Tag: stock market

Shares of Yuma Energy Inc. rose more than 5% late Wednesday after the energy company said it had entered an agreement with two privately held companies to develop more than 33,000 acres in West Texas’s Permian Basin and acquired a working interest in additional acreage. Yuma is the operator and it plans to spud the first well this year. Shares ended the regular session up 0.9%.

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Applied Optoelectronics Inc. said Wednesday that its quarterly earnings will exceed guidance as a booming market for optical-networking equipment continues to flourish, sending shares zooming higher in late trading. The Texas company said that revenue for the first quarter will come in around $96.2 million, higher than the forecast of $87 million to $91 million, and earnings will be in a range of 92 cents to 94 cents a share. Adjusted profit of $1 to $1.02 a share will exceed Applied’s forecast of 80 cents to 88 cents a share, the company announced. “Our results were driven by continued robust demand for our market-leading datacenter products and solid execution,” Chief Executive Thompson Lin said in a news release. Applied Optoelectronics plans to release its full earnings report on May 4. Shares jumped more than 18% to top $48 in after-hours action after being halted ahead of the announcement.

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Shares of Pier 1 Imports Inc. fell more than 4% late Wednesday after the retailer posted fourth-quarter earnings above expectations but falling quarterly sales, and said it expected flat to slightly negative sales growth in the first quarter. Pier 1 said it earned $26.6 million, or 33 cents a share, in the quarter, compared with $18.7 million in the year-ago period. Adjusted for one-time items, the retailer earned 34 cents a share. Sales fell 2.6% to $528.4 million. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected adjusted earnings of 33 cents a share on revenue of $529 million. Shares ended the regular trading session down 0.1%.

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The dollar tumbled Wednesday afternoon after President Donald Trump said during an interview with The Wall Street Journal that the greenback is “getting too strong.” The U.S. currency touched a fresh five-month low against the yen, trading as low as 109.13 yen after the interview was published. By comparison, it traded at 109.62 yen late Tuesday in New York. The euro traded at $1.0658, compared with $1.0604 late Tuesday. The pound strengthened to $1.2524, compared with $1.2491. In the interview, Trump said the dollar’s post-election rise was partially his fault “because people have confidence in me.” He added that “it’s very, very hard to compete when you have a strong dollar and other countries are devaluing their currency.” Trump also said he wouldn’t label China a currency manipulator because it hasn’t been manipulating its currency for months and because it could jeopardize his talks with Beijing about containing North Korea. This isn’t the first time Trump has discussed his views on the dollar with The Wall Street Journal: He made similar remarks in an interview published shortly before the inauguration. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin later told the WSJ that dollar strength was “a good thing.”

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United Continental Holdings, parent of United Airlines will reimburse passengers who were on flight 3411 Sunday, where a man was dragged off the plane, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The reimbursement will cover the cost of the ticket. The move comes after a viral video surfaced showing a man being dragged off the plane by law enforcement after he refused to give up his seat on the overbooked flight. Shares of United Continental were down 1% Wednesday afternoon.

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U.S. stocks fell to session lows on Wednesday after a news conference between Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov indicated a strained relationship between the two countries, which added to the market’s geopolitical uncertainty.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.3% to 20,587. The S&P 500 lost 0.4% to 2,344. The Nasdaq Composite Index shed 0.5% to 5,837. Tensions have been growing ever since the White House accused Russia of trying to cover up the suspected chemical weapon attack in Syria, though Trump has said the U.S. isn’t headed for a ground war in that country. The day’s losses were broad, with eight of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors falling on the day. Materials and industrials were the biggest drags, with both down more than 1.2%. Exchange-traded funds tied to the Russian equity market also fell in midday trading. Both the iShares MSCI Russia Capped ETF and the VanEck Vectors Russia ETF lost 1.5% on the day. The iShares fund is down 8.2% thus far this year. In currencies, the ruble traded at 56.74 to the dollar, compared with 56.92 late Tuesday, a move of 0.3%.

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The U.S. ran a $176 billion deficit in March, the U.S. Treasury said Wednesday. The Treasury said outlays climbed during the month because the normal payment date of April 1 fell on a non-business day. For the fiscal year, the deficit has widened to $526.9 billion from 459.4 billion.

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Shares of PepsiCo Inc. were up 1.3% midday Wednesday after the stock was upgraded to neutral from positive at Susquehanna on the thesis that it will be the target of a joint buyout bid from Kraft-Heinz and Anheuser-Busch . The Pepsi brand has been troubled by a controversial Kendall Jenner commercial, which it later pulled, as well as a new, alternative low calorie cola and flip-flopping on aspartame-sweetened drinks, said Pablo Zuanic, lead analyst on the report. “All paint a picture of a company still struggling to set a new direction,” he wrote. He increased the price target to $132 to $118. Shares of Pepsi have gained 3% in the past month, while the S&P 500 has lost 1%.

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Jude Law will take on the iconic role of Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore in Warner Bros.’s “Fantastic Beasts” sequel, which is slated to come out on Nov. 16, 2018. The Time Warner Inc.-owned film studio announced on Wednesday the two-time Oscar nominee will join the “Harry Potter”-based film franchise as a younger Dumbledore decades before he becomes headmaster. “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” released last November, brought in $813.2 million worldwide at the box office, which is below the $965.4 million the films in the “Harry Potter” franchise averaged. Principal photography on the “Fantastic Beasts” sequel, which is the second of five planned films, begins this summer. Shares of Time Warner are up more than 2% in the year to date, while the S&P 500 index has gained nearly 5% this year.

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Oil futures extended gains Wednesday after data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed that domestic crude supplies fell by 2.2 million barrels for the week ended April 7. The American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday reported a 1.3 million-barrel decline, according to sources, while analysts polled by S&P Global Platts forecast a climb of 125,000 barrels. Gasoline supplies also declined by 3 million barrels, while distillate stockpiles were down by 2.2 million barrels last week, according to the EIA. May crude rose 13 cents, or 0.2%, to $53.54 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was trading at $53.46 before the supply data.

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