Tag: stock market

Shares of Incyte Corp. surged 4% in premarket trade Tuesday, after Eli Lilly & Co. said it will make a $35 million milestone payment to the biopharmaceutical company following the companies’ submission of a new drug application for a rheumatoid arthritis treatment. Eli Lilly said it will take a charge of $35 million to first-quarter earnings as a results. If the treatment–baricitinib–is granted approval, Lilly will pay Incyte an additional $100 million. Incyte will also be eligible for milestone payments for additional regulatory approvals and the achievement of sales goals, as well as royalties on baricitinib sales. “Lilly’s collaboration with Incyte has produced a rigorous phase 3 program and, if approved, the potential of a promising new treatment option for people with RA,” said David Ricks, president of Lilly Bio-Medicines. Lilly’s stock was still inactive ahead of the open. Over the past three months, Incyte’s stock has plunged 30% through Friday, while Lilly’s has gained 1.2% and the S&P 500 has lost 7.5%.

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American International Group Inc. said Tuesday it is raising its global commercial property limits to $2.5 billion per occurrence from $1.5 billion in a move prompted by growing demand for capacity. The insurer said it has hired more than 500 engineers in the past four years to provide risk mitigation services to clients managing higher property values. “AIG has found that more companies, particularly those operating as multinationals, are looking to partner with insurers that have the capabilities and coverage limits to help protect them against the broad spectrum of risks they face worldwide,” it said in a statement. Shares rose 1.6% premarket and are up almost 10% in the past 12 months, while the S&P 500 has fallen about 7%.

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Wal-Mart-Stores Inc. said on Tuesday that it will accept Visa Inc. credit cards at Sam’s Club locations starting Feb. 1. Sam’s Club has more than 650 stores in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. The retailer currently accepts Visa debit and prepaid cards. Visa credit is already accepted at Sam’s fuel stations in the U.S. and online. SamsClub.com will start supporting Visa Checkout later this year, the company said in a release. Wal-Mart shares are up 1% in premarket trading and 5.2% over the past three months. Visa shares are up 1.8% in premarket trading, but down 6.7% for the past three months. The S&P is down 7.5% for the past three months.

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Campbell Soup Co. was upgraded Tuesday to neutral from underweight at J.P. Morgan, which cited increased optimism about margins. Analyst Ken Goldman said in a research note that he was “swapping soup for spices,” as he simultaneously downgraded McCormick & Co. to underweight from neutral, on the belief that earnings expectations and valuations are too high. Goldman said he believes Campbell Soup’s projection that gross margins will improve by one percentage point in fiscal 2016 is conservative–he expects a 1.4-percentage point improvement–and that the company is underestimating the strength of the tailwind from cheaper input costs. For McCormick, while Goldman said he remains “constructive” on the spice category, he’s concerned that the stock is being valued as a growth company despite recent tepid earnings growth. He said he believes the stock’s relative valuation “has seldom been this high.” Neither stock was active in premarket trade. Over the past three months, Campbell Soup’s stock has climbed 7.3%, McCormick shares have edged up 1.3% and the S&P 500 has lost 7.5%.

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Global Water Resources Inc., a Phoenix, Ariz.-based water management company, filed to go public Tuesday morning. The company manages the “entire water cycle” in nine water and wastewater utilities in Phoenix. Global Water said it had revenues of $32.6 million in 2014 and $24.8 million for the nine months ended Sept. 30, 2015 on net income of $64.9 million and $21.4 million respectively. Along with the public offering, GWR Global Water Resources Corp., which is publicly listed in Canada, will merge with Global Water Resources Inc. The company has applied to list on the NASDAQ Global Market under the symbol “GWRS.”

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Procter & Gamble Co.’s stock climbed 1.8% in premarket trade Tuesday, after the consumer products giant was upgraded at Stifel Nicolaus, which cited expectations of accelerating sales and attractive valuation and dividend yield. Analyst Mark Astrachan raised his rating to buy from hold, and established a stock price target of $85, which is 13% above Friday’s closing price of $74.98. He wrote in a note to clients that he believes sales growth with accelerate in the coming year, “driven by improving market share trends resulting from improving execution, innovation, selective reinvestment of cost savings and increasingly favorable [year-over-year] comparisons.” Astrachan believes P&G’s size, scale and diverse product portfolio, and 3.5% current dividend yield–the S&P 500’s dividend yield is 2.37%, according to FactSet–provides downside protection for investors. The stock has slipped 0.2% over the past three months through Friday, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average has lost 7.2%.

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Delta Air Lines said it had a net income of $980 million, or $1.25 per share, in the fourth quarter 2015, compared with a loss of $712 million, or a loss of 86 cents per share, for the same period one year ago. Adjusted earnings were $1.18 per share, below the FactSet consensus of $1.19 per share. Revenue for the quarter was $9.5 billion, down from $9.65 billion for the same period last year. FactSet consensus was for revenue of $9.6 billion. Passenger unit revenue declined 1.6% to $8.1 billion, according to the company. Delta sees passenger unit revenue to decline between 2.5% and 4.5% for the first quarter of 2016 due to global volatility and currency pressures, Delta President Ed Bastian said in a statement. Delta shares are down 11.5% over the past three months while the S&P is down 7.5% for the same period.

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Morgan Stanley shares were up 4% in premarket trade Tuesday after the company beat fourth-quarter earnings expectations. The company reported net income of $908 million, or 39 cents per share, compared to net losses of $1.6 billion, or a loss of 91 cents per share, in the year-earlier period. The company reported adjusted earnings per share of 43 cents, above the FactSet consensus of 33 cents. Morgan Stanley reported revenue of $7.7 billion, below $7.8 billion in the year-earlier period but above the FactSet consensus of $7.6 billion.

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Johnson & Johnson Inc. said Tuesday it is planning to cut about 4% to 6% of the global workforce in its medical devices business over the next two years, as part of a restructuring that aims to save $800 million to $1.0 billion by the end of 2018. The company said it will book pretax charges of $2.0 billion to $2.4 billion for the restructuring, about $600 million of which will be booked in the fourth quarter. The company is still expecting 2015 sales of $70 to $71 billion and adjusted per-share earnings of $6.15 to $6.20. The current FactSet consensus is for EPS of $6.18 and sales of $70.1 billion. “The savings will provide the company with added flexibility and resources to fund investment in new growth opportunities and innovative solutions for customers and patients,” J&J said in a statement. Shares rose 1% in premarket trade, but are down 6.7% in the last 12 months, matching the S&P’s 6.8% decline.

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Twitter has been suffering a worldwide outage Tuesday, with access in Europe looking to be the hardest hit. The downtime began at around 8:20 a.m. London time, with no or only sporadic access available via the Twitter website, mobile apps or third-party software such as TweetDeck. Instead, visitors saw an error page on the Twitter site saying, “Something is technically wrong.” A Twitter outage map on the Downdetector.uk site showed the problems were focused in the U.K. and Europe, though Japan and U.S. East Coast were also having problems. “Some users are currently experiencing problems accessing Twitter. We are aware of the issue and are working towards a resolution,” the company said in a post to its status Tumblr. Twitter told MarketWatch it had no information to share when contacted except for that message. UPDATE: The issue appears to be improving, with some Twitter users reporting the return of access and the Twitter status page for software developers reporting that only its search is now suffering “service disruption” and its “performance issues” on timelines at around 11 a.m., coming back from disruption on four of its services at around 9:20 a.m.

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