Tag: stock market

Large-capitalization bank stocks were broadly lower in premarket trade Wednesday, as the resignation of Gary Cohn, who was the head of President Donald Trump’s National Economic Council, spooked investors. In premarket trade, shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. fell 1.4%; Cohn is a former Goldman executive. Elsewhere, shares of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. lost 0.8%, Bankd of America Copr. dropped 0.8%, Citigroup Inc. slid 0.8%, Wells Fargo & Co. gave up 1.0% and the SPDR Financial Select Sector ETF declined 0.8%. The broad-market selloff, with Dow industrials futures down 214 points, or 0.9%, has led to a decline in Treasury yields as investors moved into safe-haven Treasurys; lower Treasury yields can undercut banks’ profits as the spread the banks earn from the spread between longer-term assets, like loans, and short-term liabilities narrows.

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U.S. stocks look poised to fall on Wednesday following news late Tuesday that National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn ihas resigned from President Donald Trump’s administration in the coming weeks. Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive, was seen as a level head within the administration and one of the chief architects of Wall Street-friendly corporate tax cuts signed into law late last year. Speculation about Cohn exiting the White House following Trump’s reaction to violence at a white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in August similarly roiled markets. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down about 200 points, or 0.9%, at 24,628, while those for the S&P 500 were down 0.6% at 2,707. Cohn’s planned departure comes amid turmoil in the White House over Trump’s plan to implement tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, which Cohn has opposed, arguing that it could undercut the Trump’s economic achievements, according to reports. The loss of Cohn is viewed by some on Wall Street as a headwind to the president’s pro-business agenda and underlines ongoing turmoil in the White House, highlighted by a parade of departing officials.

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Shares of all 30 Dow Jones Industrial Average components fell in premarket trade Wednesday, led by selloffs in Caterpillar Inc.’s and Boeing Co.’s stocks, as the resignation of Gary Cohn cast a pall on the broader market. Dow futures slumped 268 points. Shares of Caterpillar shed 2.2%, and were on track to shave about 24 points off the Dow’s price, while Boeing’s stock lost 1.8% to put it on track to shave about 44 points off the Dow. The most-active stocks were Apple Inc. , which shed 0.9%, and Intel Corp.’s , which lost 1.1%. The best performer was Coca-Cola Co. shares , which were down just 0.6%.

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Esperion Therapeutics Inc. announced positive results Wednesday from a late-stage trial of a treatment for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, a condition involving a build-up of sticky cholesterol-rich plaque that can cause heart attack or stroke. Esperion said the phase 3 trial of bempedoic acid for patients with elevated low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) met its primary endpoint of LDL-C lowering. “Patients treated with bempedoic acid also achieved a significantly greater reduction of 33 percent in high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP), an important marker of the underlying inflammation associated with cardiovascular disease, compared to the placebo group which had an increase of two percent (p

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Abercrombie & Fitch shares rose 6.8% in Wednesday premarket trading after the retailer reported fourth-quarter earnings and sales that beat expectations. Net income for the quarter was $74.2 million, or $1.05 per share, up from $48.8 million, or 71 cents per share, for the same period last year. Adjusted EPS was $1.38, beating the $1.10 FactSet consensus. Sales were $1.19 billion, up from $1.04 billion last year and ahead of the $1.16 billion FactSet consensus. Same-store sales grew 9%, with Hollister up 11% and the namesake brand up 5% for the quarter. The FactSet consensus was for 7.7% growth. Abercrombie & Fitch forecasts fiscal 2018 same-store sales and sales growth in the low-single digits. The FactSet consensus is for same-store sales growth of 1.8% and sales of $4.46 billion, up from $3.49 billion this year. Abercrombie & Fitch shares are up 82.2% for the last year while the S&P 500 index is up 15.2% for the period.

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Shares of Dollar Tree Inc. plunged 9.0% in premarket trade Wednesday, after the discount retailer reported fiscal fourth-quarter profit, revenue and same-store sales that missed expectations. Net income for the quarter to Feb. 3 more than tripled to $1.04 billion, or $4.37 a share, from $321.8 million, or $1.36 a share, in the same period a year ago, as the recent tax legislation included a $562 million non-cash benefit. Excluding non-recurring items, adjusted earnings per share came to $1.89, below the FactSet consensus of $1.90. Revenue rose 12.9% to $6.36 billion, just shy of the FactSet consensus of $6.40 billion. Same-store sales rose 2.4%, while adjusted same-store sales increased 2.5%, helped by increases in average ticket and transaction count, but that missed the FactSet consensus of a 2.9% rise. For the fiscal first quarter, Dollar Tree expects revenue of $5.53 billion to $5.63 billion, which surrounds the FactSet consensus of $5.60 billion, and projects same-store sales to increase in the low single-digit percentage range, compared with expectations of 2.7% growth. The stock has lost 2.8% over the past three months through Tuesday, while the SPDR S&P Retail ETF has gained 4.0% and the S&P 500 has tacked on 3.5%.

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S&P Global said Wednesday it has entered a $1 billion accelerated share buyback with Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC. The deal is expected to be completed in the third quarter. The credit rating agency said it will use cash on hand to fund the deal. Shares were not yet active premarket, but have gained 46% in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 has gained 15%.

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Fortive Corp. announced Wednesday a deal to combine four operating units from its automation and specialty platform with Altra Industrial Motion Corp. for total consideration of about $3 billion. The consideration includes $1.4 billion in cash and debt reduction for Fortive, and 35 million newly issued Altra shares valued at about $1.6 billion. Under terms of the deal, Fortive will create a subsidiary to hold the A&S platform and will distribute ownership of that subsidiary to Fortive shareholders, which will be followed by a merger of the subsidiary with a subsidiary of Alta. After the deal’s closing, which is expected by the end of 2018, Fortive will have the right to designate one member of Altra’s board of directors. Shares of both companies are inactive in premarket trade. Over the past three months, Fortive’s stock has gained 2.1%, Altra shares have shed 7.3% and the S&P 500 has gained 3.5%.

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The Trump administration is considering a broad range of import tariffs on Chinese goods, according to a Bloomberg report citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter. Under the most severe scenario being considered, the U.S. government would levy tariffs on items that range from shoes and clothing to consumer electronics, the report said. The administration is also weighing clamping down on Chinese investments in the U.S. as it aims to respond to claims that Beijing is engaging in intellectual-property theft, according to the report. Concerns about a possible global trade war have been intensifying due to President Donald Trump’s plan to introduce tariffs on steel and aluminum imports and due to the resignation of Gary Cohn, who had been a pro-trade White House adviser. U.S. stock futures were trading sharply lower early Wednesday.

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U.S. stock futures were under pressure early Wednesday, in a move triggered hours earlier after the resignation of Gary Cohn, the White House National Economic Council director. Dow futures’s: ymh8] fell 400 points late Tuesday as that news reached traders. Those futures were down 377 points, or 1.5%, to 24,475 on Wednesday, with S&P 500 futures dropping 34.90 points, or 1.3%, to 2,688.75. Nasdaq-100 futures tumbled 85 points, or 1.2%, to 6,822.25. Other perceived riskier assets, such as oil, came under pressure as well. April crude futures dropped 55 cents, or 0.9%, to $62.05 a barrel. Cohn’s resignation comes days after U.S. President Donald Trump announced tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, a move which the economic advisor had opposed. “With Cohn’s steadying influence no longer steering economic policy in the Trump administration, in addition to Trump’s recommitment to his nationalist trade agenda, market participants are growing increasingly nervous of where the Trump administration is going,” said Jasper Lawler, head of research at London Capital Group, in a note to clients. The ICE Dollar Index fell 0.1% to 89.482. Asian markets were also lower across the board on Wednesday.

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