Tag: stock market

J.C. Penney Co. Inc. said Monday that 50 additional salon locations will be rebranded to The Salon by Instyle this year, as it continues to overhaul its 750 salons across the U.S. The retailer said it is currently renovating the salons and will debut the new concept this summer. The company has also introduced online booking and a mobile app. Shares were not yet active premarket, but are down 29% in 2017 so far, while the S&P 500 has gained 5%.

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Sunoco LP was upgraded to outperform from neutral at Baird Monday based on Sunoco’s planned divestiture of 1,110 convenience stores, which is the majority of its real estate portfolio. Sunoco plans to divest the stores to 7-Eleven in a $3.3 billion transaction that is expected to close in the fourth quarter. The analysts increased their price target to $36 from $28. The analysts say the divestiture puts Sunoco on a good path to cover its distribution and they see it as the beginning of a “roll-up” of Sun to Energy Transfer Partners . Shares of Sunoco have gained 23% in the past month, while the S&P 500 has lost 1%.

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Lennar Corporation said Monday that it recorded a one-time litigation charge of $140 million, relating to a property case from 2008, meaning the company has to restate its first quarter earnings. Lennar had previously stated first quarter net earnings of $130.8 million or 56 per diluted share on March 21 and now says first quarter net earnings are $38.1 million or 16 cents per diluted share. Since its earnings release, the company had a hearing in the court of appeals for a case dating back to 2008 over whether the company was required to purchase a property in Maryland. The $140 million charge includes the company’s estimate of fair value for the property. Shares of Lennar have fallen 4% in the past month, compared to the S&P 500’s loss of 1%.

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Knight Transportation Inc. and Swift Transportation Co. said Monday they are merging in an all-stock deal with a combined enterprise value of $6 billion. The combined entity will be called Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc. and will trade under the ticker “KNX”, the companies said in a joint statement. The deal “combines under common ownership two long-standing industry leaders creating North America’s premier truckload transportation company with $5 billion in annual revenue and a “Top 5″ truckload presence in dry van, refrigerated, dedicated, cross-border Mexico and Canada, and a significant presence in brokerage and intermodal,” said the statement. The company will remain headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona with about 23,000 tractors, 77,000 trailers and 28,000 employees. Under terms of the deal, each Swift share will convert into 0.72 shares of Knight-Swift via a reverse stock split. Each share of Knight will be exchanged for one Knight-Swift share. The deal is expected to boost adjusted per-share earnings in the second half of 2017, adding about $15 million, followed by $100 million in 2018 and $150 million in 2019. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter, Knight shares rose 0.5% in premarket trade, while Swift shares were not yet active.

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Barclays PLC has reprimanded its chief executive, Jes Staley, and will dock his bonus after he broke rules by attempting to identify a whistleblower, the bank said Monday. U.K. regulators the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority are investigating Barclays and Staley over their responsibilities in the incident, the bank said in a statement. In June 2016, Staley asked the Barclays’s information security team to try to identify the anonymous sender of a letter that raised concerns about a senior bank employee, which Staley regarded as an unfair attack, an investigation by the bank found. “The Board believes that its response to the matter should be proportionate to its serious nature. It will therefore be issuing a formal written reprimand to Mr. Staley and has decided that a very significant compensation adjustment will be made to Mr. Staley’s variable compensation award,” Barclays said in its statement. It will determine the amount of the adjustment once the FCA and PRA have ended their investigations.

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Biohaven Pharmaceutical Holding Co. is looking to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing late Friday. The biotech drug developer specializes in drugs for neurological diseases with product candidate rimegepant expected to begin late-stage clinical trials for the treatment of migraines in the second half of 2017. Biohaven also expects early 2018 clinical-trial results for its drug trigriluzole for the treatment of ataxia, a condition where sufferers lose control of voluntary body movements. With no revenue, Biohaven reported a loss of $63.7 million, or $5.05 a share, in 2016. Morgan Stanley, Piper Jaffray, and Barclays are listed among the underwriters. The company plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “BHVN”.

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The federal government ran a budget deficit of $173 billion in March, the Congressional Budget Office estimated Friday, an increase of $65 billion from the same month a year ago. Receipts fell 5% as collection of corporate income taxes dropped due to a change in filing deadlines, CBO said. Spending increased by $55 billion as outlays on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security all rose.

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President Donald Trump has nominated Kevin Hassett, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, as chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, according to a statement released late Friday. The nomination had been expected. Hassett is most known for coauthoring a book forecasting the Dow reaching 36,000 just months before the dot-com bubble burst. He’s also advised several Republican presidential candidates.

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U.S. stocks closed fractionally lower on Friday in the wake of a U.S. airstrike in Syria and weak jobs data. The U.S. launched nearly 60 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian air base, marking the first large scale military operation by President Donald Trump. The Labor Department data also showed that the U.S. created only 98,000 new jobs in March, the smallest gain in nearly a year. Stocks had rebounded during the session to trade higher but failed to digest the selling pressure that emerged toward closing bell. The S&P 500 shed a point to close at 2,353. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 6 points to end at 20,656 while the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped a point to finish at 5,877.

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Shares of generic drug company Akorn Inc. rallied 20% Friday, after Bloomberg reported that Germany’s Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA is mulling a bid. Bloomberg said the two companies are in talks, but have not reached a final decision. Akorn shares have gained 38% in 2017 so far, while the S&P 500 has gained 5%.

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