Retail and corporate sales were nearly flat year-over-year. SuperValu also announced it has acquired Associated Grocers of Florida, a retailer-owned cooperative that distributes primarily in South Florida, the Caribbean, Central and South America and Asia, for about $180 million. For its last fiscal year ending July 29, Associated Grocers’ revenue totaled about $650 million, according to the acquisition announcement. SuperValu shares indicated higher in Wednesday premarket trading, but are down nearly 45% for the past year. The S&P 500 index is up 19.6% for the last 12 months.

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Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. said Wednesday it has entered into an exclusive license agreement with privately-held Vir Biotechnology to develop and sell RNAi therapeutics for infectious diseases, including hepatitis B virus infection. As part of the agreement, Alnylam will receive an upfront payment of cash and Vir shares, and will be eligible for milestone payments of more than $1 billion. “We believe the innovative structure of this deal, including the right for Alnylam to opt into a profit-sharing arrangement prior to the start of Phase 3 for HBV, gives us both strategic flexibility in our committed spend and retention of significant product value,” said Alnylam Chief Executive John Maraganore. The stock, which was indicated up over 5% in premarket trade, has more than tripled year to date, while the S&P 500 has gained 14%.

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Anthem Inc. plans to launch its own pharmacy-benefits manager, IngenioRx, which will provide services to Anthem health plans and non-Anthem customers starting in 2020, which is when Anthem’s contract with Express Scripts Holding Co. ends. CVS Health Corp. will fill prescriptions and process claims for Anthem under a five-year contract starting in 2020, the company also announced Wednesday. CVS Health said it expects implementation costs will be part of the agreement, but that those costs will likely be immaterial to 2017 earnings. Express Scripts stock declined 0.3% in premarket trade Wednesday after the news, while CVS Health stock rose 2.4%. The announcement follows a contentious and very public battle between Anthem and Express Scriptsover pricing in April. Anthem is Express Scripts’ biggest client, and some investors had held out hope for a reconciliation. Pharmacy-benefit managers are a little-known facet of the complex U.S. pharmaceutical system that negotiate drug prices on behalf of health insurers and employers. The industry has become very concentrated in recent years, with just three players dominating the market. Anthem shares were not active in premarket trade. Shares have declined 1.2% over the last three months, Express Scripts stock has declined 8.7%and CVS Health stock declined 6.9%, compared with a 4% rise in the S&P 500 .

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Firefighters were battling a blaze late Tuesday at the Chevron refinery in El Segundo, Calif., according to the Southern California city’s police department. “Fire departments are currently fighting a fire at the Chevron refinery. Residents in the nearby areas are advised to close their windows,” El Segundo Police said in a Twitter post at about 11 p.m. Pacific Time on Tuesday, or 2 a.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday. The blaze was a “major fire,” it was coming close to power lines, and firefighters were attempting to extinguish it with water and foam, a KTLA report said. Chevron’s stock was roughly unchanged in premarket action.

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Gordon Hayward, the biggest free-agent signing of the NBA offseason, suffered a horrific injury less than six minutes into the regular season Tuesday night, when the Boston Celtics’ star forward gruesomely snapped his ankle. Hayward landed awkwardly on an alley-oop play, and laid on the court for over five minutes before being carried off on a stretcher. The Celtics said Hayward suffered a fractured left ankle. Though the team did not estimate when he might return, the severity of the injury suggested he may miss most, of not all, of the season. Over the summer, Hayward signed a four-year, $128 million deal with Boston, as the Celtics bulked up in an effort to compete with the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA’s Eastern Division.

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Hollywood producer Bob Weinstein, the brother of disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein, bullied employees and sexually harassed a female producer, according to separate reports Tuesday. Amanda Segel, an executive producer on the TV miniseries “The Mist,” which was produced by the Weinstein Co., told Variety that Bob Weinstein repeatedly sexually harassed her over a period of three months in 2016. Weinstein and his lawyer both strongly denied wrongdoing. In a separate report, the Wall Street Journal late Tuesday reported that Weinstein exhibited a pattern of bullying and abusive behavior toward employees, according to multiple sources, which would not have been tolerated at most other American companies. “Bob Weinstein was genuinely abusive to people in my company,” former Walt Disney Co. studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg said in an interview Tuesday at The Wall Street Journal’s WSJ D.Live technology conference in Southern California. Last week, Harvey Weinstein was ousted from his company after numerous reports of sexual misconduct and sexual abuse against him emerged. On Monday, the Weinstein Co. said it was in talks for a potential sale of the company.

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Two former top executives from mining conglomerate Rio Tinto PLC have been charged with fraud, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission announcement Tuesday. The SEC has accused former Chief Executive Thomas Albanese and former Chief Financial Officer Guy Elliott of inflating the value of coal assets acquired for $3.7 billion and sold several years later for $50 million. Rio Tinto stock is down less than 1% to $49.50 after hours. The two men failed to follow accounting standards and as a project suffered repeated setbacks, sought to hide or delay disclosure of the problems from the board of directors and investors, according to the SEC. The SEC is seeking permanent injunctions, as well as the return of any illegal gains and civil penalties for the defendants. Rio Tinto stock is up 29.5% this year, with the S&P 500 index up 14.2%.

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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