Tag: stock market

Shares of Under Armour Inc. soared 8.3% in morning trade Friday toward a 1 1/2-month high, after the athletic apparel and accessories maker was upgraded at Stifel Nicolaus, citing signs that margins are set to improve next year. Analyst Jim Duffy raised his rating to buy, after being at hold the past 14 months, and boosted his stock price target to $17 from $12. He said that while margins may remained pressured in the first half of 2018 given inventory clearance, but he believes investors are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. “With evidence of improving sales quality and cost structure management, we expect the stock begins to anticipated structural capacity for margin improvement before it shows in reported results,” Duffy wrote in a note to clients. The stock has now rocketed 29% since it closed at a 5 1/2-year low of $11.61 on Nov. 3. It was still down 49% year to date, while shares of rival Nike Inc. have run up 28% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average has climbed 25%.

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President Donald Trump said Friday the final Republican tax bill contains a “tremendous” child tax credit, and that it’s “increasing on a daily basis.” He did not elaborate but his comments follow statements by Sen. Marco Rubio, who has said he can only support the bill if it contains a more-generous child tax credit. The text of the bill is expected to be released late Friday afternoon. Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump also said he didn’t want to talk “yet” about pardoning Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser.

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U.S. stock indexes opened higher Friday as investors shrugged off concerns over potential roadblocks to the tax bill. The Dow and S&P are set to notch their fourth week of gains. The S&P 500 rose 8 points, or 0.3%, to 2661. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 138 points, or 0.5%, to 24647. The Nasdaq Composite Index added 26 points, or 0.4%, to 3882.

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Shares of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. rallied 3.5% in premarket trade Friday, after the drug maker announced the exclusive launch of generic Viread 1 tablets (300 milligrams) in the U.S. The rally comes a day after the company said it would cut 14,000 jobs, or more than a quarter of its workforce, which sent the stock down 4.5%. Teva said tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (Viread) tablets are used in combination with other agents to treat HIV-1 in adults and pediatric patients, and are also indicated for the treatment of hepatitis B. Viread is Gilead Sciences Inc.’s product, and had sales of $274 million in the quarter ended Sept. 30, down from $303 million a year ago. Gilead’s stock was little changed ahead of the open. Teva’s stock has tumbled 52.3% year to date through Thursday, while Gilead shares have gained 3.8%, the SPDR S&P Pharmaceuticals ETF has climbed 11.0% and the S&P 500 has run up 18.5%.

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MGM Growth Properties LLC said Friday it will raise its quarterly cash dividend on Class A shares to 42 cents a share, up 6.3% from 39.5 cents a share. The new dividend will be payable Jan. 16 to shareholders of record on Dec. 29. Based on the real estate investment trust’s Thursday stock closing price of $29.10, the new annual dividend rate of $1.68 would imply a dividend yield of 5.77%, compared with the SPDR Real Estate Select Sector ETF’s implied yield of 3.80%. MGM Growth’s stock, which was still inactive in premarket trad, has rallied 15.0% year to date, while the REIT ETF has gained 7.6% and the S&P 500 has climbed 18.5%.

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Shares of Costco Wholesale Corp. shot up 2.9% toward record territory in premarket trade Friday, after the warehouse-club retailer’s better-than-expected fiscal first-quarter results triggered a slew of price-target increases by Wall Street analysts. Of the 30 analysts surveyed by FactSet, 15 have raised their price targets. That raised the average target to $191.93 from $179.09 at the end of November. RBC Capital analyst Scot Ciccarelli raised his target to $202 from $191 and reiterated his outperform rating. “Costco not only has some of the best foot traffic growth we know of in retail, but is also gaining traction with its own e-commerce initiatives,” Ciccarelli wrote in a note to clients. The stock was trading at $191.85 about 45 minutes before the open, above the Dec. 4 record close of $189.56 and the Dec. 5 intraday record of $191.22. The stock has rallied 16.5% year to date through Thursday, while the SPDR S&P Retail ETF has slipped 0.6% and the S&P 500 has gained 18.5%.

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Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. shares rose 5% in pre-market trade Friday after the company said the Food and Drug Administration has lifted a hold on clinical trials for hemophilia therapy fitusiran. Alnylam said it and the regulator previously agreed on various ways to reduce risk for the trials, and the company expects to get back to dosing patients around the end of the year. In September, Alynlam said that it had suspended fitusiran dosing after a patient had a “fatal thrombotic event” in a phase 2 open-label extension study. (That study, along with a phase 3 trial, are among those that can now continue, the company said.) Alnylam and Sanofi are co-developing and co-commercializing fitusiran. Alnylam shares have surged 62.3% year-to-date, compared with a 18.5% rise in the S&P 500 and a 24% rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average .

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Ripple coins, a popular business-focused cryptocurrency, on Friday surpassed bitcoin cash for the title of third most valued cryptocurrency. According to data and research site, Coinmarketcap.com, a single Ripple token was valued at around 77 cents and has jumped more than 230% this week alone to reach a market value at nearly $31 billion, eclipsing bitcoin cash at $28 billion. Bitcoin cash is a spinoff of core bitcoin that offers transaction processing at larger sizes. Ripple, which offers businesses a chance to use its blockchain technolody, or digital-ledger protocol to banks, has been accelerating in popularity in recent weeks alongside bitcoin’s eye-popping rise. Although it isn’t the first time that Ripple has been the third most popular coin by market value, it is the first time its value has exceeded $30 billion. The crypto asset is behind Ethereum, the second most popular cybercoin at $64 billion and core bitcoin at nearly $300 billion.

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Shares of Fitbit Inc. fell 5.7% in premarket trading Friday after analysts at Stifel Nicolaus downgraded the stock to sell. “With the stock market near all-time highs, no visibility to monetization of healthcare opportunities, and no opportunity for Fitbit to benefit from corporate tax reform, we cannot advocate owning Fitbit shares,” wrote the analysts, led by Jim Duffy. He sees “no sightlines to profitability” unless Fitbit is able to “drastically” reduce costs or generate enough demand for its newer products to compensate for weak interest in basic fitness trackers. Given Fitbit’s gross margins, Duffy thinks the company would need to deliver revenue growth in the mid-teens in order to break even, which he deems a “high hurdle” given estimated holiday performance. Separately, analysts at Morgan Stanley on Thursday pointed to “continued inventory build” for Fitbit’s new Ionic smartwatch and suggested that the company’s older watch, the Blaze, could actually outsell it this holiday season. Fitbit has been trying to appeal more to healthcare businesses so that it can become less reliant on device sales to consumers, but Duffy is skeptical. “While monetization avenues in the digital health space remain conceptually intriguing, realization of the opportunity has been underwhelming to date and there is nothing tangible to point to return on the associated R&D investment spending,” he wrote. He set a price target of $6 on Fitbit shares. The stock is down 6.8% so far in 2017, compared with a 18% gain for the S&P 500 Index .

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The No. 1 cryptocurrency touched a fresh record on Friday after a mostly subdued week, with CME Group Inc. set to follow rival Cboe Global Markets Inc. with a bitccoin futures contract on Sunday. The spot price of a single bitcoin had traded at $17,872.56 earlier, a fresh record peak, according to Coindesk.com. Meanwhile, bitcoin futures for January trading on Cboe were at $18,600, shooting nearly 11% higher after closing at $16,800 on Thursday in New York. Cboe kicked off futures trading of bitcoin, which has hit mainstream popularity, on Sunday 6 p.m. Eastern Time. The CME is expected to follow in two days. So far, bitcoin has soared nearly 1,800%.

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