With a government shutdown being sidestepped, investors found another reason to buy stocks and despite disappointing growth in last month’s personal spending and personal income. By the time the closing bell rang, the S&P 500 was at 2,388.33, up 0.17%.
Not every name got the new trading week started on a bullish foot, however. Weatherford International Plc (NYSE:WFT), Intra-Cellular Therapies Inc (NASDAQ:ITCI) and Newell Brands Inc (NYSE:NWL) were all down today, largely in response to alarming news. Here’s the deal.
Newell Brands Inc (NWL)
Newell Brands — the name behind brands like Mr. Coffee, Rubbermaid and Paper Mate — fell (slightly) out of favor with Wells Fargo analysts on Monday. The equity research arm of the megabank downgraded NWL from “Outperform” to “Market perform.” The bank said the company, though still respectable, has limited near-term growth prospects.
The new rating is at odds with the “Outperform” rating Wells Fargo made a point of reiterating less than two weeks ago. Presumably, Wells Fargo was on board with the company’s so-called, recently-unveiled Growth Game Plan that included some new product ideas. NWL ended the day at $46, down 3.6%, though within closer reach of Wells Fargo’s newly lowered price target of $49 per share.
Weatherford International Plc (WFT)
The knee-jerk response to Weatherford International’s Q1 results was a bullish one. The company topped revenue estimates, and WFT jumped as much as 8% after the news was released on Friday.
It didn’t take long, however, for the market to rethink things, sending WFT to a loss of 5.4% today.
For the quarter ending in March, Weatherford lost 32 cents per share on revenue of $1.39 billion. Although the bottom line came up a little shy of the expected loss of 31 cents per share of WFT, the top line rolled in better than the projected $1.37 billion.
Investors initially celebrated the relative victory. But, after a second, closer look at the results this weekend, it became clear the company has yet to make good on the overhaul it told WFT investors was on the way … despite a better environment for oil prices.
Intra-Cellular Therapies Inc (ITCI)
Last but not least, biopharma company Intra-Cellular Therapies delivered a dose of bad news to ITCI shareholders on Friday, telling them the Food and Drug Administration is at least a little concerned about the potential dangers of its schizophrenia drug ITI-007.
In short, the drug — called lumateperone for the time being — showed toxicity in a small sampling of its nonclinical review. This may or may not pose a risk to humans using the drug, but the fact that the agency brought it up at all raised questions about the readiness of Intra-Cellular Therapies to request the drug’s approval.
Intra-Cellular Therapies still intends to submit its new drug application for ITI-007 sometime in mid-2018, responding to the FDA’s concerns within the application. The 24.1% plunge ITCI suffered on Monday, however, says traders aren’t feeling terribly confident about the drug’s chances.
As of this writing, James Brumley did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
