Stocks rose on Monday following six straight weeks of gains for the
S&P 500.
On this week’s calendar are the consumer price index for November, a decision on interest rates from the Federal Reserve, and U.S. retail sales.
These stocks were making moves Monday:
Cigna
jumped 17% and
Humana
shares fell 1% after
Cigna
stepped away from a possible merger with the Louisville health insurer. The companies couldn’t agree on a price and other financial terms, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Cigna said it would consider “bolt-on” acquisitions instead, and plans to buy another $10 billion of its shares, for a total of $11.3 billion.
Shares of
Macy’s
surged 19% following a report from the Journal that said an investor group has made a $5.8 billion offer to buy the department-store chain. Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital Management submitted a proposal earlier this month to acquire the
Macy’s
shares they don’t already own for $21 a share, a 32% premium to the stock’s closing price Friday of $17.39.
Paramount Global
was down 3.6% on reports from Puck and
The New York Times
that said Shari Redstone was in talks to sell controlling interesting in National Amusements, the parent company of Paramount, to Skydance Media. Paramount stock surged 12% on Friday following unconfirmed reports that Skydance and RedBird Capital were contemplating a possible takeover of Paramount’s controlling shares. National Amusements, where Redstone serves as president, owns about 10% of Paramount’s equity capital value, but 77% of voting rights. The stock also was downgraded to Sell from Hold by analysts at Loop Capital.
Eli Lilly
was falling 2.3% after data published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that patients who stopped taking the company’s weight-loss drug Zepbound and switched to a placebo regained 14% of their weight over a year.
Broadcom
was up 9% after
Citi
resumed coverage on the stock with a Buy rating and price target of $1,100. The analysts cited strength in the company’s core business and accretion from the acquisition of VMware.
RingCentral
declined 6.8% after the provider of cloud-based communications services announced that recently appointed CEO Tarek Robbiati has resigned and Vlad Shmunis, the company’s founder and executive chairman would return s chief executive.
Pinterest
was up 1.3% after shares of the photo sharing platform were upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital Markets and the price target was boosted to $46 from $32.
Snap
jumped 4.2% after
Wells Fargo
upgraded the stock to Overweight from Equal Weight and raised the price target to $22 from $8.
HP Inc.
was upgraded to Outperform from In Line at Evercore ISI and the price target on the stock was raised to $40 from $33.
HPInc.
shares rose 0.1%.
Shares of
Shake Shack
were rising 10% after the upscale burger chain initiated a search for a new chief executive and reiterated its financial guidance.
Oracle
rose 1.3% and
Casey’s General Stores
was up 1%. Both companies are scheduled to report quarterly earnings after the closing bell Monday.
Write to Joe Woelfel at joseph.woelfel@barrons.com
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