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 Cannabis stocks rallied on Thursday before paring their gains, boosted by the news that the biggest company in the sector by market cap has bought the rights to acquire a U.S. multistate operator as soon as the federal ban on cannabis has been lifted.
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 After Pinterest's initial public offering Thursday, the company's stock price rose more than 25%, driving its market cap to $13 billion.
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U.S. stocks trade mostly higher Thursday as investors continued to analyze the flow of corporate earnings and a series of conflicting economic reports.
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 Sears Holdings Corp. has sued its former chief executive Eddie Lampert, his hedge fund ESL Investment Inc. and other ESL and Sears directors for stripping the department store icon of its assets, according to The Wall Street Journal. The lawsuit alleges "bad-faith financial projections" even as Sears racked up more than $7 billion in losses between 2011 and 2014. It also accuses Lampert and other of trying take the most profitable Sears stores to spin off into Seritage Growth Properties. Other defendants include Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who is a former investor and executive at ESL. Sears filed for bankruptcy in October 2018. Sears stock has gained nearly 173% in 2019, trading at about 74 cents, but it has lost nearly 77% over the last year. The S&P 500 index is up almost 16% for the year to date.
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.
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 U.S. stocks eked out gains in volatile trading on Thursday, ahead of a long Easter weekend, as strong results from industrials countered another drop in healthcare stocks, with investors shrugging off release of the Mueller report.
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Constellation Brands Inc. shares rallied Thursday, after Canadian cannabis company Canopy Growth Corp. announced a deal that will give it the rights to acquire U.S. multistate operator Acreage Holdings Inc. as soon as the U.S. federal ban on cannabis has been lifted. The deal brings changes to the terms of Constellation's warrants in Canopy, in which it has invested $4 billion, according to Wells Fargo analyst Bonnie Herzog. As part of that deal announced last August, Constellation Brands gained 38% ownership and received warrants that if exercised would raise that stake to above 50%. Herzog wrote in a note to clients that there are four key impacts from the modification of the warrants, three of which are positive and one slightly negative. On the positive side, the deal extends the exercise period for Constellation to five to eight years from three years previously, "suggesting less 'cash out the door'," for the Corona beer distributor. Also positive, the deal does not change Constellation's representation on the Canopy board in the form of four directors. The deal splits the Tranche B warrants into two parts, "75% of total will be exercisable at C$76.68 ($57.31)with the remainder kept at VWAP (volme weighted average price) - High exercise price (vs where CGC is currently trading at C$57.11) reflects STZ's strong confidence in its CGC investment," Herzog wrote. The slight negative is that the deal now caps Constellation's ownership at 50%, she said. "Net/net - We view today's announcement as positive and continue to believe STZ's involvement in cannabis/CGC positions them well to take a leading position in the global alcohol/cannabis industry over the next decade plus," said the analyst. Constellation shares were up 3.6%, and have gained 18% in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 has gained 7%.
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.
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 * Strong U.S. retail sales boost dollar
(Updates to open of U.S. markets)
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 UBS Global Wealth Management has closed its overweight position in U.S. equities and shifted to an overweight in emerging market and Japanese stocks, it said on Thursday.
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Yale University economics professor Robert Shiller suggests President Trump's policies will prolong the bull market.
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