PRISM Market Moves on Wednesday: Wins for Healthcare as Novocure and Merck Soar; GameStop and Reddit Stumble
US equities are mostly higher on Wednesday at midday, after stocks fell for a third straight session on Tuesday. Outperformers include hospitals, apparel manufacturers, homebuilders, credit cards, investment banks, and commodity chemicals, while underperformers include cruise lines, beverages, semi cap equipment, oil majors, E&Ps, and marine shipping. Treasuries are firmer, the Dollar index is flat, Gold is up +0.5%, Bitcoin futures are down (0.1%) and WTI crude is down (0.1%).
Outperformers at midday are Novocure ($NVCR), which has gained +8.0% after the company announced its METIS Phase 3 clinical trial had met its primary endpoint in treating patients with brain metastases from non-small cell lung cancer. Roivant Sciences ($ROIV) is up +6.4% and will replace SunRun, Inc ($RUN) in the S&P MidCap 400. Merck($MRK) has risen +4.3% after news that the FDA had approved the company’s Winrevair (sotatercept) for pulmonary arterial hypertension. Deutsche Bank ($DB) has climbed +3.2% after being upgraded to overweight from equal weight at Morgan Stanley.
The day’s decliners are GameStop ($GME) which has lost (15.6%) on missing Q4 EPS and revenue. The company announced it has cut an unspecified number of jobs amid increased e-commerce competition and weak consumer spending. Reddit ($RDDT) has fallen (12.9%), and Celsius Holdings ($CELH) is down (6.5%) after the company disclosed an amendment to its current distribution agreement with PepsiCo ($PEP) which will provide PepsiCo with an incentive program to compensate it for its support of Celcius licensed products.
