The bulls gave it a valiant effort on Friday, aiming to rekindle the post election rally that materialized on Wednesday but fizzled on Thursday. When all was said and done, though, the best the S&P 500 could muster was containing the loss to only 0.14%. The index ended the day and the week at 2165.45.
It could have been worse though, and for owners of Archer Daniels Midland Company (NYSE:ADM), Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd (USA) (NYSE:AEM) and Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALXN), it was worse.
These three names dished out the most paint to most shareholders on Friday, mostly for reasons that weren’t even their fault.
Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (ALXN)
Bad news for Alexion Pharmaceuticals on Friday. The company’s internal investigation of itself — its sales practices, to be specific — is proceeding. Though the biopharma hasn’t found anything it doesn’t like yet, the market isn’t so sure the organization will clear itself with a clean bill of health. At least some major investors aren’t so sure, however, and with a flurry of investor lawsuits unveiled today, ALXN took a 10.5% hit.
The fact that the 10Q filing is going to be delayed raises a big red flag, fanning the bearish flames that scorched ALXN today.
Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd (USA) (AEM)
For the second day in a row the U.S. dollar rose, and for the second day in a row gold prices fell hard as a results. In turn, gold mining stocks took on more than their fair share of water.
The dollar’s gain wasn’t enormous; the U.S. dollar index only advanced 0.18%. Gold fell a whopping 3.3% though, on speculation that the dollar is positioning for a significant move higher in conjunction with rising interest rates.
Gold mining names Barrick Gold Corporation (USA) (NYSE:ABX) and Goldcorp Inc. (USA) (NYSE:GG) were among the hardest hit, with each stock losing 5.9% and 5.8% of their value, respectively.
Agnico Eagle Mines was the biggest loser among the major names in the gold mining business, though, with AEM falling 9.2%.
Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM)
Finally, in the same sense the prospect of a Trump Presidency worked for the U.S. dollar and against gold prices, investors speculated that Donald Trump’s agricultural policies would work against names like Archer Daniels Midland.
JPMorgan voiced the idea with an unsettling voice of reason and logic, downgrading ADM shares to an “Underweight” and lowering its price target from $42 per share to $36. Analyst Ann Duignan explained:
“[T]he full impact of the Presidential election result is hard to quantify at this point; however, we believe that the risks to US agriculture are now skewed to the downside… [T]he value of ADM’s ethanol dry mill assets could be reduced given heightened risks to demand (domestically and in terms of exports), this could negatively impact ADM’s ability to sell the dry mill assets in the near term.”
ADM ended the day lower to the tune of 7.6%.
As of this writing, James Brumley did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
