The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is approving Johnson & Johnson's nasal spray anti-depressant for people resistant to other treatments.The approval of nasal spray "esketamine" is the first new type of treatment for depression in more than 30 years and has raised hopes for its relatively fast action and ability to treat some otherwise unreachable patients. “Spravato has the potential to change the treatment paradigm and offer new hope to the estimated one-third of people with major depressive disorder who have not responded to existing therapies,” said Mathai Mammen, global head of J&J’s Janssen Research & Development. The treatment carries the FDA’s harshest warning telling users of the risk for sedation and difficulty with attention, judgment and thinking, abuse and misuse, and suicidal thoughts after administration of the drug.

Dallas-based airline Southwest Airlines has been losing millions per week as flights continue to get cancelled, as maintenance issues owing to a feud with the mechanics’ union is resulting in an increased number of out-of-service jets. Recently, the airline sued the union over allegations that they are encouraging members to purposefully write-up minor maintenance issues to keep jets out of service in order to gain leverage in contract talks, which began more than six years ago. The union, however, denied such allegations. Previously, the airline has announced operational emergencies at several of its maintenance bases, giving an ultimatum to the mechanics to either show up at work or to lose their jobs. On Tuesday, 89 Southwest flights were cancelled, nearly 2% of its schedule, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware.In comparison, JetBlue (JBLU) had 12 cancelled flights and United (UAL) had eight.

Minneapolis-based retailer, Target, delivered estimate-beating earnings during the critical holiday period or the fiscal fourth quarter, resulting its shares surging by 4% on Tuesday.The retailer’s in-house brands and easy delivery options are factors that helped the company drive sales and helped it achieve considerable same-store sales growth. The company’s adjusted EPS for the quarter stood at $1.53 versus an estimate of $1.52; revenue came at $22.98 billion versus an estimate of $22.96 billion; and same store sales growth rose by 5.3% versus an expected 5.1%. On an unadjusted basis, net income fell 26.5% to $799 million or $1.52 a share, compared to $1.1 billion, or $1.99 a share, the period the previous year.

In a meeting with a J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM) analyst on Tuesday, the CEO of General Electric, Larry Culp, said that the company’s free cash flow – money left over after a company pays for operating expenses and capital spending – will be negative in 2019.After Culp’s comments, GE’s shares plunged nearly 4.7% to end the day at $9.89. Free cash flow is often an indicator of a company's operating efficiency and as such is closely watched by investors. The company generated ~$4.5 billion of free cash flow last year, but if it’s going negative from there, that means it is struggling with a few pressing issues.

Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) has another major security issue on its hands, according to The Register citing a new research paper from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the University of Lübeck. Read More...

President Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed Tariff Man, is set to become the $100 Billion Man. Read More...

Oil prices fell nearly 1 percent on Wednesday as bullish output forecasts by two big U.S. producers and a build in U.S. crude stockpiles outweighed ongoing OPEC-led efforts to rein in crude production. Read More...

The Direxion Daily Gold Miners Index Bull 3x Shares (NYSE: NUGT) has been trending higher since September, but the fund has really seen the trend become more apparent since November.It then proceeded to dip back down a little to its 50-day moving average and what has become the lower rail of an upward sloped trend channel. The daily stochastic readings reached oversold territory in January and then turned higher.

The daily stochastic readings are close to overbought territory and did just perform a bearish crossover. The Tickeron AI Prediction tool generated a bearish signal on Fossil on March 1.The prediction had a confidence level of 70% and previous predictions have been correct 75% of the time. Fossil’s fundamentals are somewhat mixed.

New-age car buying company Carvana (NYSE: CVNA) saw two potential bearish signs over the last few days.The stock has rallied since early February and that is what caused the oscillators to move in to overbought territory. In addition to the bearish stochastics crossover, the Tickeron AI Prediction tool generated a bearish signal on Carvana on February 28.

The Materials Select Sector SPDR ETF (NYSE: XLB) has dropped 1.94% over the last four days.Alcoa (NYSE: AA) is a member of the materials sector and it fell 4.78% on Thursday, February 28. The sudden decline could be just the beginning for Alcoa as the stock hit the upper rail of a downward sloped trend channel that has defined the trend over the last 10 months.

A group of U.S. senators want to tax financial transactions -- a move they argue will generate billions of dollars in revenue and reduce the risk of another financial crisis. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) introduced the Wall Street Tax Act while Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) introduced legislation in the House. Sen.Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY), a 2020 presidential contender, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY), and other progressive lawmakers have signed on as co-sponsors. The plan would tax the sale of stocks, bonds and derivatives at 0.1%. “Over the last decade, Wall Street has made record profits from high-risk trades that have made the market dangerously volatile, while doing nothing to add real value to our economy or raise wages for workers,” said Schatz.

Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. reported positive top-line data on pipeline candidate, M281 from a phase I single ascending dose (SAD) and multiple ascending dose (MAD) study of normal human volunteers. Read more...

The announcement comes after criticism about rising drug prices in the United States. U.S. senators last week questioned executives from major drug companies, calling their pricing practices “morally repugnant."  Lilly’s cheaper product will be called Insulin Lispro, while Humalog, which makes $3 billion in annual sales, will remain available for those wishing to access it through existing insurance plans. The cost of insulin for treating type 1 diabetes in the United States has nearly doubled over a five-year period, leading some patients to put their own health at risk by rationing the medication.

According to the bankruptcy court document, children’s apparel retailer Gymboree has sold itself to its rival Children’s Place.These are yet to be approved by a bankruptcy court. This is Gymboree’s second bankruptcy announcement in less than two years. Gymboree had filed for bankruptcy protection in January 2019, and said it would close 800 Gymboree and Crazy 8 stores.

The Southern Company (SO) has now brought reactors like Westinghouse AP100 online in China to help break the trend of cost overruns and delays at the company’s Vogtle nuclear construction site in Georgia. SO is known to have set up a nuclear power plant during the late 1980s at its Vogtle facility.The company believes it is on schedule to hit its November 2021 and November 2022 in-service dates for its two new nuclear units, thanks to the improved efficiency driven by positive employment and retention trends. It has also reformed its decisions about employing less skilled labor for doing simple tasks, and focusing more on skilled labors with tasks only they can complete. But the role of China is crucial in Southern’s plans to finish strongly at the Vogtle project.

According to a recent report in Wall Street Journal, Amazon is considering opening dozens of grocery stores across the U.S. at a cheaper price point than Whole Foods.Other stores will be opened in shopping centers based in San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. With this news, existing grocery stores like Walmart (WMT), Kroger (KR), Target (TGT), BJs (BJ), Costco (COST), and Sprouts (SFM) have all taken a hit. Amazon has already signed two more leases for other grocery locations by early 2020.

The S&P 500's monster rally has notched the best two-month start to a year since 1991, but by one simple measure, the market pricing seems to be ignoring the economic reality.READ MORE...

Stocks are riding high in 2019 thus far, but recent gains have mostly come through buybacks and inflows into exchange-traded funds while individual equities are shunned, data compiled by Bank of America Merrill Lynch show.READ MORE...

Carl Icahn unloaded some shares of car and truck rental behemoth Hertz Holdings. On Monday, the billionaire investor’s firm High River Limited Partnership sold 1 million shares of Hertz, while Icahn Partners LP and Icahn Partners Master Fund LP sold 2.52 million shares and roughly 1.48 million shares respectively, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.Around two years ago, Carl Icahn had more than doubled his investment in Hertz, resulting in his ownership of 35.27% of the company. The selling on Monday follows last week’s release of Hertz’s fourth quarter earnings report, which revealed that the car rental firm incurred an adjusted loss of -$46 million (or -55 cents a share), compared to earnings of $616 million (or $7.42 a share) in the year-ago quarter.