U.S. stocks end day with marginal gains - EGHT, LOGM, SSYS, IACI, LLY

Concerns over corporate spending is spreading over a pall of gloom over the equity markets and this is limiting gains in shares.

On Thursday, despite futures showing a positive start to the trading day, the session ended with stocks ending up marginally.

Apple's earnings came short of expectations, while its outlook was also short of what analysts had forecast, sending the shares of the company fell about 4 percent.

Trading of Apple's stock was halted after the close and ahead of the earnings, but trading resumed at about 4:50 p.m. Apple's stock fell 1.4 percent to $600.71 in extended-hours trading after its results, though it was down 4 percent when trading resumed.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEXDJX:.DJI) rose 26.34 points, or 0.20 percent, to 13,103.68 at the close. The S&P 500(INDEXSP:.INX) gained 4.22 points, or 0.30 percent, to finish at 1,412.97. The NASDAQ Composite (INDEXNASDAQ:.IXIC) advanced 4.42 points, or 0.15 percent, to end at 2,986.12.

Volume was relatively light, with just 6.34 billion shares traded on U.S. exchanges.

Advancers outnumbered decliners on the New York Stock Exchange by a ratio of about 3 to 2. On the Nasdaq, about seven stocks rose for every five that fell.

The earnings season is almost drawing to a close and so far it has been not very cheerful except for a few pockets of unexpectedly good results such as that of Procter & Gamble.

Just 36.3 percent of companies have reported revenues above expectations, compared with a historic rate of 62 percent.

8x8, Inc.(NASDAQ:EGHT) stock increased 13.40% to $6.88 after the company posted second quarter total revenue of $26.4 million from $19.8 million in the same period of fiscal 2012. Non-GAAP net income was $3.7 million, or $0.05 per diluted share, as compared with $1.7 million, or $0.02 per diluted share, in the same period a year ago. GAAP net income was $1.7 million, or $0.02 per diluted share.

LogMeIn Inc(NASDAQ:LOGM) posted third quarter net income of $718 thousand, or $0.03 per share, as compared to GAAP net income of $1.1 million, or $0.04 per share, in the year ago period. Adjusted net income for the third quarter of 2012 was $4.6 million, or $0.18 per diluted share. Total revenue increased 14% to $35.4 million, up from $31.0 million reported in the third quarter of 2011. Analysts expected the company to report profit of $0.16 per share on revenue of $35.13 million for the quarter. The stock added about 18.60%% to $23.82.

Stratasys, Inc.(NASDAQ:SSYS) stock jumped 7.80% to $66.49. The company announced that it will release financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2012 and hold a conference call with investors on Friday, November 2, 2012. The Company plans to hold the conference call to discuss its third quarter financial results on Friday, November 2, 2012 at 8:30 a.m. (ET).

IAC/InterActiveCorp(NASDAQ:IACI) shares gained 4.80% to $50.30 after the company said that revenue increased 38% in the third quarter to $714.5 million. Analysts had expected revenue of $692.8 million. Adjusted for tax benefits and one-time items, IAC reported earnings per share of 71 cents, beating analysts' forecast of 66 cents.

Additionally, Benchmark Co. reissued their buy rating on shares of IACI in a report released today.

Eli Lilly & Co.(NYSE:LLY) stock increased 1.15% to $51.08 after the company posted third quarter net income of $1.33 billion or $1.18 per share from $1.24 billion or $1.11 per share in the previous year. Analysts expected earnings per share of $0.83 for the quarter. Total revenue declined to $5.44 billion from $6.15 billion in the same quarter last year. Analysts estimated revenues of $5.62 billion for the quarter.

Sanford C. Bernstein reissued their outperform rating on shares of LLY in a research report released today. Sanford C. Bernstein currently has a $57.00 price target on the stock.

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Stocks In News (AEGR, LLY, KO, TSLA, THLD)

Aegerion Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:AEGR)surged up 6.07% to $18.51.According to report fromReuters, U.S. drug reviewers were positive on Aegerion Pharmaceuticals's experimental drug for lipid disorder and said it showed a greater reduction in bad cholesterol as compared with statins. The FDA said an approval of the drug would require a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy to ensure that the benefits of lomitapide outweigh the risk of serious liver injury.

Eli Lilly & Co (NYSE:LLY) went up 0.61% to $52.85.Eli Lilly & Co was upgraded from market perform rating to outperform rating in a research report. Recently, r the company said that trials on a drug for treating stomach cancer had met the goals of improved patient survival and progression-free survival in a late-stage study that compared it to a dummy treatment.

The company said in a statement that the most common side effects for the medicine, ramucirumab, were high blood pressure, diarrhoea and headache.

The drug was tested in patients with gastric cancer that had spread to other parts of the body.

The Coca-Cola Company(NYSE:KO) soared 0.18% to $38.20 on a traded volume of 189k shares.Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling SA intends to move its main stock listing from Athens to London as Greece’s largest company by market value flees the epicenter of Europe’s debt crisis.Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling SA isthe world’s second-largest Coca-Cola bottler.The move will make it eligible for inclusion in the benchmark FTSE 100 Index.

Tesla Motors Inc(NASDAQ:TSLA) went up 0.37% to $27.43. The Company has received a $10 million grant from California to buy assembly equipment and add 500 workers to build a rechargeable sport-utility vehicle in the state.

Threshold Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:THLD) surged up 9.33% to $5.74 on a traded volume of 54k shares.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration reached agreement with a Threshold partner covering a special protocol assessment for a Phase 3 trial of TH-302. This will allow the Companies to push forward the study of the pancreatic cancer drug.TH-302 is a potential treatment of metastatic or locally advanced unresectable pancreatic cancer

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Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE:LLY) Extends Rally on positive studies of new cancer drug, Hit New Highs

Shares in Eli Lilly & Co.(NYSE:LLY) rose more than 4 percent on Monday and added further 1.50% to $53.30 this morning after the company said that trials on a drug for treating stomach cancer had met the goals of improved patient survival and progression-free survival in a late-stage study that compared it to a dummy treatment.

The company said in a statement that the most common side effects for the medicine, ramucirumab, were high blood pressure, diarrhoea and headache.

The drug was tested in patients with gastric cancer that had spread to other parts of the body.

Gastric cancer affects the stomach lining and often goes undetected while developing slowly, Lilly said. Gastroesophageal junction cancer forms where the oesophagus connects to the stomach.

According to Leerink Swann analyst Seamus Fernandez who has upgraded the stock to Buy from Hold, the drug has an 80 percent chance of approval as a second line of treatment. The drug is in the final stage of testing for regulatory approval by the US FDA.

The drug has the potential to generate revenues of $600 million.

Shares in Eli Lilly rose 4.12 percent to close at $52.53. The shares have risen 37 percent in the past one year. Moreover, this morning the stock made a new high at $53.88.

The company said it planned the release details of the study at an upcoming scientific meeting. It is also studying the drug in combination with "the chemotherapy drug paclitaxel in a separate, late-stage trial. It also is examining the drug in late-stage testing as a potential treatment for breast, colorectal and lung cancers."

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Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE:LLY) might have hit upon a potential cancer cure

The pharmaceutical company based in Indianapolis, Eli Lilly & Co.(NYSE:LLY) has recently declared that they may have hit upon a long-term cure of stomach cancer, and that their recent tests have been successful, since they think that the medicine might ensure the increased rate of survival for the cancer patients, and might make the condition progression-free in they years to come, as well! They said that their medicine was compared to a placebo treatment which is given during the late stages of a certain clinical study.

The aftermath of this announcement led to the rapid climbing of the shares of the pharmaceutical company. The prices increased by three percent, and came to $51.97 after a $1.52 increment. This is the rate as it was during morning trading on Monday. Lilly says that the treatment, which has been named ramucirumab, has been studied extensively. They studied the effects of their treatment with that of the placebo, on late-stage patients with gastroesophageal junction cancers or gastric cancers. While the latter tends to affect the lining of the stomach, the former tends to spread the cancer on the area which connects the esophagus to the stomach. They have said that the treatment gives out progression free survival, which is the estimate before a disease spreads, or the time before the person in the study passes away.

Lilly will be revealing the details of their ground-breaking study soon, they said. It will most likely be revealed at a scientific meeting which is due to happen soon. They will also have to subject the treatment for drug-approval, for which they need to start talking to the regulators. The company spokeswoman said recently that the specifics will be revealed as soon as they are ready. The treatment and the findings are still at a very nascent stage, as of yet. The company is holding separate trials to measure the effect of the new drug with the chemo-drug paclitaxel. This trail too, will be a late-stage trial.

The company hit upon ramucirumab after their acquisition of ImClone Systems Inc. in 2008. Lilly is also hopeful of the effects the drug will have on other forms of cancer. 

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Stocks rise on strong retail sales data – C, NOK, CLWR, AMED, LLY

Wall Street got a boost on Monday after strong U.S. retail sales for the month of September held out hopes of a return in consumer confidence and optimism about revival in the economy.

Consumer spending drives about two-thirds of the U.S. economy.

Shares of banks also rose after Citigroup reported earnings that were better than expected.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEXDJX:.DJI) rose 95.38 points to close at 13,424.23, its biggest gain since September 13.The S&P 500(INDEXSP:.INX) was up 11.54 points at 1,440.13 and the NASDAQ Composite (INDEXNASDAQ:.IXIC) rose 20.07 points to 3,064.18.

Data on retail sales, released by the U.S. Commerce Department showed that Americans had spent more on buying cars and gasoline while sales of building materials also showed an uptick.

These three together make up core retail sales and are a good indicator of consumer spending in the economy. Core retail sales rose 0.9 percent in the month, compared to an overall growth of 1.1 percent. It surpassed the forecasts made by economists.

Companies that rely on consumer spending, like Lowe's, TJX Cos. and Yum Brands rose after the data was released.

Citigroup Inc.(NYSE:C) shares also rose 5.5 percent to $36.66 after it reported earnings that beat analyst estimates.

Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) rose 3.5 percent, while JPMorgan Chase rose 1.8 percent.

A fall in China's inflation rate to 1.9 percent in September from2 percent in August also held out hopes that the world's second largest economy will announce some measures to further stimulate growth.

Clearwire Corporation(NASDAQ:CLWR) was the notable winner and soared 16% to $2.69 after Sprint was agreed to be acquired by Japanese cell phone company Softbank Corp.

Nokia Corporation (ADR)(NYSE:NOK) saw a sudden pop up and surged 4.70% to $2.68 ahead of the company critical quarterly earnings on Thursday. Investors would like to see the company’s cash position as analysts are expecting the company’s available cash to play an important role going forward. In terms of earnings revenue, analysts continued to believe that the company will report loss and lower revenue due heavy competition from Apple and Google’s android. So, keep your eyes on NOK this week.

Eli Lilly & Co.(NYSE:LLY) resumed uptrend and rose 4.12% to $52.53 after the company said results from a late-stage study of its metastatic gastric cancer treatment were positive. ISI Group sees $600 million annual sales from the drug's use in gastric cancer alone, while noting it's also being tested in other tumor types, too, which could boost sales if trials are positive.

Amedisys Inc(NASDAQ:AMED) was the notable loser and fell 9.40% after the company  it reached a new agreement with health insurer HumHumana Inc.(NYSE:HUM) that will keep the companies' relationship going, but will also bring in less revenue. 

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Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE:LLY) downgraded to Underperform

Eli Lilly & Co.(NYSE:LLY) has been downgraded to Underperform by Cown & Co, citing risks in the drug firm's ability to develop new treatments and a patent dispute over its cancer treatment Alimta.

The research firm said in a note that the drug firm's shares are trading much higher than what it actually should, considering the risks attached to its business.

Shares of the company have risen by more than fifth this year, most of the gains coming during August, when it released preliminary results from trials that showed that solanezumab, its drug to treat Alzheimer's slowed down the process of mental decline in patients suffering from a milder form of the disease.

Analyst Steve Scala said that "solanezumab accounted for much of the stock's recent run," but according to him the drug was not likely to be a success and it would fail.

He wrote that he did not believe in the existing data and said that it was not sufficient for regulatory approval, and Lilly will pass on conducting another large, expensive study for more data.

Scala lowered his rating on Lilly shares to "underperform" from "neutral." The new rating means he expects the stock to perform worse than the Standard & Poor's 500 index.

Shares in Eli Lilly fell 0.3 percent to $50.45, though it rose about 0.15 percent in after-hours trading.

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Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE:LLY) And Roche Drugs Selected For Alzheimer’s Prevention Trial

Experimental drugs to cure Alzheimer’s disease from Roche Holding AG and Eli Lilly & Co.(NYSE:LLY)  have been chosen for a high-profile medical trial to test if it is possible to stop the disease from developing in at-risk patients.

Th trial is expected to begin sometime next year. It is going to enroll 160 patients internationally with inherited gene mutations that usually result in Alzheimer’s symptoms when they are in their 30s. Washington University said this while announcing the selection of drugs on Wednesday.

Studies over drugs over the past decade have tried and failed to slow progression of Alzheimer’s among patients, who are undergoing dementia. There is hope of some triumph in arresting symptoms in patients, who are so highly inclined to develop the ailment. It will show the way to stop Alzheimer’s in a much wider population.

A neurologist from Washington University of Medicine, Dr. Randall Bateman said that the team is going to work on three different drugs with three different means of action in order to find out the best method.

Bateman said over a telephonic interview that half the patients in the trial do not have any symptoms when the study had started. The rest will have very minor symptoms.

A neurologist at New York University Langone Medical Center, Dr. James Galvin said that such a prevention trial that involves people at high hereditary risk of Alzheimer’s disease would need comparatively few patients and could generate results within a few years.

Gavin said that every family has a genetic mutation with a definite age of inception of ailment, so people can start giving the drug a certain number of years before the predicted onset.

Around 5 million people in the US and 36 million internationally are believed to have Alzheimer’s, which happens to be a common type of dementia.

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Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE:LLY): Alzheimer Drug ‘Lilly’ Shows Some Positive Effect In Mild Disease

Eli Lilly & Co. (NYSE:LLY)’s Experimental drug ‘Lilly’ seems to help slow mental decline in individuals with mild Alzheimer’s disease.

Through combined results from two different studies of an experimental Alzheimer’s drug indicate that it may modestly slow mental degradation particularly in people with mild Alzheimer’s disease.

When taken separately, the studies on the drug, Eli Lilly’s solanezumab missed their major goals of appreciably slowing the mental ailment or improving activities of daily living. However, pooled result showed that there was 34% less mental decline in people with mild Alzheimer’s disease when compared to those undergoing fake treatment for 18 months.

Doctors called the results heartening, even though probably not good enough to win consent of the drug at the moment, without another study to verify that there is a strong benefit. Investors were more enthusiastic about the results driving Lilly’s stock up by nearly 5% on Monday and about 19% since the month of August, when the firm had described the results in general terms.

Comprehensive results were revealed for the first time on Monday at an American Neurological Association conference that was held in Boston.

CEO of the Alzheimer’s Association, Maria Carillo said that it is certainly not the home run that the organization wanted but it was encouraged by the outcomes. An Alzheimer’s expert at Brown University, Dr. Stephen Salloway agreed to it. He said that it is exciting to see that there are possibilities of clinical benefits. He also said that the drug is modest and may not be enough to make a difference in how well patients live.

The drug has failed to help patients in two late-stage researches the previous month. However, it did show signs of hitting its target and clearing deposits from the brain.

The Lilly drug appears to be safe and that is the benefit of it, according to the head of a memory ailments program at New York Presbyterian Hospital, Dr. Norman Relkin.

Shares of the company are down 2.60% to $50.47 after soaring 9% in the past two trading sessions and made multi year high of $53.55 in yesterday’s session.

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