Tag: stock market

U.S. stocks finished higher on Friday, with the three main indexes closing at record highs, as defensive stocks led the market higher in quiet postholiday trade. The S&P 500 gained 8.53 points, or 0.4%, to 2,213.30, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 68.69 points, or 0.4%, to 19,152,14 as shares of Cisco Systems Inc. and Coca-Cola Company led the blue-chip gauge higher. The Nasdaq Composite advanced 18.24 points, or 0.3%, to 5,398.92. The Russell 2000 , the small-cap benchmark, also closed at a record high and notched its 15th straight session of gains — its longest winning streak since February 1996. The Russell gained 3.24 points, or 0.2%, to 1,345.32.

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Gold futures for December delivery closed down $9.90, or 0.8%, to $1,179.50 an ounce. Gold fell even as the dollar paused its strong run this week, a move that cut demand for dollar-priced precious metals. The gold contract finished the week down around 2.3%, according to FactSet data. Silver futures [S: SIZ6] ended the session up modestly, trimming their weekly loss to 0.2%.

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Johnson & Johnson confirmed Friday that it is holding preliminary talks with Swiss drug company Actelion Pharmaceuticals Ltd. regarding a potential deal, as reported earlier by Bloomberg News. The company said there can be no assurance a deal will materialize. “Johnson & Johnson does not intend to make any additional comments regarding these discussions unless and until it is appropriate to do so, or a formal agreement has been reached,” it said in a statement. Actelion has a market cap of about $17 billion. Shares of Actelion were last up almost 17%. Johnson & Johnson shares rose 0.9%, and have gained 11% in the year so far, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average has gained 9.8%.

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U.S. stocks opened higher on Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 reaching fresh record highs, as the holiday-shortened session kept trading volume thin. The S&P 500 climbed 3 points, or 0.2%, to 2,207, while the Dow advanced 50 points, or 0.3%, to 19,135. The Nasdaq Composite gained 5 points, or 0.1%, to 5,385. Trading closes at 1 p.m. Eastern.

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Target Corporation said it had a strong start to Black Friday sales and Target.com saw its biggest day ever, with double digit growth, in the lead up. The store started its deals on Wednesday. Televisions were a top selling product and Target sold more than 3,200 TVs every minute in the first hour of the store opening. Other popular items included Apple Inc.’s iPad Air 2, iPad Pro and Apple Watch Series 1, gaming systems and wearables such as the Fitbit Charge HR. Target said it sold five times more wireless headphones on Black Friday compared to last year. Shares of Target were up 1% in premarket trade. Shares of Target have fallen 8% year-to-date, compared to the S&P 500’s gain of 8%.

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Shares of Swiss drug company Actelion Ltd. surged 14% Friday, after a report that Johnson & Johson has approached the company with a view to a takeover. Bloomberg News said talks are at an early stage. The Swiss company has a market capitalization of about $17 billion. It has brought new lung treatments to market that are expected to reduce its reliance on its Tracleer drug, which is used to treat high bloody pressure that affects arteries in the lungs, according to Bloomberg. Johnson & Johnson shares were not active premarket, but are up 10% in the year so far, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average has gained 9.5%.

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The U.S. government is raising the allowable limit on some credit-card late fees, and American Express Co. is the first issuer to act on it, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. From January, the company will charge customers that are late on more than one payment in a six-month period a fee of up to $38, $1 more than it charged previously. That places the issuer at the maximum allowed under the new guidelines from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. American Express shares were not yet active in premarket trade, but are up 4.8% in the year so far, while the S&P 500 has gained 7.9%.

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Florence Henderson, best known for her role as mom Carol Brady in the hit 1970s television series “The Brady Bunch,” has died at the age of 82, her manager confirmed to The Associated Press on Thursday. Henderson, who died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Thursday night, had suffered heart failure, according to her manager Kayla Pressman, the AP said. “The Brady Bunch,” a sitcom about a blended family with two single parents and their six combined children, had a successful run for Walt Disney Co.-owned ABC Television Network between 1969 and 1974.

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An employee of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. was compromised and exposed personal information of thousands of sailors in the U.S. Navy, the military branch announced Wednesday. According to the Navy, an HPE worker’s laptop was accessed by unknown individuals, who were able to access the names and social security numbers of 134,386 current and former sailors. “The Navy takes this incident extremely seriously–this is a matter of trust for our sailors,” Vice Adm. Robert Burke, the Navy’s chief of Naval personnel, said in the announcement. “We are in the early stages of investigating and are working quickly to identify and take care of those affected by this breach.” HPE, then part of the combined Hewlett-Packard Co., won a $3.5 billion contract to handle the Navy’s communications network in 2013; the deal runs through 2018. HPE shares, which gained 3% in Wednesday’s regular session after earnings were released Tuesday afternoon, dropped 1.8% in late trading.

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The Russell 2000 Index climbed 0.6% Wednesday to extend its win streak to a 14 sessions, the longest in over 20 years. The small-capitalization company tracker has soared 16% since the streak began, compared with the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s gain of 6.4% over the same time. The Russell 2000’s current win streak is the longest since the 15-session stretch ending Feb. 6, 1996. Back then, the index gained only 6.1% during it’s streak. The Russell 2000 has now closed at a record high for the eighth-straight session, while the Dow’s record run is at three days. Chart watchers view leadership by the small-cap stocks as encouraging, as it suggests investors’ appetite for risk has increased. The average market cap for the Russell 2000 members is $1.82 billion, according to FTSE Russell, while the average market cap for Dow components is more than 100 times that at $183.98 billion, according to an analysis of FactSet data.

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