Tag: stock market

The newly minted shares of Brazil-based financial technology company PagSeguro Ditigal Ltd. soared 34% above their initial public offering price in afternoon trade Wednesday, enough to make them the biggest percentage gainer listed on New York Stock Exchange. The stock’s first trade was at $28.20 at 10:53 a.m. ET, which was 31% above the IPO price of $21.50. The stock has traded within a range of $28.00 to $29.25 since the open. The company raised $1.09 billion by offering 50.9 million shares to the public, while selling shareholder Universo Online S.A. sold 54.5 million shares to raise $1.17 billion. The company has gone public at a time that the Renaissance IPO ETF has gained 5.1% over the past three months, while the S&P 500 has run up 10.5%.

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Gold prices rallied Wednesday to their highest finish in more than a year as the ICE U.S. Dollar Index dropped nearly 1% to its lowest level since late 2014–boosting demand for the precious metal, which is traded in the greenback. February gold rose $19.60, or 1.5%, to settle at $1,356.30 an ounce. That was the highest finish for a most-active futures contract since Aug. 18, 2016, according to FactSet data.

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Biotech Menlo Therapeutics Inc. has increased the size of its planned initial public offering and raised the price range, according to a regulatory filing. The company is now planning to offer 6.5 million shares priced at $16 to $17, to raise $107 million at the midpoint of the range. That’s up from a previous plan to offer 5.7 million shares at $14 to $16 each. The deal is expected to price later Wednesday, according to data firm Ipreo. The company has applied to list on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “MNLO.” Jefferies, Piper Jaffray and Guggenheim are lead managers on the deal, with JMP Securities acting as co-manager. Menlo is a late-stage biotech focused on treatments for pruritus, or itch, in skin conditions including atopic dermatitis, psoriasis and others.

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General Electric Co.’s stock tumbled 3.1% in afternoon trade Wednesday, putting it on track to suffer the biggest one-day post-earnings decline since first-quarter 2013 results were reported on April 19, 2013. On the day of the past 20 quarterly reports, the stock had declined 11 times, by an average of 1.7%. In comparison, the stock rose the day after nine of the past 20 quarterly reports by an average of 2.4%. The stock is now on track to decline after eight of the past nine quarterly reports. Earlier, GE reported fourth-quarter results that missed expectations, and disclosed an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into its accounting processes. CFRA analyst Jim Corridore reiterated his hold rating on GE, saying the company needs to hit 2018 targets on cost cuts, asset sales and improved earnings and cash flow before the rating can change. “We will look for progress before becoming more positive,” Corridore said. GE shares have plummeted 45% over the past year, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average has climbed 31%.

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Dr. Lawrence Nassar, the former doctor for the U.S. gymnastics team, was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison by Michigan Judge Rosemarie Aquilina on Wednesday, after a seven-day hearing that allowed more than 150 women give public testimony on how he sexually abused them. Nassar, who is already serving a 60-year sentence for child pornography, was told by the judge: “I just signed your death warrant.” Aquilina took the unusual step of opening her courtroom to all the victims who wanted to directly address Nassar and ordered him to listen when he pleaded to make it stop. The women who were abused include Olympians Simone Biles, Gabby Douglas and Aly Raisman.

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The latest installment of Call of Duty likely provided a nice boost to Activision Blizzard Inc. during the latest quarter, according to analysts at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. They raised their estimates for the quarter, as well as their price target, to $77 from $72. They see strong indicators of demand for the game in third-party sales data. The analysts, led by Matthew Thornton, are also upbeat on several data points relating to the company’s new Overwatch League, an esports venture. Amazon.com Inc.’s Twitch streaming platform reportedly will pay at least $90 million for exclusive third-party media rights to the competitions, over two years. The league also brought on Toyota as a sponsor. Activision splits revenue from media deals and sponsorships with teams in the league and retains half of the money. Publicity for the league may have spurred greater Overwatch engagement from regular players, the analysts added, a potential catalyst. Activision shares are little changed in Wednesday trading, though they’re up 82% over the past 12 months. The S&P 500 is up 25% in that time.

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Alibaba Group Holding Inc. shares are up 3.1% in midday trading Wednesday, to hit a new intraday high on heavy volume. Analysts at Oppenheimer put out a “deep dive” on Alibaba, praising the company’s core business as well as its New Retail initiative, which is intended to bring online and offline shopping together. New Retail “should generate significant revenue for Alibaba’s retail business, providing upselling opportunities,” wrote the analysts, led by Jason Helfstein. He’s also upbeat about the company’s fast-growing Ali Cloud business, which he believes could be the size Amazon.com Inc.’s AWS was in 2014, or the size of Microsoft Corp.’s Azure from 2017. “Growth will be fueled by Alibaba’s improving personalization in e-commerce through data-driven AI and media integration, continued adoption of Alibaba Cloud and greater physical store exposure,” Helfstein wrote. Alibaba shares are up 47% over the past 12 months, compared with a 25% gain for the S&P 500 Index .

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Oil prices rose Wednesday after the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that domestic crude supplies fell 1.1 million barrels for the week ended Jan. 19. Analysts surveyed by S&P Global Platts had forecast a decrease of 1.6 million barrels, while the American Petroleum Institute on Tuesday reported a rise of 4.8 million barrels. Gasoline stockpiles, however, climbed by 3.1 million barrels for the week, while distillate stockpiles rose 600,000 barrels, according to the EIA. The S&P Global Platts survey forecast a supply rise of 2.1 million barrels for gasoline and a fall of 2.5 million barrels for distillates. March crude added 27 cents, or 0.4%, to $64.74 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up from $64.51 before the supply data.

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Apple Inc. shares are down 1.1% in Wednesday morning trading after analysts at Instinet cut their estimates for iPhone sales to below the Wall Street consensus. The firm is concerned by some of Verizon Communications Inc.’s comments in its earnings release yesterday, namely the carrier’s upgrade rate of 7.2%, which is meaningfully below what it was following other recent iPhone launches. “Demand indicators dispute hope of above seasonal F2Q iPhone units,” Instinet’s Jeffrey Kvaal wrote, referring to the March quarter. He added that supply-chain gleanings back up the “demand picture.” Meanwhile, analysts at Canaccord Genuity remain upbeat about signs of “strong” demand during the December quarter but said that January trends seem more in line with historical patterns. They boosted their price target to $200 from $195. Apple shares are up 46% over the past 12 months, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 32% over that time.

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Lowe’s Cos. said Wednesday that it is hiring more than 53,000 employees, including full-time, part-time and seasonal workers. Seasonal staff usually work between March and September in functions like cashiers and lawn and garden associates. Full-time and part-time positions available include service and support managers and stockers. Lowe’s currently has nearly 250,000 U.S. store employees. Among the locations with openings are Atlanta (1,000), Boston and the surrounding area (1,800), Charlotte (1,200) and New York (1,200). Lowe’s shares are up 45% for the past year while the S&P 500 index is up 25% for the period.

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