After Hours Summary: BOOT +5.5%, GME +3.9%, MX +3.3%, PSUN -18%, VEEV -9.0%, GEF -7.3% following earnings/guidance
After Hours Gainers:
Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings: BOOT +5.5%, GME +3.9%, MX +3.3%, ULTA +2.4%, BLOX +1.8%, OVTI +0.2%
Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: HRTX +37.7% (announced Phase 3 MAGIC study of SUSTOL (granisetron injection, extended release) achieved its primary endpoint), STML +14.1% (announced top-line results from the lead-in stage of its BPDCN trial, demonstrating an acceptable safety profile, with no cumulative side effects), BIOD+6.4% (announced the intended presentation of its ultra-rapid-acting/basal insulin and glucagon product candidates at the 75th Scientific Sessions of the ABA in Boston,MA), APRI +3.1% (announced launch of its topical treatment for Erectile Dysfunction in France by Laboratoires Majorelle), DGLY +0.7% (disclosed that it extended the maturity date of its $2.5 mln credit facility with a private, third-party lender from May 30, 2015 to July 15, 2015)
After Hours Losers:
Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings: PSUN -18%, VEEV -9.0%, GEF -7.3%, QADA -5.2%, SPLK -3.1%, DECK -0.9%
Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: SD -2.5% (priced upsized offering of offering of $1.25 bln of 8.75% senior secured notes due 2020), MEET -2.0% (disclosed that Richard Friedman resigned as Chief Technology Officer effective as of July 3, 2015)
IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2015 Results : The 2015 IMD World Competitiveness Scoreboard
see attached
Closing Market Summary: Cyclical Sectors Pace Slight Downtick
The stock market spun its wheels throughout the Thursday session, ending on a modestly lower note. The S&P 500 shed 0.1% after spending the entire day in negative territory amid light volume.
Equity indices began the day in the red with some residual damage to risk tolerance after China's Shanghai Composite tumbled 6.5% in reaction to more equity brokers increasing their margin requirements. Furthermore, repurchase operations conducted by the People's Bank of China stirred concerns that the central bank may be preparing to stop or slow its easing cycle. To be fair, today's decline in the Shanghai Composite only caused the index to surrender its week-to-date gain.
In either case, things did not get any more cheery by the start of the European session with signals from the G7 meeting in Dresden suggesting that wide-ranging differences remain between Greece and the creditor institutions. To that point, yesterday's ‘deal—no deal' may have been topped by today's headlines from Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which quoted International Monetary Fund's Managing Director Christine Lagarde as saying it is possible that Greece will exit the eurozone. Not long after, the IMF sought to clarify the quotes obtained from Ms. Lagarde, claiming they were inaccurate. However, the Fund did not specify what the inaccuracies were. FAZ responded, saying Ms. Lagarde's quotes will be removed. In the midst of all this, Spain's Economy Minister Luis de Guindos reportedly said that a deal between Greece and the institutions remains possible.
All in all, things have not gotten any clearer for quite a while and nothing will be certain until official bridge agreements are signed or the bridge between Greece and Western Europe is burning. The euro handled today's developments well, adding 0.4% against the dollar to 1.0950. Conversely, the Dollar Index shed 0.2% after enjoying a solid spike yesterday.
Similar to the Dollar Index, equities backtracked after yesterday featured a broad advance. Only three sectors registered gains, but losses among the seven decliners were contained to no more than 0.5%.
Industrials and telecom services finished at the bottom of the barrel with the industrial sector enduring continued weakness among transport stocks. The Dow Jones Transportation Average lost 0.9% and widened its 2015 decline to 9.2%. In addition, heavy machinery names like Caterpillar (CAT 86.01, -1.91), Deere (DE 93.50, -0.86), and Joy Global (JOY 39.65, -1.29) underperformed as investors grappled with implications stemming from potential policy changes in China, where each company has a large footprint.
Similar to industrials, the energy sector (-0.4%) struggled throughout the session and finished among the laggards even though crude oil recouped an early loss, adding almost 0.5% for the day to end near $58.00/bbl. However, natural gas fell 4.2% to $2.71/MMBtu.
Elsewhere, the technology sector (-0.2%) was tucked in right behind the broader market, but that masked broad strength among chipmakers. The PHLX Semiconductor Index added 0.1% after yesterday's rumor became today's news and Avago Technologies (AVGO 142.38, +0.89) confirmed its acquisition of Broadcom (BRCM 56.25, -0.91) for $37 billion. Broadcom lost 1.9% today as some traders took quick profits after taking the stock higher by almost 22.0% yesterday.
On the upside, utilities (+0.2%) and materials (+0.3%) outperformed, but had little impact on the overall market. Also of note, the health care sector (+0.1%) ended just above its flat line even though biotechnology struggled with iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 364.89, -2.07) falling 0.6%.
Treasuries ranged near their flat lines throughout the day with the 10-yr note ending unchanged and its yield at 2.13%. That being said, there were gains up front (2-yr yield -3 bps to 0.62%) and a downtick at the long end (30-yr +2 bps to 2.89%), making for a slightly steeper curve.
Today's participation was comparable to recent totals with roughly 675 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.
Economic data included Initial Claims and Pending Home Sales:
-
Weekly initial claims increased to 282,000 from an upwardly revised 275,000 (from 274,000) while the consensus expected a reading of 274,000
- The four-week moving average inched up a little higher to 271,500 from 266,500 for the week ending May 16, but despite the increase, initial claims remain near 15-year lows
- The continuing claims level increased to 2.222 mln from an unrevised 2.211 mln while the consensus expected an increase to 2.250 mln
- Pending home sales for April rose 3.4% while the consensus expected an increase of 1.0%
- Nasdaq Composite +7.1% YTD
- Russell 2000 +4.0% YTD
- S&P 500 +2.9% YTD
- Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.7% YTD
EMU fin mins said to indicate they will provide no new new fresh cash to Greece until a deal is ready by June 5 - financial press
- current bail out funds will no longer be available unless they are disbursed by the end of June
Biotech group Cellectis in takeover talks with Pfizer
Cellectis, the French biotech company, is in talks about its potential sale with Pfizer of the US considered to be among the buyers.
Two people familiar with the situation said Cellectis was in negotiations over a deal, but warned no outcome was certain. One person said Pfizer had approached the company about a deal that could value it at as much as €1.5bn.
The US drug company already owns 9.47 per cent of Cellectis after the pair forged a partnership to develop cancer drugs.
It is unclear if other parties were also in the sale talks with Cellectis. Pfizer declined to comment and Cellectis had no immediate comment.
An acquisition of Cellectis would strengthen Pfizer’s push to become a serious player in a new category of cancer drugs called immuno-oncology. The French company, which raised $228m in a Nasdaq initial public offering in March, specialises in a type of treatment known as Car-T therapy seen as one of the hottest areas of drug development.
Shares in Cellectis fell 3.3 per cent to €36.75 in Paris trading, giving the company a market value of €1.1bn. The company’s shares are up 200 per cent this year.
Ian Read, Pfizer chief executive, is under pressure from shareholders to find an outlet for about $17bn in cash that it has trapped offshore out of reach of the US taxman and to find new drugs to reinvigorate its research and development pipeline.
A takeover of Cellectis would mark Pfizer’s second big move in immuno-oncology in six months after a deal worth up to $2.85bn with Merck of Germany last year to jointly-develop another kind of drug which harnesses the immune system to fight cancer.
The Cellectis treatment involves injecting genetically-engineered chimeric antigen receptors (Cars) into a patient’s blood to help the disease-fighting T-cells recognise a specific protein associated with cancer leading to the destruction of tumour cells.
Several companies, including Novartis of Switzerland and US biotech companies Kite and Juno, are scrambling to develop similar therapies after spectacular results in early clinical trials. However, whereas others involve modifying a patient’s own T-cells, Cellectis is aiming to produce an “off-the-shelf” treatment that would work for anyone. This could mitigate some of the high costs and complexities that are seen as potential obstacles to Car-T therapies.
Some analysts and scientists have warned of a potential investment bubble in Car-T companies after the hundreds of millions of dollars raised by Juno, Kite and Cellectis in IPOs over the past year. Critics have pointed out that, while the treatments look effective in blood cancers, they remain unproven in the much larger market to treat solid tumours.
There are also safety concerns over the high potency of the drugs and the risk of damage to healthy tissue. Cost is another challenge with those Car-T therapies closest to market expected to be priced at hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient.
For Pfizer, a deal with Cellectis would be its second significant acquisition this year after its $17bn acquisition of Hospira, a maker of sterile injectable drugs, in February. There has been persistent speculation that it could also launch another move on a big pharmaceuticals group after its failed bid for AstraZeneca of the UK last year.
Cellectis, the French biotech company, is in talks about its potential sale, with Pfizer of the US considered to be among the buyers.
Two people familiar with the situation said Cellectis was in negotiations over a deal, but warned no outcome was certain, report Bryce Elder, Arash Massoudi and Andrew Ward in London and David Crow in New York.
One person said Pfizer has approached the company about a deal that could value it at as much as €1.5bn.
The US drug company already owns 9.47 per cent of Cellectis after the pair forged a partnership to develop cancer drugs together.
It is unclear if other parties were also in the sale talks with Cellectis.
Pfizer declined to comment and Cellectis had no immediate comment.
An acquisition of Cellectis would strengthen Pfizer's push to become a serious player in a new category of cancer drugs called immuno-oncology.
The French company, which raised $228m in a Nasdaq initial public offering in March, specialises in a type of treatment known as Car-T therapy seen as one of the hottest areas of drug development.
Shares in Cellectis fell 3.3 per cent to €36.75 in Paris trading, giving the company a market value of €1.1bn.
The company's shares are up 200 per cent this year.
Additional reporting by James Fontanella-Khan and Anne-Sylvaine Chassany
26,845
90
334 million
Cellectis Said to Be in Sale Talks, Pfizer Potential Buyer: FT
2015-05-28 19:31:51.526 GMT
By Lee Spears
(Bloomberg) -- Cellectis in talks about potential sale,
Pfizer has approached about deal valuing it at as much as
EUR1.5b, FT says, citing people familiar.
* Cellectis in negotiations over a deal, outcome uncertain
* PFE already owns 9.47% of Cellectis: FT
For Related News and Information:
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To contact the reporter on this story:
Lee Spears in New York at +1-212-617-5806 or
lspears3@bloomberg.net
Will Daley
2015-05-28 19:31:51.526 GMT
By Lee Spears
(Bloomberg) -- Cellectis in talks about potential sale,
Pfizer has approached about deal valuing it at as much as
EUR1.5b, FT says, citing people familiar.
* Cellectis in negotiations over a deal, outcome uncertain
* PFE already owns 9.47% of Cellectis: FT
For Related News and Information:
First Word scrolling panel: FIRST<GO>
First Word newswire: NH BFW<GO>
To contact the reporter on this story:
Lee Spears in New York at +1-212-617-5806 or
lspears3@bloomberg.net
Will Daley
Cellectris - Said to be in talks to sell the company
--> +18%
Fed's Kocherlakota (non-voter, dove): Raising interest rates this year is not consistent with the Fed's mandate
- would require 3 more years of job gains similar to that seen in 2014 for full employment to be reached; at full employment, the rate would likely not be below 5%
- Fed should seek to help the labor market to what was seen in late 2006
- Reiterates not expecting inflation to get back to 2% until 2018
- labor market metrics are continuing to improve in 2015
BFW 05/28 18:35 *SYNGENTA SAID WILLING TO CONSIDER BID OF AT LEAST CHF500/SHARE
BFW 05/28 18:35 *SYNGENTA SAID TO ADD UBS TO ADVISERS AHEAD OF POTENTIAL BID
BFW 05/28 18:35 *SYNGENTA SAID TO PREPARE FOR MONSANTO TO RAISE TAKEOVER OFFER
BFW 05/28 18:35 *SYNGENTA SAID TO ADD UBS TO ADVISERS AHEAD OF POTENTIAL BID
BFW 05/28 18:35 *SYNGENTA SAID TO PREPARE FOR MONSANTO TO RAISE TAKEOVER OFFER
Syngenta Said to Build Defenses as It Braces for Monsanto Return
2015-05-28 18:38:06.434 GMT
By Andrew Noël and Aaron Kirchfeld
(Bloomberg) -- Syngenta is building up defenses as it
prepares for a possible higher offer from Monsanto, according to
people with knowledge of the situation.
* Adds UBS as adviser; joins Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan:
people familiar
* Syngenta expects Monsanto to come back with another offer as
soon as next week: people familiar
* Said willing to consider bid of at least CHF500/shr
* MON jumps as much as 1.2%
Story link: NSN NP2P046KLVR8<GO>
For Related News and Information:
First Word scrolling panel: FIRST<GO>
First Word newswire: NH BFW<GO>
To contact the reporter on this story:
Andrew Cinko in New York at +1-609-279-4533 or
cinko@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Larry DiTore at +1-212-617-1603 or
lditore@bloomberg.net
2015-05-28 18:38:06.434 GMT
By Andrew Noël and Aaron Kirchfeld
(Bloomberg) -- Syngenta is building up defenses as it
prepares for a possible higher offer from Monsanto, according to
people with knowledge of the situation.
* Adds UBS as adviser; joins Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan:
people familiar
* Syngenta expects Monsanto to come back with another offer as
soon as next week: people familiar
* Said willing to consider bid of at least CHF500/shr
* MON jumps as much as 1.2%
Story link: NSN NP2P046KLVR8<GO>
For Related News and Information:
First Word scrolling panel: FIRST<GO>
First Word newswire: NH BFW<GO>
To contact the reporter on this story:
Andrew Cinko in New York at +1-609-279-4533 or
cinko@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Larry DiTore at +1-212-617-1603 or
lditore@bloomberg.net
Google Will Launch Google Photos, A Standalone Photo Host With “Unlimited Storage”
Its been rumored for weeks, but consider it mostly official: Google is launching a photo service separate of Google+.
We just heard it straight from the horses mouth while walking the halls of Google I/O, though I don’t think we were supposed to hear it just yet. It’ll be announced during Google’s I/O keynote, scheduled to start in an hour.
Here’s what we gleaned:
It’s called “Google Photos”, and will live at photos.google.com (this url currently points to part of Google+)
They’re pitching it as having “unlimited storage”. Previous Google photo hosting services (like Picasa) ate into your Gmail/Drive/Google+ storage limits. “Unlimited” tends to come with caveats, so we’ll wait and see what exactly that entails. Caveats like…
It sounded like photos would be capped at 16MP and will also store video, capped at 1080P.
A new Photos app is coming to Android; it’s got better photo sorting (with things like day-by-day sorting) and a feature called “Assistant”.
This is, obviously, something that users have been requesting forever: a way to store photos with Google without having to deal with all the social cruft involved with Google+.
More later, as the Google I/O keynote plays out. It’s scheduled to start at 9:30 am pacific; catch our live blog here!