Tag: stock market

Sen. Bob Corker said Friday he’ll vote for the final version of the Republican tax bill. The Tennessee Republican was the only senator from his party to vote against the Senate’s version of the measure. He said in a statement, “I believe that this once-in-a-generation opportunity to make U.S. businesses domestically more productive and internationally more competitive is one we should not miss.” His support makes it much more likely the Senate will approve the measure.

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From:: Stock Market News

Intel Corp.’s stock surged 3.4% to pace the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s gainers, and to bounce back above the widely-watched 50-day moving average line, amid a broad rally in the semiconductor sector. The stock had been hovering just above the 50-day MA line, which chart watchers use as a guide to the short-term trend, for about a week until closing just below on Thursday for the first time since Aug. 29, 2017. The line currently extends to $43.46. Meanwhile, the iShares PHLX Semiconductor ETF jumped 1.8% to $170.20, with all 30 of its equity components trading higher, but remained just below its 50-day MA at $171.25. Among the ETF’s other more-active components, shares of Micron Technology Inc. climbed 0.6%, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. rallied 1.6%, Nvidia Corp. surged 2.5% and Applied Materials Inc. ran up 3.0%. All four of those stocks are below their 50-day MAs.

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Oil prices settled higher Friday, but tallied a loss for a third straight week, on the back of ongoing concerns over growth in U.S. crude production. “The driving force behind oil markets remains [the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’] rebalancing act,” said Adrienne Murphy, chief market analyst at AvaTrade. “OPEC-led cuts simply provide an opening for U.S. shale producers to fill the void with their supplies. The supply curbs could prove to be futile and OPEC [members] are really taking a gamble,” she said. January West Texas Intermediate crude rose 26 cents, or 0.5%, for the session to settle at $57.30 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It lost about 0.1% for the week.

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Shares of Sirius XM Holdings Inc. sank 5.8% in very active trade Friday, after the company disclosed that it will have pay higher royalties to play music on its satellite radio programs. Volume ballooned to 74.2 million shares, compared with the full-day average of 16.3 million shares, and enough to make the stock the most actively trade on major U.S. exchanges, according to FactSet. Sirius said in an SEC filing that the Copyright Royalty Board had determined that starting Jan. 1, 2018, the company will be required to pay a royalty of 15.5% of gross revenue through 2022, up from the 2017 rate of 11.0%. “We anticipate that the [CRB] decision will result in an increase in our aggregate royalty expense on an annual basis beginning in 2018,” the company stated in the filing. “We are not yet able to estimate the impact on our financial statements, although the additional royalty expense could be material.” The stock has now lost 9.0% since it closed at an 11 1/2-year high of $5.86 on July 31, 2017, but was still up 19.8% year to date, while the S&P 500 has gained 19.6%.

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Deutsche Bank has been asked by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller to hand over information about transactions that could be linked to Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Deutsche Bank also has been asked for information about entities connected to Flynn, the report said.

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Gold ended with a modest climb Friday, logging a gain for the week following three-straight weeks of declines. Prices got a boost after the Federal Reserve announced its decision this week to raise interest rates, as expected, and didn’t change its forecast for inflation and interest rates in 2018. “Gold had already priced in the Fed rate increase in the last month and there was an element of ‘sell the Fed rumour’ and ‘buy the Fed news’,” said Mark O’Byrne, research director at GoldCore. “The outlook for gold is good. Seasonally, January is generally a good month to own precious metals, particularly gold,” he said. February gold rose 40 cents to settle at $1,257.50 an ounce.

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The House Ethics Committee announced Friday it has opened an investigation into Rep. Ruben Kihuen, a Nevada Democrat, over sexual harassment allegations. Kihuen said in a statement he welcomes the “opportunity to clear my name.” Two women have accused the congressman of sexual harassment.

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Baker Hughes on Friday reported that the number of active U.S. rigs drilling for oil was down 4 at 747 this week. The decline follows increases over the last three weeks in a row. The total active U.S. rig count, which includes oil and natural-gas rigs, also fell by 1 to 930, according to Baker Hughes. January West Texas Intermediate crude was up 31 cents, or 0.5%, from Thursday, to $57.35 a barrel, up from $57.31 shortly before the rig data.

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Shares of Pandora Media Inc. rose 3% in Friday morning trading after the company announced that it would allow users of its ad-supported radio service to play songs on demand, in exchange for watching a 15-second video advertisement. Listeners of the free radio product who search for a song will be able to watch an ad to “unlock a Pandora Premium listening session,” the company said in a Thursday afternoon release, in reference to Pandora’s paid on-demand streaming service that launched earlier this year. The ability to play a specific song was the “top request” among listeners of Pandora’s radio product, according to CEO Roger Lynch. Stifel analysts led by John Egbert wrote that while Spotify and YouTube also allow mobile users to listen to music on demand for free, “this feature helps Pandora narrow that gap and could potentially avoid pushing the company’s listeners toward rival services when they’re looking for a specific song.” They added that “investors may be under-appreciating the benefits this product could yield to Pandora, both in terms of audience and ad revenue stabilization.” Stifel has a hold rating on Pandora shares and an $8 price target. Pandora shares have fallen 61% this year, compared with a 19% gain for the S&P 500 Index .

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Express Scripts Holding Co. shares rose 4.3% in heavy Friday morning trade after the company was upgraded to outperform by Baird Equity Research. Baird also issued a $81 price target; Express Scripts shares traded at $71.33 as of Friday morning. “ESRX is cleaning up, competitor shifts may present opportunities, early tone on 2019 selling season is positive, execution has been steady, near-term numbers are going up, anti-[pharmacy-benefit manager] rhetoric may ease,” said Baird analyst Eric Coldwell. “We continue to have a multitude of PBM concerns. But ESRX setup seems most favorable in years.” The Baird upgrade comes at a time of major shifts in the PBM industry, including CVS Health Corp.’s about $69 billion acquisition of health insurer Aetna Inc. and health insurer Anthem Inc.’s plans to form its own PBM. As other companies move away from contracting with a standalone PBM, Express Scripts — the largest standalone PBM — has sought to diversify its offerings through an acquisition of medical benefit management company eviCore health care, announced in early October. Despite a plethora of long-term challenges that could threaten Express Scripts, Coldwell said the CVS-Aetna merger was unlikely to affect the company’s performance in the next year or two, and noted that “ESRX’s early tone on 2019 renewal and selling season was positive.” In addition, new drug price data shows that U.S. drug spending increased at a rate below the increase in overall health care spend, Coldwell said, which “may soften anti-PBM rhetoric, for now.” The company’s divestiture of United BioSource is also positive, he said, because it eliminates a possible conflict of interest between the payers Express Scripts contracts with and UBC’s drugmaker clients. Express Scripts shares have risen 13.8% over the last three months, compared with a 6.8% rise in the S&P 500 and a 10% rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average .

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