Tag: stock market

Frontier Group Holdings Inc. , parent of Frontier Airlines, filed to go public Friday. The company filed for an offering of $100 million, which is likely a placeholder amount. Frontier reported net income of $200 million in 2016, up from $146 million. It reported total operating revenue of $1.7 billion in 2016, up from $1.6 billion in 2015. Frontier had filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and came out of bankruptcy in October 2009 after it was acquired by a subsidiary of Republic Airways Holdings Inc. Indigo Partners LLC acquired the company in 2013. Citigroup, Deutsche Bank Securities, Evercore ISI and J.P. Morgan are the lead underwriters on the offering.

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The tech-heavy Nasdaq closed short of another record Friday while the Dow industrials and S&P 500 finished lower, but all three finished higher for the week and the quarter. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 65.27 points, or 0.3%, to finish at 20,663.22, led lower by shares of Exxon Mobil Corp. and DuPont . For the week, the Dow finished up 0.3%, but 0.7% lower for the month, while notching a 4.6% gain for the quarter. The S&P 500 index closed down 5.34 points, or 0.2%, at 2,362.72, with financial and telecom stocks weighing on the index. The S&P 500 closed up 0.8% for the week, down less than 0.1% for the month, and up 5.5% for the quarter. The Nasdaq Composite index finished down 2.61 points, or less than 0.1%, at 5,911.74, snapping a five-session streak of gains. The Nasdaq rose 1.4% for the week, 1.5% for the month, and nearly 10% for the quarter.

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With about an hour left in the session, the stocks of Apple Inc. and Boeing Co. can be thanked the most for the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s rally for the first three months of 2017, as they accounted for more than one-third of the Dow’s 918-point gain for the quarter. Apple’s stock rose $27.93, or 24%, during the quarter, to add about 191 points to the Dow, while and Boeing shares climbed $21.50, or 14%, to boost the Dow by 147 points. Rounding out the top 5, 3M Co. added 89 points to the Dow, Home Depot Inc. tacked on 87 points and Visa Inc. added 76 points. The biggest loser was Chevron Corp.’s stock which fell $10.33, or 8.8%, during the quarter to shave 71 points off the Dow. The next-biggest drag was Goldman Sachs Group Inc. shares , which shed $9.67, or 4%, to lower the Dow by 66 points. In all, 23 of the 30 Dow components contributed to the Dow’s gain.

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Oil futures settled higher Friday, with West Texas Intermediate crude ending at its highest level in more than three weeks, but prices fell for the quarter. Traders continued to question the sustainability of the OPEC-led production cut and prospects for U.S. output growth. May West Texas Intermediate crude rose 25 cents, or 0.5%, to settle at $50.60 a barrel for the session. For the quarter, prices lost 5.8%, based on the most-active contract’s settlement on Dec. 30.

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Cloudera Inc. filed for an initial public offering Friday, as the data-crunching software company looks for a payoff on its $4.1 billion private valuation. The filing arrives amid a resurgence in IPOs from venture-backed tech companies, especially in the enterprise sector. Cloudera, founded in 2008, publicly filed its prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday with a stated target of raising $200 million, which is likely a placeholder figure that will be updated in later filings. The company said it lost $187.3 million on revenue of $261 million in its most recent fiscal year, which ended Jan. 31, an improvement from the previous fiscal year, when Cloudera lost $203.1 million on sales of $166 million. The company has raised $670 million in venture funding, according to The Wall Street Journal, receiving a $4.1 billion valuation in its most recent round, in 2014. Intel Corp. has been a frequent investor in the tech startup and owns 22% of the company ahead of the offering, according to the prospectus. Other investors with significant stakes are Accel, with 16.3%, and Greylock Partners, with 12.5%. Cloudera plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol CLDR, and listed Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan and Allen & Co. as lead underwriters.

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Gold prices on Friday posted a modest gain as the dollar traded near break-even levels, offering the dollar-denominated commodity a path to climb. June gold ended up $3.20, or 0.3%, at $1,251.20 an ounce. For the week, the yellow metal, finished up 0.2%, but off 0.2% for the month. For the first three months of 2017, gold prices enjoyed a roughly 8.2% advance. A combination of expectations of rising inflation, which is supportive of gold futures–viewed as a hedge against rising consumer prices–and a tapering of a postelection rally in assets perceived as risky, sparked by President Donald Trump’s market-friendly campaign pledges, helped to give the shiny metal a lift. On the day, the dollar’s recent rebound, fueled in part by expectations of monetary-policy normalization by the Federal Reserve, pulled back, with the ICE U.S. Dollar Index flat at 100.38. On the week, the dollar gauge, which tracks the buck’s strength against a basket of six rival currencies, was up 0.6%. A stronger dollar can be a headwind for assets priced in the currency, making them more expensive to users of other monetary units.

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Oil futures were up slightly Friday after data showed the number of U.S. oil rigs rose again this week. The U.S. oil rig count rose by 10 to 662 this week, oilfield services firm Baker Hughes reported Friday. The oil-rig count has risen every week this year but one. West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange was up 8 cents, or 0.2%, at $50.43 a barrel, little changed from its level ahead of the data. Oil is on track for a 5% weekly climb but is down nearly 7% for the month, weighed by concerns over rising U.S. output and uncertainty over the durability of an agreement by other major producers to curb production.

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Soybean futures fell Friday, poised for a their lowest settlement since October after the U.S. Department of Agriculture said prospective plantings of the crop are likely to reach a record this year. Soybean planted area for 2017 is estimated at a record high of 89.5 million acres, up 7% from last year, according to the USDA’s Prospective Plantings report. The report showed that farmers are “signaling their intentions to plant more soybean acres than ever before,” said Sal Gilbertie, president and chief investment officer at Teucrium Trading LLC. “But those new soybean acres are being added at the expense of corn acres, which is sending corn prices higher by more than 1% post report,” he said. Gilbertie also noted that wheat farmers “intend to plant the lowest number of wheat acres,” based on records from the USDA. May soybeans traded at $9.505 a bushel in Chicago, down 1.3%. Prices have been trading around a five-month low for the past week. May corn was at $3.64 a bushel, up 1.9%. May wheat rose 2.2% to $4.30 a bushel.

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Shares of Biogen Inc. rose Friday, while Forward Pharma A/S shares were halted after falling almost 20%, after Biogen was reported to have won a patent ruling. The U.S. Patent Office ruled in favor of Biogen in a patent interference proceeding related to its multiple sclerosis drug Tecfidera, according to Evercore ISI analyst Umer Raffat. Biogen paid Forward Pharma $1.25 billion in February related to the patent that covers ways of treating MS patients. Raffat said Biogen would have been on the hook for royalty payments of about $300 million annually starting in 2021, if it had lost the patent ruling. Biogen shares were up 1.2% Friday, but have gained just 4% year-to-date, while the S&P 500 has gained almost 6%.

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Car rental stocks got a shot in the arm Friday, when MKM Partners said negative sentiment on the sector has swung too far. MKM analysts listed four factors to support its thesis, including what it called a “major disconnect” between car rental and other travel stocks as its relates to expectations for travel trends. Travel stocks, such has hotels, timeshare, cruise and airline stocks, have gained since the November presidential election, on expectations that corporate travel is set for a rebound. Hotel stocks, for example, have climbed 28% since the election, while car rental stocks have slumped. MKM further believes used car fundamentals are better than the market is assuming, noting January and February are always tough months to extrapolate fleet cost changes because volumes are low and this year, tax refunds have been delayed. Avis Budget Group Inc. stock is currently trading at a free cash flow yield of close to 20% and historically, 16% is a good entry point, the analysts wrote. And pricing trends are set to reach an inflection point in April and set up well for the summer period. Avis shares were up 0.1%, after falling nearly 20% in the year to date. Hertz Global Holdings Inc. rose 1.5%, after a 17% decline in the year so far. The S&P 500 has gained about 6% year-to-date.

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