The market may be closed for the weekend, but market-moving news continues. The Yahoo (YHOO) board of directors, under investor pressure, could put core operations up for sale, or go ahead with CEO Marissa Mayer’s plan to spin off the company’s lucrative Alibaba (BABA) stake. Meanwhile, a slew of blood cancer drug data from Novartis (NVS), Bluebird Bio (BLUE), AbbVie (ABBV) and several others will be presented at the key ASH conference.
Big pharmas Merck (MRK), Eli Lilly (LLY) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) were trading up Tuesday after getting upgrades from Barclays, while AbbVie (ABBV) seesawed on a downgrade. Analyst Geoff Meacham assumed coverage of a newly combined U.S. Pharmaceuticals sector in Barclays’ coverage, and while he left most ratings the same he made a few tweaks. Lilly was upgraded to overweight from equal weight, and its price target lifted to 95 from 75, based on
Big pharma AbbVie (ABBV) beat analysts’ Q3 estimates and issued five-year guidance that was above expectations Friday morning, sending the stock up sharply in early trading. AbbVie’s adjusted earnings rose 27% over the year-earlier quarter to $1.13 a share, beating analysts’ consensus by 5 cents, according to Thomson Reuters. Sales climbed 18% to $5.95 billion, about $50 million above estimates. AbbVie tightened its full-year EPS guidance range to