Early premarket gappersGapping up:
- HQCL +25.8%, SWIR +21.3%, CATM +20.2%, MED +19.4%, ADMS +13.5%, TTWO +10.8%, XLRN +10%, TTOO +9.9%, ACIA +9.9%, CTRL +8.7%, WING +8.7%, ERII +7.4%, DISH +7%, CCS +5.9%, TCP +5.4%, ELY +4.8%, STAR +4.6%, TWOU +4.5%, CERN +4.5%, USX +3.9%, GRPN +3.4%, HTGC +3.3%, RYAM +3.3%, CERS +3.2%, SWN +3.1%, HMSY +3%, STRL +2.9%, OTEX +2.9%, CC +2.8%, ERI +2.7%, GPRO +2.7%, TDC +2.4%, Y +2.3%, CNP +2.3%, ESNT +2%, GHDX +1.9%, NUS +1.8%, PMT +1.8%, MAIN +1.6%, CRC +1.5%, AGS +1.3%, EAF +1.3%, MDCA +1.1%
Gapping down:
- VREX -22.7%, SEDG -13.1%, BRS -12.6%, TSRO -12.1%, SYMC -10.1%, SRCL -9.8%, LOCO -9.2%, PACB -9%, IMMR -7.9%, GDDY -6.3%, PDFS -5.7%, FTAI -5.6%, AMN -5.5%, COHU -5.4%, PODD -5.2%, BGS -5%, PI -4.8%, SHAK -4.8%, GBT -4.8%, RTEC -4.4%, AIG -4%, NE -3.8%, MFA -3.6%, TNDM -3.6%, BOJA -3.1%, DRRX -2.6%, SSTI -2.5%, ANET -2.5%, FCPT -2.4%, RMD -2.4%, CARB -2%, NBL -2%, MSI -1.7%, FLT -1.6%, CBS -1.2%, DATA -1.1%, EOG -1%, MTZ -0.7%, BRKR -0.6%, ATVI -0.6%
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Japan weighs sovereign fund for US infrastructure investments
Talks for $100bn fund come as Tokyo seeks to stave off Trump’s trade attacks
Japan is considering launching a sovereign wealth fund for US infrastructure investments as it tries to fend off trade attacks from Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the plan.
Talks for the fund, which analysts estimate could start at $100bn, come to light ahead of Japan’s trade talks in Washington next week where it hopes to counter US pressures to enter bilateral trade talks even as it faces fears of being drawn into Mr Trump’s trade wars.
The original proposal for the creation of a Japanese sovereign wealth fund comes from one of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s most trusted economic advisers, Koichi Hamada, an academic known as one of the key architects of the “Abenomics” economic revival programme.
The idea was primarily envisioned as a long-term strategy to help offset Japan’s status as both short of natural resources and the world’s fastest-greying major economy. The fund would address the already obvious insufficiency of the social safety net, with more than 27 per cent of the country now aged over 65.
Mr Hamada and others argue that while Japan’s foreign asset position is the world’s largest, the overall balance is still strongly domestically weighted because so much of the private sector’s savings are held at home.
A sovereign wealth fund could help mitigate this by increasing savings, shifting assets abroad and dampening the tendency of the yen to surge on haven trades during global economic downturns.
The fund proposal, which appeared in an academic paper published last October, was written before the now heightened risk of a trade war: even those who did perceive a risk of US-China friction judged that Mr Abe had, partly via “golf course diplomacy”, built a strong enough rapport with Mr Trump to insulate Japan.
But government officials said that since March this year, when it became clear that Japan might not escape some US tariffs, the fund proposal rose higher on the agenda.
“I think it can now be considered as an active proposal that has been accelerated as Japan looks for ways to protect its auto industry and other exporters with ideas it thinks will get a positive reception in Washington,” said one person close to Japanese planning on trade issues.
On Friday, Taro Aso, the finance minister, confirmed that Japan and the US were holding discussions on infrastructure projects. But he denied the government currently had any concrete plans for the fund.
James Malcolm, Japan economist at UBS, said the fund’s plans were likely to move slowly and estimated that it would be “something in the order of $100bn” — a tenth the size of Norway’s oil fund.
“But it is still an audacious prospect that underscores the open-mindedness and ambition of this unique administration to beat deflation and put the country on a very different future growth trajectory,” he said in a note to investors on Friday.
The Hotel Lutetia, a piece of Parisian history
Can a revamp of Paris’s only Left Bank grand hotel retain the soul of a building that holds an extraordinary place in French history?
At the newly renovated Hotel Lutetia, which looms like a white ocean liner over the Boulevard Raspail on Paris’s Left Bank, there is a plaque. It reads: “From April to August 1945, this hotel, which had become a reception centre, received the greater part of the survivors of the Nazi concentration camps, glad to have regained their liberty and their loved ones from whom they had been snatched. Their joy cannot efface the anguish and the pain of the families of the thousands of disappeared who waited in vain for their own in this place.”
Among those who waited in vain were two sisters, one an adolescent, the other a little girl. They were the daughters of Irène Némirovsky, whose novel Suite Française was published posthumously in 2004. Pierre Assouline describes the scene in his own novel Lutetia, which is set in the hotel during the second world war. A waiter tells the narrator, a detective in charge of hotel security, how the sisters would wait on the steps of the Lutetia, holding handwritten signs, in the hope of finding their mother. “They came to look at the lists [of returning deportees] every day. They said their mother was a famous novelist. They had convinced themselves that if she hadn’t come back it was because she had lost her memory and was in a hospital somewhere in Russia . . . But there was no chance of seeing her again. None.”
As Assouline has put it, the Lutetia is “not just any grand hotel. It is a site of memory for many French people.” Isabelle Bouvier, the manager of the hotel, which reopened its doors in July after a four-year renovation, agrees. It was “always a mirror of what was happening in the world”, she says. It received Russian refugees fleeing the revolution in 1917 and then, in the early 1930s, German Jews escaping the Third Reich.
Bouvier says that the task of the architect, Jean-Michel Wilmotte, was to restore the “soul” of the Lutetia, paying due deference to its extraordinary history while also making it fit for the 21st century and re-establishing it as the only “grand hotel” (a luxury property) on the Left Bank.
The façade of the Hotel Lutetia
Assouline, who has become a kind of unofficial historian of the Lutetia, wrote recently: “When you love the Lutetia as if it were a person, it is hard to fight off a certain nostalgia at its reawakening.” Before Wilmotte started work in 2014, he confessed that the hotel bar was his “salon and office”. And it is hard, even for a visitor, rather than a devotee such as Assouline, not to feel the breath of history around every corner.
And this is despite the introduction of international hotel vernacular into the Art Deco and Art Nouveau interior. Wilmotte has chosen marble — great expanses of it — for the public areas on the ground floor, while the corridors on the upper floors are clad in dark eucalyptus wood. The effect of the latter is slightly claustrophobic. Initially, I found myself almost feeling my way along the walls when trying to negotiate the few steps from my suite to the lift.
One of the historical figures guests might be reminded of is Charles de Gaulle, holed up in the Lutetia in early June 1940, as German forces bore down on Paris. De Gaulle had been a regular in the salon and dining room before the war. He banked at the branch of the Banque de France across the road and was rumoured to have spent his wedding night in the hotel. He would have rubbed shoulders in that prewar period with the Left Bank’s literary demi-monde. The writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was a regular guest, as was James Joyce, who played Irish ballads on the piano in the bar. The night I met a friend for cocktails in the Bar Josephine, named after the Franco-American performer Josephine Baker, young musicians were doing a very passable impression of the Quintette du Hot Club de France.
The Lutetia remained a favourite meeting place for literary Paris after the war. Many of the big publishing houses, notably Gallimard and Grasset, are nearby in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The hotel has also doubled as an office for academics from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales just down the road. I remember, when I was a student there in the mid-1990s, the philosopher Jacques Derrida holding court in the Lutetia bar on more than one occasion.
On the evening of June 10 1940, de Gaulle was summoned by a gendarme who told him that a car was waiting outside the hotel to take him to a château near Tours in the Loire, where the prime minister Paul Reynaud and other members of the government had sought refuge. According to Assouline, who talked to several people who’d worked in the Lutetia at the time, the general insisted on settling his bill before leaving.
The Germans reached Paris on June 14. For the next four years, the Lutetia, like the other grand hotels in the city, was requisitioned by the occupying power. It became the headquarters of the Abwehr, the German counter-intelligence service, not the Gestapo as is sometimes mistakenly believed. (Among the palace hotels of the Right Bank, the Crillon became the headquarters of the military command for greater Paris; the top brass installed themselves at the Georges V; and the Continental was home to the military tribunal.)
The lobby of the hotel
Assouline says that there is something “profoundly unjust” about the reputation that the Lutetia had during these dark years. It wasn’t the only hotel in Paris to be taken over by the Germans, after all, but it was the only one to find “redemption” after the war. It was de Gaulle who decreed in 1945 that the returning deportees should be received at the Lutetia, on account of its being “luxurious yet sober”, a description that could easily be applied to the hotel today, with the subtle blue and grey colour scheme and polished parquet in the rooms, and service that is discreetly attentive rather than obsequious.
Concentrating on the dark years also obscures the story of the hotel’s origins, a tale that goes some way to explaining one of its distinctive features compared with its competitors on the Right Bank: that, as Bouvier puts it, “you have always found Parisians at the Lutetia”. And if the queue of locals waiting to get in to the bar on the Saturday night I was there is anything to go by, that’s still the case.
The Lutetia was the brainchild of the Boucicauts, owners of Le Bon Marché department store in the 7th arrondissement. In the early 20th century, they noticed the bulk of their clientele were families from the provincial bourgeoisie, who would come to the capital twice a year to stock up on sheets and kitchen utensils. Why not offer these visitors somewhere to stay close to the store?
The hotel opened in December 1910, on a site across the Boulevard Raspail from Le Bon Marché. The architects were Henri Tauzin and Louis-Hippolyte Boileau, who used the latest glass-and-steel construction techniques. Soon the hotel was a regular destination not only for customers at Le Bon Marché, but also members of the National Assembly, a shortish walk away, and civil servants in the colonial service who traditionally spent summer holidays in Paris.
The hotel passed into the hands of the Taittinger champagne family in the 1950s (Taittinger’s Cuvée Lutetia is still served in the bar and restaurants), before being sold to the Starwood Capital Group in 2005. Starwood sold out to the current owner, hotel brand The Set, in 2010. It was The Set’s chairman Georgi Akirov, an Israeli, who hired Wilmotte to oversee the renovation.
For the most part, the overhaul has been a success. Bouvier tells me they intend to compete with the “palaces” on the Right Bank. So to that end, Wilmotte has equipped the Lutetia with all the trappings today’s international traveller expects — the basement was dug out to create space for a 700 sq metre spa, a swimming pool and a gym. At the same time, he has remained broadly faithful to Tauzin and Boileau’s original vision. The most spectacular example of this is in the bar, where an original Art Deco fresco has been beautifully restored. Elsewhere, he has opened up communal spaces allowing in natural light through judicious use of glass and steel.
The spa
The revamp is still unfinished. I stayed in a generously proportioned suite with a living room, bedroom and bathroom on the fourth floor looking out over Boulevard Raspail. The larger, more expensive suites on the upper floors, with spectacular views across Paris, will open in autumn, as will Gérald Passedat’s Brasserie Lutetia. Passedat, who elsewhere holds three Michelin stars, is promising to bring the seafood-based cuisine of his native Marseille to Paris. For the time being, guests have the option of eating under the lovingly restored original glass roof of Le Saint Germain, where chef Benjamin Brial offers an elegant fusion of traditional French dishes (tartare de boeuf, entrecôte and so on) with embellishments from the Pacific Rim.
“Whoever owns the Lutetia,” Assouline wrote when the hotel reopened, “is the custodian of a tradition.” Happily, Akirov and Wilmotte seem to have understood that.
British Airways owner IAG looks to sell Norwegian Air shares
The group said it had bought shares as part of an attempted takeover
Willie Walsh, chief executive of British Airways owner IAG, said the group is looking to sell its shares in low-cost carrier Norwegian Air after failing to negotiate a takeover.
Airline group IAG bought 4.6 per cent of Norwegian earlier this year as a prelude to discussing a takeover, but had two proposals rebuffed.
Mr Walsh said: “We’re not going to keep the shares, we’re not an investor. We bought that small stake to initiate a conversation and if that conversation is not going anywhere, as it’s not, we’re not going to hold on to those shares.”
Norwegian said it had received several expressions of interest from “serious players,” including rival airlines such as the Lufthansa Group. “We are happy to have IAG as an investor. Needless to say, they are not the only interested party that has approached us,” said Bjorn Kjos, Norwegian’s chief executive.
Bjorn Kise, Norwegian’s chairman who together with Mr Kjos owns 27 per cent of the airline, said: “When you are going through a phase of big expansion, it makes the company — with all its costs, its investments — vulnerable.”
Mr Walsh also hit out at Heathrow airport, which has a £14bn scheme to build a third runway but which has also paid large dividends to shareholders.
“I’m all in favour of a well-run company paying dividends, but that’s not Heathrow,” Mr Walsh said. “Heathrow is a quasi-monopoly that games the economic regulation environment to raise the charges that they can levy and has done well in the past to convince the regulator to reward them by spending more money.
“My objection is to the fact that they’re incentivised to waste money and I’m particularly concerned that the incentive remains in place in the context of Heathrow.”
In its half-year results on Friday, IAG reported strong pre-tax profit growth, up almost a quarter to €1bn. At lunchtime its shares were down 3.1 per cent. Norwegian’s shares were up 1.8 per cent.
Italian government debt hit by fresh sell-off
Yields hit highest levels since post-election crisis on concerns over budget talks
Italian government debt sold off sharply for a second day on Friday, hitting lows not seen since a post-election crisis in June as senior figures in the populist government prepared for talks on the country’s next budget.
The drop came as the leaders of the two parties in the governing coalition insisted the new budget must include a series of high-priced spending and tax cut initiatives — including unwinding pension reforms — that could further burden what is already the eurozone’s second most indebted government, after only Greece.
Luigi Di Maio, head of the anti-establishment Five Star party, is expected to press finance minister Giovanni Tria that policies the coalition partners campaigned on, including a flat tax, guaranteed basic income and a reversal of the previous pension reforms, must be included in the budget.
The yield on Italy’s two-year bond, which moves in the opposite direction to its price, rose 40 basis points to 1.353 per cent in Friday morning trade, after having risen by 17 bps on Thursday. The yield on 10-year paper was up 16 bps in early trading to 3.06 per cent, after rising 12 bps the previous day.
The move in the two-year yield is the biggest one-day rise since the height of the previous Italian bond sell-off in late May, when concern rose over whether the new government would include advocates of leaving the eurozone.
Shares in Italian lenders were also under pressure on Friday, leaving them as the worst performers across Europe’s banking industry. BPER Banca shed 2.4 per cent, Banco BPM declined 2 per cent, while Ubi Banca, Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit all fell more than 1 per cent.
Government officials said Giuseppe Conte, the prime minister, is due to convene a meeting with senior cabinet ministers later on Friday to discuss the budget, a session that is to include Mr Tria and Mr Di Maio.
Matteo Salvini, the deputy prime minister and leader of the far-right League party, the other coalition partner, said in a television interview the budget would include tax cuts and pensions reform. Mr Salvini’s presence at the budget meeting was not certain.
“The autumn budget will not immediately include everything in our programme but the first steps towards flat tax, the dismantling of the . . . pensions reform, getting rid of letters from [the state debt collector], these elements will be present,” Mr Salvini told Sky TG 24.
Seamus Mac Gorain, fixed income portfolio manager at JPMorgan Asset Management, said investors had initially expected “a period of calm in August” followed by volatility in the autumn as budget negotiations got under way.
But the public remarks by coalition leaders has sped up the process, Mr Gorain said, meaning the day of reckoning with the European Commission, which enforces eurozone debt and deficit rules, could come much sooner.
“The market is now positioning itself for the fight that investors anticipate between the Italian government and Brussels over fiscal expansion,” he said. “The level of volatility in the meantime will depend on how drawn-out the budget negotiations are.”
Short-dated Italian debt has been a popular carry trade for investors, who have sought to benefit from the additional yield it offers over the equivalent German bond. German two-year debt is in negative territory, yielding minus 0.6 per cent.
During May’s sell-off, the sudden price moves triggered many investors’ stop-loss ceilings — a way of capping the level of losses that investors are willing to bear — which forces an automatic sale if yields rise above a certain point.
This forced selling exacerbated the price falls, along with very thin liquidity which saw the Italian Treasury step into the market to act as a buyer.
At the time, the Treasury said it was buying back short-dated debt to use up spare cash but some experienced market observers suggested the move had helped to stabilise prices.
Credit rating agency Moody’s has put Italy on review for downgrade as a result of the political uncertainties and is due to publish its assessment of the country’s outlook early next month.
Desigual 10% stake sold by Eurazeo to founder Thomas Meyer for EUR 142m
03 AUG 2018
Eurazeo [EPA: RF] has announced that it has signed an agreement with Thomas Meyer, the founder and controlling shareholder of Desigual, the Spanish apparel retailer, to sell him its 10% stake in the company.
Since its investment in 2014, Eurazeo has strongly supported the strategic transformation of Desigual through the promotion of a new brand image, its digital channel, the expansion in Latin America, the optimization of the distribution network as well as through a strengthening of the company’s governance. After four years of mutual cooperation, the joint owners have decided that, given the market environment and their respective timeframes and objectives, it is in their and Desigual‘s best interests that Thomas Meyer become the company’s sole shareholder.
This sale will generate net proceeds of EUR 141.9m for Eurazeo and its investment partners, and EUR 105.7m for Eurazeo’s stake representing a return on its initial investment of 0.5x.
Link to original source
Allianz SE +1-2% Op profit +3% vs cons, higher margins in AM
BATS +0.5% FDA - positive comments on new Gen products
Cobham M/P 1H Revs 924.5mln cons 922mln, PTP 60.9mln cons 62.3mln
Credit Ag +3% 34% net beat, better revs
Euronext +1% EBITDA €89m, cons at €88m, confirmed targets
Fagron M/P Revs €230.9m vs cons €226.8m, EBITDA slightly light
Fiat +2-3% Stock +4% overnight, Magneti Marelli value could be higher
Galapagos M/P 2Q18 revs ahead of cons, balance sheet remains strong
Heineken +0.5% Buying 3.1bn stake in China resources beer
IMB +0.5% FDA - positive comments on new Gen products
IAG +1% EBIT €835m cons €848m, no change to outlook
Intertek +1% To acquire Alchemy for $480m
Interoll +2-3% Margin slightly better, outlook ahead
Mondi +1-2% Op profit 630mln vs CS at 592mln, beat on costs
Miners -0.5% Copper -0.10%, Brent +0.35%, Iron Ore -0.20%, China -0.50%
Natixis +3-4% Q2 net 19% ahead of cons, revs better, LLP's slightly lower
Paddy Power +2-3% Pact with Boyd Gaming to cooperate in the US
RBS +3-4% Q2 PTP 10% ahead of cons, NII 1% ahead, CET1 strong
Semis +1-2% Positive move in the US on the Apple move
Segro +1% CS INITIATE with OUTPERFORM (Momentum, growth in UK)
Swiss Re -1% H1 op Profit 14% below cons, US GAAP accounting impact
Will Hill +1-2% Online performing ok, retail slightly worse
Asian stocks were mixed on Friday, ending the worst week for the region’s shares since March, amid ongoing trade tensions. The yuan extended losses to reach fresh lows, while Japanese yields edged lower after a tumultuous week for the bond market.
Shares in Japan and Hong Kong dropped, while equities in South Korea and India gained. The Shanghai Composite steadied but remains on course for a near 4 percent slide this week. The dollar maintained gains and the yield on 10-year Treasuries ticked back below 3 percent. China’s currency headed for an eighth weekly decline, the longest run since the start of the country’s modern foreign-exchange rate regime in 1994.
US After Hours : MED +19%, CATM +18%, ACIA +9%, WING +8.1% are higher, while VREX -22.1%, TSRO -13%, SEDG -11%, SYMC -9%, AIG -5% are lower following earnings/guidance
Nikkei -0.04% Hang Seng -0.11% CSI -0.99% Shanghai -0.39% Shenzen -0.98%
Eur$ 1.1585 CNH 6.8899 CNY 6.8729 JPY 111.66 GBP 1.3015 RUB 63.3490 CHF 0.9957 WTI 68.97 -0.03%
S&P -0.04% NDX +0.01% EuroStoxx +0.43% FTSE +0.48% Dax +0.35% SMI +0.34%
Macro :
- Buy Mexico ETF Puts as Rally Masks Lingering Uncertainties: JPM
- Quiet Week for Fund Flows With Bonds Attracting Money: Jefferies
Keep an eye on :
- AIR FP : Germany Says 8 of 19 Airbus A400M Aircraft Operational: Funke
- ALV GY : Allianz Second Quarter Operating Profit Beats Highest Estimate
- BATS LN : Philip Morris Files Patent Lawsuit in Tokyo vs BAT Over Glo
- BMPS IM : Monte Paschi Second Quarter Revenue Misses Lowest Estimate
- BMW GY : S. Korea Recommends Owners Refrain From Driving Recalled BMWs
- B8F GY : Biofrontera: Made Aware of Deutsche Balaton Tender Offer Risks
- BN FP : Danone’s Challenging 2H Outlook Undercuts Attractions: Jefferies
- DANSKE DC : Danske Bank’s Board Was Informed About Laundering in 2014: J.P.
- DIS US : Disney Is Said to Seek ‘Star Wars’ Rights Back From TBS, TNT
- DUFN SW : Dufry First Half Ebitda CHF464.1 Mln
- ENEL IM : Open Fiber May Get Deal for EU3.5b Financing Today: Corriere
- ERF FP : Eurofins Buys Nanolab Technologies; Deal Expected to Close in 3Q
- ENX FP : Euronext Second Quarter Revenue Meets Estimates
- FAGR BB : Fagron First Half Revenue 1.8% Above Estimates
- GLPG NA : Galapagos First Half Loss Narrower Than Estimates
- GWI1 GY : Gerry Weber CFO Stüber Leaves Managing Board at Own Request
- HEIA NA : Heineken Inks $3.1 Billion Deal to Grow in Hot China Market
- HLNG NO : Hoegh LNG Secures Debt Financing for FSRU Delivery #9
- INRN SW : Interroll First Half Ebitda CHF35.5 Mln
- KAMBI SS : Kambi Group Accepts First U.S. Wagers After DraftKings Debut
- LHN SW : LafargeHolcim Acquires Denver Ready-Mix Concrete Firm Metro Mix
- MCHN SW : Baselworld Organizer MCH Group’s CEO Rene Kamm Resigns
- MB IM : Elliott May Seek to Boost Its 1% Mediobanca Stake: Repubblica
- MOBN SW : Mobimo First Half Ebit CHF57.3 Mln
- KN FP : Natixis 2Q Net Beats Estimates on Asset Mgmt; Trading Slumps
- PSM GY : Bafin Finds Indications of ProsiebenSat Shr Mkt Manipulation: BZ
- ROG SW : Roche Patent on Avastin Won’t Face Pfizer’s IPR Challenge
- SANT GY : S&T First Half Revenue EU422.7 Mln
- SAS SS : SAS Pilots End Labor Agreement a Year Early, Berlingske Says
- SUY1V FH : Suominen Hires CEO From Lassila & Tikanoja; Kopola Leaves
- SREN SW : Swiss Re First Half Net Income Misses Estimates
- YAR NO : Yara, Arab Potash Co. Stop Potassium Nitrate MOU, JV Talks
>>> Up
* AB InBev Upgraded to Buy at SocGen; PT 96 Euros
* Bankia Upgraded to Hold at SocGen; PT 3.40 Euros
* HelloFresh Upgraded to Overweight at JPMorgan; PT 19 Euros
* Intesa Upgraded to Buy at SocGen; PT 3 Euros
* Metro AG Upgraded to Hold at HSBC; PT 11.50 Euros
* Metsa Board Upgraded to Hold at Kepler Cheuvreux; PT 8 Euros
* Proximus Upgraded to Equal-weight at Morgan Stanley; PT 25 Euros
* Rheinmetall Upgraded to Buy at Kepler Cheuvreux; PT 121 Euros
* Rolls-Royce Upgraded to Buy at SocGen; PT 12.50 Pounds
* Scor Upgraded to Buy at SocGen; PT 37.50 Euros
* Takeaway Upgraded to Overweight at JPMorgan; PT 71.50 Euros
>>> Down
* Elisa Downgraded to Underweight at Morgan Stanley; PT 34 Euros
* H&R Downgraded to Sell at DZ Bank; PT 9 Euros
* MorphoSys Cut to Neutral at Oddo BHF; Price Target 110 Euros
* Saipem Downgraded to Hold at HSBC; PT 4.60 Euros
* Valneva Downgraded to Reduce at Kepler Cheuvreux; PT 3.80 Euros
>>> Initiation
* Cellnex Rated New Neutral at Mediobanca SpA; PT 23.20 Euros
* Masmovil Rated New Buy at HSBC; PT 120 Euros
* SMRE Rated New Hold at Kepler Cheuvreux; PT 6.10 Euros
Call
After Hours Summary: MED +19%, CATM +18%, ACIA +9%, WING +8.1% are higher, while VREX -22.1%, TSRO -13%, SEDG -11%, SYMC -9%, AIG -5% are lower following earnings/guidanceAfter Hours Gainers:
Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: MED +18.9%, CATM +18.2%, ADMS +14.5%, SWIR +13.3%, TTWO +12.2%, ACIA +9.2%, WING +8.1%, ERII +7.4%, TTOO +7.3%, CTRL +6.6%, GHDX +6.5%, OTEX +5.9% (light volume), TCP +5.8%, SSNC +4.9%, USX +3.9% (ticking higher), STAR +3.6%, HTGC +3.3%, RYAM +3.3%, CERN +3.2%, OEC +3.2%, SWN +3.1%, CERS +3%, ELY +2.7%, ERI +2.7% (light volume), GPRO +2.7%, CC +2.5%, PMT +1.8%
Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: HQCL +22.7% (announces receipt of preliminary non-binding 'going private' proposal), GRPN +3% (Groupon discloses update on litigation with International Business Machines-- on July 27, a jury returned a verdict and awarded damages of $82.5 mln to IBM), LITE +0.9% / CREE +0.6%/ FNSR +0.5% (following ACIA results), STX +0.7% (10% owner ValueAct disclosed the purchase of ~946K shares)
After Hours Losers:
Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: VREX -22.1%, TSRO -12.6%, BRS -11.9%, SEDG -10.7%, SYMC -9% (also announces set of cost reduction actions designed to eliminate redundancies and focus its resources on key strategic opportunities), BGS -7.8%, LOCO -7%, PACB -7%, SRCL -6.6%, PI -5.9% (expects to outperform Q2 guidance but delays release/10-Q and commences Audit Committee investigation), COHU -5.4% (light volume), AIG -4.9%, PODD -4.6%, SHAK -4.6%, FTAI -4.3% (light volume), GDDY -4%, AMN -3.8%, WU -2.9%, CARB -2%, CBS -1.4%, DATA -1.1%, ATVI -0.8%
Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: MFA -3% (announces public offering of 50.0 mln shares of common stock), DRRX -2.6% (files $175 mln mixed securities shelf offering ), TNDM -2.5% (announces proposed underwritten public offering of common stock), FCPT -2.2% (light volume; launches 3.25 mln share common stock offering), CSIQ -1% / FSLR -0.8% (following SEDG results)