Stock futures rose Monday but gains were limited by comments from Federal Reserve officials that tempered enthusiasm over just how soon interest rates might be lowered. The
S&P 500
rose 2.5% last week, pushing the winning streak for U.S. stocks to seven weeks.
These stocks were poised to make moves Monday:
U.S. Steel
was rising 23% to $48.31 after reaching an agreement to be acquired by
Nippon Steel
for $55 a share in cash or $14.1 billion.
U.S. Steel
closed at $39.33 on Friday.
Gene-sequencing company
Illumina
said it plans to sell Grail, its unit that makes cancer blood tests, after a federal appeals found the U.S. government had the right to challenge the $7.1 billion acquisition made in 2021.
Illumina
said the divestiture will be made through a third-party sale or capital markets transaction with the goal of finalizing the terms by the end of the second quarter of 2024. Illumina shares rose 5.4%.
U.S.-listed shares of
NIO
were rising 11% after the Chinese electric-vehicle maker said it received a $2.2 billion investment from CYVN Holdings, an investment vehicle based in Abu Dhabi. The latest investment raises CYVN’s holding in
NIO’s
total issued and outstanding shares to 20.1%.
Affirm
was falling 5.4% to $41.60 after shares of the buy-now-pay-later operator were downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at
Morgan Stanley.
The price target was raised to $20 from $15.
Roku
fell 2.7% to $93.39 after analysts at Seaport Research downgraded shares of the streaming-media company to Sell from Neutral with a price target of $75. The Seaport downgrade follows the one made Friday MoffettNathanson analysts, who said
Roku
shares have risen too much too quickly. Roku fell 6.8% on Friday, but has gained 136% this year.
Uber Technologies
fell 0.4% as shares of the ride-hailing app were set to make their S&P 500 debut on Monday.
Jabil,
down 2.2%, and
Builders FirstSource,
down 1.1%, also will join the index on Monday.
Broadcom
on Friday became the 10th most valuable U.S. company, closing with a valuation of $527.7 billion and surpassing
Visa,
according to Dow Jones Market Data. Helping
Broadcom
get there was its acquisition of VMware in late November—its market capitalization rose about $50 billion at the close of the deal. Broadcom fell 0.5% in premarket trading.
DocuSign,
the E-signature company, is working with advisers to explore a sale, The Wall Street Journal reported, with either strategic buyers or private-equity firms. Conversations are in the early stages, people familiar with the situation told the Journal. A leveraged buyout with even a modest premium would be the largest tech buyout deal in many months, likely edging the $12.5 billion that Silver Lake and the Canada Pension Investment Board paid for market software specialist Qualtrics earlier this year, Barron’s noted. Shares of
DocuSign
fell 1.1% in premarket trading after jumping 12% on Friday.
Earnings reports are expected this week from
FedEx,
Micron Technology,
Nike,
Accenture,
General Mills,
Carnival,
Winnebago,
Paychex,
and
CarMax.
Write to Joe Woelfel at [email protected]
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