Tag: stock market

U.S. stocks opened marginally lower on Monday as falling oil prices weighed on shares of energy companies. The S&P 500 index shed two points, or 0.1%, to 2,376, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 17 points, or 0.1%, to 20,900. The Nasdaq Composite Index skidded half a point to 5,899. West Texas Intermediate crude for April delivery shed 1.3% to $48.68 a barrel. Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. and Marathon Oil Corp. were down sharply early in the session. U.S.-traded shares of Deutsche Bank AG fell after the German lender issued new shares to raise nearly $9 billion. In other news, Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, who is a voting member of the central bank’s interest-rate-setting committee, said he would support raising interest rates four times in 2017 if inflation accelerates.

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Snap Inc. was initiated Monday at buy, a rare move so far, by James Cakmak of Monness, Crespi, Hardt. Cakmak noted that many critics of the stock are concerned about Snap’s high valuation and see the possibility of Snap falling into “pitfalls” seen by other social media companies. Snap has not yet proven that it can make a profit or create a business outside of its one product, but Cakmak said they believe Snap is well-positioned to do this. “There is substantial execution risk, but we’re prepared to give the benefit of the doubt at this stage,” Cakmak said. He set a price target of $25. Snap, parent of social media company Snapchat, started trading March 2, but hit some bumps as the stock had fallen 20% as of Friday. Of the 11 analyst ratings in FactSet, there are no buy ratings.

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EBay Inc. said Monday it will roll out “Guaranteed Delivery” in the U.S. this summer, which will guarantee delivery in three days or less on 20 million items. The online auction company will also provider shoppers to search for items available for 1-day and 2-day delivery. The service will be provided at no additional cost, the company said. “While the majority of items on eBay already ship within 3 days or less, as well as for free, Guaranteed Delivery will give shoppers even faster delivery options and the confidence that their items will arrive on time,” said Senior Vice President of North America Hal Lawton. The stock, which was still inactive in premarket trade, has climbed 13.5% year to date, while shares of rival e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc. has run up 13.6% and the S&P 500 has gained 6.2%.

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Heico Corp. said Monday that it will enact a 5-for-4 split of its common stock. The split will go into effect in the form of 25% stock dividend, payable April 18 to shareholders of record on April 7. The provider of products and services to a wide range of industries, including aviation, defense and medical, said the split will increase the common stock outstanding to 33.7 million shares from 27 million shares. “This stock split reflects our continuing confidence and enthusiasm in HEICO’s long-term growth and financial outlook,” said Chief Executive Laurans Mendelson. The stock, which was still inactive in premarket trade, has climbed 14% year to date, to close Friday at a record high of $87.82, while the S&P 500 has gained 6.2%.

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Shares of Nektar Therapeutics soared 18% toward a six-month high in premarket trade Monday, after reporting positive results of a late-stage trial of its opioid analgesic. The company said a phase 3 trial of NKTR-181, its treatment of pain without the high levels of euphoria that can lead to addiction with standard opioids, met its primary and secondary endpoints. NKTR-181 also demonstrated a favorable safety profile and was well tolerated. Nektar said the Food and Drug Administration granted the investigational medicine “fast track” designation for the treatment of moderate to severe chronic pain. “The data from this efficacy study are extremely important because they demonstrate that NKTR-181 produces strong analgesia in patients suffering from chronic pain while NKTR-181 has also demonstrated significantly lower abuse potential than oxycodone in a human abuse potential study,” said Martin Hale, the clinical investigator of the study and medical director at Gold Coast Research. The stock had run up 26% year to date through Friday, while the S&P 500 had gained 6.2%.

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U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May will trigger the beginning of the country’s process of leaving the European Union on March 29, according to reports Monday. The move comes after British lawmakers last week passed the Article 50 bill that paved the way for Brexit to get underway. European Union officials said “everything is ready” for the Brexit trigger, according to Agence France Presse news agency. The pound dropped to $1.2372 after Monday’s reports. Sterling early Monday had traded above $1.24 for the first time since Feb. 27, FactSet data showed. “While the timing of the triggering of Article 50 comes as no surprise given that May had previously vowed to do so before the end of March, it does show that sterling remains sensitive to Brexit related headlines, even those that are already widely known,” said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda, in a note.

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CytomX Therapeutics Inc.’s stock rocketed 25% toward a 14-month high in premarket trade Monday, after the company said it would receive a $200 million upfront payment from Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. as part of the expansion of a collaboration pact to discover cancer treatments using CytomX’s Probody platform. CytomX will also be eligible to receive up to $448 million in milestone payments, as well as royalty payments, if development, regulatory and sales targets are met. “CytomX’s Probody platform has enhanced our discovery research as we seek to direct the therapeutic effects of immunotherapy in a more targeted approach against tumors,” said Bristol-Myers Head of Discovery Carl Decicco. CytomX’s stock had climbed 32% over the past three months through Friday, while Bristol-Myers shares had lost 4.8% and the S&P 500 had gained 4.7%.

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Shares of Movado Group Inc. dropped 1.3% in light premarket trade Monday, after the luxury watch maker reported fiscal fourth-quarter results that missed expectations, announced plans to cut jobs and provided a profit and sales outlook that was below expectations. For the fiscal fourth quarter of 2017, which ended Jan. 31, net income fell to $5.2 million, or 22 cents a share, from $7.9 million, or 34 cents a share, in the same period a year ago. The FactSet consensus for earnings per share was 23 cents. Sales declined 8.7% to $130.8 million from $143.3 million, missing the FactSet consensus of $136.9 million. For fiscal 2018, Movado expects adjusted EPS of $1.40 to $1.55, below the FactSet consensus of $1.60, and revenue of $515.0 million to $530.0 million, compared with expectations of $575.7 million. Because the company expects the retail environment to remain “difficult” this year, amid a shift from brick and mortar to e-commerce and a continuing challenging fashion watch market, Movado said it would reduce its workforce, primarily in North America and Switzerland. The company expects to record a charge of $7 million to $10 million, primarily in the fiscal first quarter, as a result of the job cuts and other streamlining initiatives, which are expected to reduce expenses by $12 million this year. The stock has plunged 18% year to date through Friday, while the S&P 500 has gained 6.2%.

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Uber Technology Inc.’s No. 2 executive, President Jeff Jones, is resigning after less than a year, according to a report by Recode on Sunday. The report said the many controversies swirling around Uber, including allegations of widespread sexual harassment and bias, were “directly related” to his decision to leave. Jones was hired last August, and previously worked as chief marketing officer at Target. Earlier this month, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said he needed to hire a chief operating officer to help provide leadership help.|NEW] on Sunday. The report said the many controversies swirling around Uber, including allegations of widespread sexual harassment and bias, were “directly related” to his decision to leave. Jones was hired last August, and previously worked as chief marketing officer at Target. Earlier this month, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said he needed to hire a chief operating officer to help provide leadership help.

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Drone manufacturer Yuneec International confirmed on Friday that it would lay off an undisclosed number of employees in its Americas division. The company, which had received $60 million in funding from Intel Corp.’s venture-capital arm, said it would “scale back our business structure to a secure balance between operational costs and revenue,” according to a statement issued by Yuneec. “We concluded that we upsized operations faster than our growth required.” Yuneec is the latest in a series of drone companies to announce layoffs. Drone manufacturers 3D Robotics, GoPro , Parrot and Autel all announced layoffs in the last 12 months.

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