Stockwinners Market Radar for September 23, 2018 - Earnings, Upgrades downgrades, option trades, Best Stock Advisory Service

19:30 EDT Fly Intel: Top five weekend stock stories - Catch up on the weekend's top five stories with this list compiled by The Fly: 1. Comcast (CMCSA; CMCSK) announced that it has prevailed with the highest offer price in the auction to acquire the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Sky (SKYAY) with an offer price of GBP17.28 per Sky share. This implies a value of $40B for the fully diluted share capital of Sky. The announcement ends the competitive bidding process for Sky. 21st Century Fox (FOXA) was the other bidder. 2. Regal Beloit (RBC) announced that Mark Gliebe, Chairman and CEO, will retire from the company after the completion of calendar year 2018. Regal's Board of Directors has begun a process to identify Gliebe's successor, who has agreed to lead the company until a successor has been named and to resign from the Board effective as of his retirement date as CEO. Additionally, the company confirmed 2018 adjusted diluted EPS guidance of $5.70-$6.00 and said it forecasts 2018 GAAP diluted EPS of $4.55-$4.85, which now includes an estimate of currently known and anticipated CEO transition costs of 23c per share. 3. Led by Tilray (TLRY), the U.S.-listed grower that went public in July, the shares of Canada's pot producers skyrocketed by Wednesday and then gave most of their gains back, raising comparisons between marijuana stocks and the Bitcoin bubble, Bill Alpert wrote in this week's edition of Barron's. Canada's licensed marijuana producers begin recreational sales on October 17 and they have acres of greenhouses in bloom, but their stock prices have been weakly tethered to business fundamentals for months now, and last week's blow-off was all the proof needed that the trading has become irrational, Alpert contended. 4. Comcast subsidiary Universal's "The House With a Clock in its Walls" debuted to a better than expected $26.9M from 3,592 theaters, topping the chart. Overseas, the pre-Halloween offering that follows a young orphan who goes to live in his uncle's spooky house launched to $8.7M for a global start of $35.6M. The movie earned a B+ CinemaScore and sports a 68% Rotten Tomatoes score. 5. Boston Scientific (BSX), Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), Caterpillar (CAT), Applied Materials (AMAT), BorgWarner (BWA), KeyCorp (KEY), Parker-Hannifin (PH), Apple (AAPL), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Intel (INTC), IBM (IBM), Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), and Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, BRK.B) saw positive mentions in Barron's.

18:14 EDT TransEnterix acquires assets, intellectual property from MST Medical Surgery - TransEnterix announced that it has acquired substantially all of the assets of MST Medical Surgery Technologies. The addition of MST's technology, IP portfolio, and R&D team supports and accelerates TransEnterix's vision to leverage its Senhance Surgical System to deliver digital laparoscopy, thereby increasing control in the surgical environment and reducing surgical variability. TransEnterix acquired from MST substantially all of its assets, which includes technology and intellectual property, and will transfer MST's Israeli-based R&D team to a newly formed subsidiary, TransEnterix Israel. The transaction will be financed with a combination of cash and stock, delivered in two separate tranches. At the closing of the transaction, MST will receive approximately $5.8M in cash and 3,150,000 shares of TransEnterix common stock. The second tranche of $6.6M, payable in cash or stock, is to be paid within one year of closing. The timing and form of payment of the second tranche is at TransEnterix's sole discretion.

16:15 EDT Abbott announces positive clinical study results from MitraClip trial - Abbott announced positive clinical study results from a randomized controlled trial comparing treatment with the MitraClip device to guideline-directed medical therapy in select patients with secondary mitral regurgitation, or a leaky heart valve, as a result of advanced heart failure. The landmark COAPT study met both the primary safety and efficacy endpoints and all secondary endpoints, and showed treatment with MitraClip plus medical therapy was superior to medical therapy alone in reducing rates of heart failure hospitalizations and improving survival at two years. This therapeutic mitral valve intervention is the first and only to demonstrate positive outcomes in a clinical trial for ailing heart failure patients with clinically significant secondary mitral regurgitation. The COAPT study data will be submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to support consideration of an expanded indication for Abbott's MitraClip to treat secondary mitral regurgitation. Treatment with MitraClip plus medical therapy resulted in a statistically significant reduction in heart failure hospitalization through two years compared to medical therapy alone. MitraClip treatment reduced all-cause mortality through two years, from 46.1% of patients in the control group to 29.1% in the device group at two years of follow-up. At one year, freedom from device-related complications was 96.6%, exceeding the performance goal for the primary safety endpoint. Patients in the device group experienced significant reduction in MR severity and NYHA class. Treatment with MitraClip provided a substantial improvement in patients' perception of their health status, measured by the KCCQ quality-of-life score, and functional capacity at one year. MitraClip treatment resulted in a reduction in the composite of death or first heart failure hospitalization by 43.0%. The results were consistent across numerous subgroups, including patients with ischemic and non-ischemic cardiomyopathy - a disease of the heart muscle that weakens the ability of the heart to pump blood to the rest of the body - and those at high and low surgical risk.

12:29 EDT Comcast prevails with highest offer price in auction for Sky - Comcast (CMCSA) published an announcement that Comcast has prevailed with the highest offer price in the auction to acquire the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Sky (SKYAY) with an offer price of GBP17.28 per Sky share. This implies a value of $40B for the fully diluted share capital of Sky. The announcement ends the competitive bidding process for Sky.

12:20 EDT Boston Scientific announced positive 12-month data from IMPERIAL trial - Boston Scientific announced positive 12-month data from the IMPERIAL trial, the first head-to-head drug-eluting stent trial in the superficial femoral artery. The IMPERIAL trial evaluated the Eluvia Drug-Eluting Vascular Stent System versus the Zilver PTX Drug-Eluting Peripheral Stent in patients with symptomatic peripheral artery disease. PAD occurs when fatty or calcified atherosclerotic material, called plaque, builds up on the walls of the arteries of the legs, restricting blood flow and causing pain, swelling, ulceration and in some cases, the need for amputation of the affected limb. Stents are commonly used to restore and maintain blood flow, reducing symptoms and improving quality of life. In the IMPERIAL trial, the Eluvia stent, which utilizes a drug-polymer combination to offer sustained release of the drug paclitaxel, exhibited superior rates of primary patency, a measure of the target vessel remaining unobstructed at 12 months, and thus able to provide sufficient blood flow to the lower limbs.1 Patients in the Eluvia arm of the study also experienced higher rates of freedom from target lesion revascularization, thus reducing their need for repeat procedures at one year, when compared to those treated with the drug-coated Zilver PTX.