Tag: stock market

Apple Inc.’s stock inched up 0.1% in morning trade Friday, to sit just below of Wednesday’s record close of $144.12, after Canaccord Genuity boosted its price target, given his optimism regarding the technology giant’s upcoming iPhone 8. Analyst Michael Walkley, who rates the stock a buy, raised his price target to $165, which is about 15% above current levels, from $154. “Given our expectations for compelling new features and form factors for the iPhone 8 products, we are raising our estimates given our expectations for stronger upgrade sales to the loyal iPhone consumer base,” Walkley wrote in a note to clients. “We also believe the impressive installed base should drive strong iPhone replacement sales and earnings, as well as cash flow generation to fund strong long-term capital returns.” The iPhone is expected to be released in September. Apple shares have soared 24% year to date, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average has tacked on 4.7%.

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Shares of Amazon.com Inc. rallied 1.1% toward a third-straight record high, and fifth-straight gain, after a Loop Capital issued a bullish research note on the e-commerce giant. The stock has now run up 4.8% this week, and over 18% so far this year, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index has climbed 12% year to date and the S&P 500 has gained 5.7%. Analyst Blake Harper at Loop Capital initiated coverage of Amazon at buy, on the belief Amazon will continue to be the market-leading online retailer and cloud-based services provider. He set his stock price target of $1,100, which is 24% above current levels, and the third highest of the 46 analysts surveyed by FactSet. “We view the company as a giant optimization engine for physical and digital distribution, with an innovation philosophy that should enable it to succeed in multiple new markets,” Harper wrote in a note to clients. “We expect the cloud business–Amazon Web Services (AWS)–to be spun off in the future, with a potential value of over $200 billion.”

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AT&T Inc.’s focus on unlimited data plans appears to have hurt first-quarter results more than previously expected, said analyst Jeffrey Kvaal at Instinet, who responded by trimming his stock price target and his 2017 earnings forecasts. Kvaal said the elimination of overage fees, combined with more promotional activity, has lowered the average-revenue-per-user (ARPU) trajectory for the company, as well as its rivals. He cut his stock price target to $45 from $46 and his 2017 adjusted EPS estimate to $2.92 from $2.98. The FactSet EPS consensus is $2.94. “We believe AT&T is aggressively pushing unlimited. With the elimination of overage fees and plan optimization, service revenue will most likely not return to growth until 4Q at the earliest,” Kvaal wrote in a research note. He kept AT&T’s rating at buy, however, saying he preferred the company to its peers given its “relatively lesser exposure to wireless.” AT&T’s stock edged up 0.1% in morning trade, while shares of Verizon Communications Inc. slipped 0.1% and of T-Mobile US Inc. and of Spring Corp. were little changed. The S&P 500 eased 0.1%.

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U.S. stocks opened slightly lower on Friday, as investors found few reasons to keep pushing shares higher following an extended rally that has taken major equities to repeated records, including a record close for the Nasdaq on Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2% to 20,689. The S&P 500 dropped 0.2% to 2,364. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost 0.2% to 5,904. All three are set for solid gains for the first quarter, and the Dow is on track to post its sixth straight quarterly gain, the longest such streak since 2006. However, the blue-chip average, unlike the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, will post a weekly decline at current levels. Among the most active stocks, BlackBerry Ltd. gained 8.5% after giving a positive outlook.

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Goldman Sachs downgraded Diageo Plc stock to sell from neutral on Friday, and said it expects slowing U.S. spirits growth and pricing pressure to rein in growth. In the last three months, U.S. spirits value growth has slowed to 3% from 5% in the 2016 calendar year, analysts wrote in a note. While some of the factors behind the slowdown may be temporary ones, such as delayed tax refunds, price/mix has been slowing since late 2015, they wrote. “Diageo’s price/mix appears to have followed a similar path (now below the market) and yet it has underperformed US growth by 250 basis points (3m average),” said the note. “With the US forming 31% of fiscal 2016 sales, we believe Diageo’s medium-term target of mid-single-digit organic sales growth will be difficult to achieve (GSe: 2.6%, FY17-19), despite better global scotch and emerging market growth.” Diageo shares were down about 1% in London but are up 8% in the year so far. The FTSE 100 has gained 3% in the year to date and the S&P 500 has gained almost 6%.

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Verizon Communications Inc. said Friday it is changing its operating structure to focus on three areas, media and telematics, network and technology and customer and product operations. As part of the new structure, the telecoms company is hiring former Ericsson Chief Executive Hans Vestberg as executive vice president for the network and technology team. He will initially be based in Sweden and report to Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam. Marni Walden is EVP for media and telematics and John Stratton will head up customer and product operations. The media and telematics business will house the assets of Yahoo, giving Verizon more than 1.3 billion digital media users, generating $7 billion of revenue. The structure “will give us greater organizational agility to continue to lead the market with our wireless and fiber services, scale and expand our media and telematics businesses, and maintain the leadership in network reliability and new technology that is a Verizon trademark,” said McAdam. Shares were flat premarket, but are down 8% in the year so far, while the S&P 500 has gained almost 6%.

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Shares of FMC Corp. soared 11% toward a near 3-year high in premarket trade Friday, after the agricultural company announced a deal to buy a part of DuPont & Co.’s crop protection business. The stock is on track to open at the highest level since July 2014, and on pace to post the biggest one-day percentage gain since November 2008. FMC said the deal with DuPont, which includes FMC paying $1.2 billion and swapping its health and nutrition business, will make it the fifth-largest crop protection company in the world. FMC’s stock has rallied 8.7% year to date through Thursday and 52% over the past 12 months, while the S&P 500 has gained 15% over the past year.

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TRC Companies Inc. announced Friday a deal to be acquired by New Mountain Partners IV in a deal that values the construction management firm at about $554.6 million. Under terms of the deal, New Mountain, a fund managed by New York’s New Mountain Capital, will pay $17.55 a share in cash for each TRC share outstanding, representing a 47% premium to Thursday’s closing price of $11.95. TRC has about 31.6 million shares outstanding, according to FactSet. “This transaction will deliver immediate value to our shareholders while enabling TRC to continue to pursue its long-term growth strategy,” said TRC Chief Executive Chris Vincze. “We are confident this partnership with New Mountain Capital represents the best path forward for all of TRC’s stakeholders.” The stock, which was halted for news, has rallied 13% year to date, while the S&P 500 has gained 5.8%.

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Apple Inc. [s:AAPL] on Friday advanced its global fight to prevent banks from introducing their own mobile payment services on Apple devices after an Australian regulator barred lenders from bargaining collectively for access, Reuters and other media outlets reported. The banks had hoped to circumvent transaction fees and get customers to engage more frequently with their own apps, over Apple Wallet on the iPhone and Apple Watch. The banks were hoping to unlock more of Australia’s contactless payment market valued at an estimated $84 billion a year. Apple does not allow any of its 3,500 bank partners in 15 global markets access to the near-field communication (NFC) technology behind its payment system. Apple shares were down 0.3% in premarket trading Friday.

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Shares of BlackBerry Ltd. surged 4.2% in premarket trade Friday, after the mobile communications company reported a surprise fiscal fourth-quarter adjusted profit. For the quarter to Feb. 28, the net loss narrowed to $47 million, or 10 cents a share, from $238 million, or 45 cents a share, in the same period a year ago. Excluding non-recurring items, adjusted earnings per share came to 4 cents, while the FactSet consensus was for a breakeven quarter. Revenue fell to $286 million from $464 million, while revenue on an adjusted basis was $297 million. The FactSet revenue consensus was $288 million. Revenue from software and services totaled $166 million and from mobility solutions was $82 million. For the current fiscal year, BlackBerry said it expects to profitable on an adjusted basis and generate positive free cash flow. “In the quarter, we continued to grow our mix of software and services revenue across the company,” said Chief Executive John Chen. “In turn, this allowed us to expand our operating margin and report positive free cash flow.” The stock has gained 0.9% year to date through Thursday, while the S&P 500 has gained 5.8%.

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