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.

Adjusted earnings of 33 cents a share were also higher than analysts’ expected 30 cents a share (based on data published in The Street). The company's quarterly sales increased +21% year-over-year to $778.5 million, surpassing analysts’ estimate of $761 million (based on FactSet data).A major contributor to the revenue growth was Ciena's converged packet optical unit, whose sales surged  +71% surge to reach $548.9 million. Ciena bought back around 600,000 common shares worth $21.2 million during the quarter.    

The news sent its shares surging more than +4% in re-market trading Tuesday. The video game and electronics retailer’s latest share repurchase program would replace the previous program that had $170 million remaining.The company also plans to buy back $350 million debt (due in October). The company also announced a quarterly cash dividend of 38 cents a share, payable on March 29. GameStop executive chairman Dan DeMatteo indicated that the company is making continued progress on strategic and financial review.

Target Corp. reported higher-than-expected earnings for the fourth quarter, on the back of strong same-store sales growth and a successful holiday season. The retail giant’s earnings-per-share for the three months ending on February 2 increased +11.7% year-over-year to $1.53, beating analysts’ estimates by a penny (based on The Street consensus forecast).Same store sales for the two months ending in December increased +5.7%, which was a faster pace compared to 3.4% of the same period last year. For the full year 2019, Target is forecasts earnings in the range of $5.75 to $6.05 per share, which is above the consensus estimate of $5.61 per share.

Salesforce beat the fiscal fourth quarter earnings estimates, but fell shy of expectations on guidance for the next quarter. At 70 cents per share for the three months ending January, the cloud computing/software company’s adjusted earnings overshot analysts’ expectation of 55 cents per share (based on Refinitiv data).Subscription and support revenues also climbed +26% year-over-year to $3.38 billion in the quarter. Despite the better-than-expected results for the latest quarter, what probably led to Salesforce shares slumping during Monday’s extended trading was its forecast of 60 cents to 61 cents earnings-per-share on a revenue range of $3.67 billion to $3.68 for the fiscal first quarter – figures that are lower than the 63 cents earnings per share on $3.70 billion revenue that analysts had anticipated ((based on Refinitiv data). Nevertheless, the company’s guidance for the full fiscal year 2020 is in line with analysts’ expectations.

Disney CEO Bob Iger saw his potential pay for the year cut by $13.5 million on Monday. Read More...

General Electric Co is setting aside one of the largest amounts ever to cover potential losses on policies that provide long-term care in nursing facilities and patients’ homes.But insurance experts are concerned that may not be enough. Read More...

As the bull market turns 10 this week, the S&P 500 climbed back to the 2,800 threshold for the first time in nearly four months and has gained more than 11% so far this year.The strong rally pushed the index to its best start to a year since 1991 (read: Wall Street's Best Start Since 1987: Top ETFs of Top Sectors). READ MORE...

Tesla’s price cuts have been so significant in some regions that it devaluated some recently purchased vehicles by over 40% and it pushed some owners to literally organize protests. READ MORE...

According to the analysts, fundamental changes have been priced in after Kraft Heinz’s indication last month about potential headwinds to profit. Last month, The food company wrote down the value of its key brands Kraft and Oscar Mayer by around $15.4 billion, missed estimates of adjusted fourth quarter earnings and slashed its dividend to 40 cents per share. Morgan Stanley analyst Dara Mohsenian said, "From a stock perspective, we also see some potential upside optionality (and at least downside support) from potential further 3G involvement (increased stake or take private transaction)".However, he did indicate some caution around Kraft Heinz long-term growth in EBITDA.  Morgan Stanley maintained its price target for Kraft Heinz unchanged at $35 a share.

Durham, NC-based biotech Precision Biosciences has filed a prospectus for a $100 million IPO. Next year, the company should launch a Phase 1/2a clinical trial evaluating a gene-edited allogeneic CAR T candidate targeting CD18 in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) patients.The company believes that this is the first allogeneic CAR T for NHL.

Gen Z, which makes up the demographic of ages 13 - 22, is abandoning old media altogether including TV, instead opting for digital content viewing in phones, tablets and laptops.For example, in 2015 Jack Davis along with horror master Eli Roth founded Crypt TV and have developed a slate of monster-centric IP that they distribute on YouTube and Facebook (FB) in the form of a short digital film and television series.

Breaking loose of its reputation of not being able to handle returns and refunds efficiently, the company further confirmed that from now on drivers will be given up to a week to return their newly purchased vehicles if they aren’t happy. Tesla’s CEO explained that there was no other way to reduce operating costs but to shift to e-commerce.The move will reduce the sales force on the retail side and also avoid dealing with local politics that have prevented Tesla from operating its own stores (dealerships) in certain states including Connecticut, New Mexico and others. The company further emphasized that this move could boost sales of Model 3 vehicles, by getting to the long-awaited base model price of $35,000. But that's not all.