Tag: stock market

A popular measure of implied volatility on Friday hit its highest level since November, as the likelihood of a key health-care vote came into question. The CBOE Volatility Index, also known as the VIX , , jumped nearly 7% to 14.16 on Friday, pushing it above its 200-day moving average of 13.54 for the first time since December. The spike in the VIX caps six consecutive days of advances in the gauge. The VIX measures market expectations for volatility over the next 30 days. The rise in the “fear gauge” comes as stocks faced choppy afternoon trade, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling by as much as 100 points before recovering some of those losses later. The blue-chip gauge is off 0.1% at 20,635, the S&P 500 is down 0.1% at 2,348, while the Nasdaq Composite Index , bucking the trend, was up 0.4% at 5,842.

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House Speaker Paul Ryan will hold a news conference at 4 p.m. Eastern, his office announced. The event comes as Republicans were planning to vote on their health-care bill Friday afternoon and reports said the bill has been pulled.

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Oil prices settled higher on Friday, as traders waited to hear the outcome of a meeting Sunday of major crude producers to discuss compliance with the output cut deal that was implemented at the start of the year. For the week, however, prices still lost roughly 1.7% as growing U.S. production threatened to offset the impact of the global output cuts. May West Texas Intermediate crude rose 27 cents, or 0.6%, to settle at $47.97 a barrel.

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Gold futures settled higher on Friday to tally a weekly gain of about 1.5%, with uncertainty offering prices a boost ahead of a vote on the U.S. health care bill set for later in the day. The yellow metal also found support as U.S. equities and the dollar looked ready to end the week lower. April gold rose $1.30, or 0.1%, to settle at $1,248.50 an ounce.

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President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan were still meeting at the White House early Friday afternoon to discuss the “way forward” on the Republican health-care bill, press secretary Sean Spicer said. Spicer said a vote was still planned for Friday afternoon. But at least one report said Ryan would tell Trump they did not have the votes.

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House Speaker Paul Ryan is heading to the White House Friday afternoon to meet with President Donald Trump about the planned vote on the American Health Care Act, reports say. Ryan and Trump have been furiously trying to round up support for the bill. A number of House conservatives have come out against it however and the vote is expected to be extremely close. Ryan’s briefing Trump could be a sign that they don’t yet have the required amount of votes.

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The one-off trades that briefly sent Microsoft Corp.’s stock tumbling 12% in premarket trade Friday, and International Business Machine Corp.’s stock plunging 11%, were “correct” trades and will not be erased, a FINRA spokesperson told MarketWatch. The trades were made via the FINRA/Nasdaq Trade Reporting Facility (TRF). “They were both premarket, and both odd lots, and therefore don’t need to be within the National Best Bid and Offer [requirement],” a FINRA spokesperson told MarketWatch. The NBBO is the Securities and Exchange Commission rule that requires brokers to guarantee the best available ask or bid price when the execute trades for customers, according to Nasdaq. In other words, someone is just out of luck, and someone else is feeling very lucky.

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Skechers USA Inc. was upgraded to outperform from market perform at Cowen & Company on the footwear brand’s global growth in the wholesale channel, which analysts think will increase margins and drive earnings and free cash flow expansion. Skechers’ stock price target was raised to $35 from $26. Skechers is the second largest footwear brand in North America behind Nike Inc. , analysts wrote in a Friday note, with particular appeal to the mid-tier and mass markets that are “underserved by competitors.” Cowen analysts estimate that its international business will overtake the domestic business in the next two years. “Skechers is transitioning to an international wholesale-driven model, led by distributor-owned and franchise stores, its Asia joint venture, and distribute franchise stores,” the note said. “International wholesale generates higher gross and operating margin than other channels.” Skechers shares are up 2.4% in Friday trading, but down 7% for the past year. The S&P 500 index is up 15.5% for the last 12 months.

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U.S. financial regulators on Friday pressed four foreign banks to improve their living wills. Barclays PLC , Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and UBS AG were each given until July 2018 to improve their resolution plans, which are intended to map out a strategy so their U.S. operations could be closed under bankruptcy law without taxpayer assistance in the event of an unexpected crisis. At the same time, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said livings wills presented by 16 large U.S. banks would be functional. Only Northern Trust Corp.’s living will had shortcomings that must be addressed in this year’s plan due on Dec. 31.

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Alteryx, Inc. , a provider of self-service data, priced its offering late Thursday at $14, the top of its range, to raise $126 million in its initial public offering. The company sold 9 million shares and the company has granted underwriters the option to buy up to 1.35 million additional shares. Shares are expected to start trading Friday on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “AYX.” Goldman, Sachs & Co and J.P. Morgan Securities were the lead underwriters on the offering.

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