Stockwinners Market Radar for October 07, 2018 - Earnings, Upgrades downgrades, option trades, Best Stock Advisory Service

19:31 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. President Trump is expected to announce the lifting of a federal ban on summer sales of higher-ethanol blends of gasoline on Tuesday ahead of a trip to Iowa the same day, according to Reuters, citing two sources familiar with the matter. The lifting of the summer ban on so-called E15 gasoline is expected to be coupled with restrictions on trading biofuel credits that underpin the program, sources said. Publicly traded companies in the space include Pacific Ethanol (PEIX) and Green Plains (GPRE). 2. Apple's (AAPL) top security officer told Congress that it had found no sign of suspicious transmissions or other evidence that it had been penetrated in a sophisticated attack on its supply chain, according to Reuters. Apple Vice President for Information Security George Stathakopoulos wrote in a letter to the Senate and House commerce committees that the company found no evidence for the main points in a Bloomberg Businessweek article published on Thursday, which said that chips inside servers sold to Apple by Super Micron Computer (SMCI) allowed for backdoor transmissions to China, the report added. 3. Barnes & Noble (BKS) is on the block, which means that investors and potential buyers will be perusing the bookseller more intensely, and should conclude that there are reams of opportunity in a company seen as a casualty of Amazon (AMZN), Andrew Bary wrote in this week's edition of Barron's. Shares of Barnes & Noble jumped 20% after the company announced it would evaluate "strategic alternatives," but even with that jump, there could be more upside in the shares because the company is valued cheaply relative to cash flow and sales, the report added. 4. Sony's (SNE) "Venom" debuted to $80M from 4,250 theaters in the U.S., easily the best showing ever for an October title. Overseas, the comic book movie soared to $125.2M from 58 markets for a global bow of $205.2M. "Venom" earned a B+ and sports 32% Rotten Tomatoes score. 5. MasterCard (MA), Eaton (ETN) and Terex (TEX) saw positive mentions in Barron's, while Western Union (WU) was mentioned cautiously.

15:59 EDT Axon launches TASER 7, Axon Body 3 - Axon (AAXN) announced its seventh generation TASER conducted energy weapon, TASER 7, and its first connected body camera, Axon Body 3 with LTE. The Axon Body 3 will be wirelessly connected via FirstNet, Built with AT&T (T), and Verizon (VZ). Axon also announced that it is offering Axon Records, a revolutionary records management system, free for five years to any agency that purchases the TASER 7 and the Axon Body 3 on the Officer Safety Plan through 2019.

13:20 EDT Loxo Oncology announces LOXO-292 durability update in RET-Mutant MTC - Loxo Oncology announced updated interim clinical data for LOXO-292 from the global Phase 1/2 LIBRETTO-001 trial in patients with RET-mutant medullary thyroid cancer and RET fusion-positive thyroid cancer who were initially included in the LOXO-292 presentation at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting. In these 38 patients, approximately 3.5 months of additional patient follow-up were available, as were first follow-up scans for the nine patients most recently enrolled. Sixteen of 17 responding RET-mutant MTC patients remained on therapy, with median follow-up of 8.4 months. Seven of seven responding RET fusion-positive thyroid cancer patients remained on therapy, with median follow-up of 8.5 months. Inclusion of new restaging data for the most recently enrolled patients resulted in a 59% overall response rate in the presented subset of RET-mutant MTC patients, and a 78% confirmed overall response rate in the presented subset of RET fusion-positive thyroid cancer patients. These data were presented at the 88th Annual Meeting of the American Thyroid Association. The data presented were based on a July 19, 2018 data cut-off date and included the 29 patients with RET-mutant MTC and the nine patients with RET fusion-positive thyroid cancer who were initially included in the LOXO-292 presentation at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting. Patients were heavily pretreated, having received a median of three prior systemic treatment regimens. Of the patients with RET-mutant MTC, 79% had previously received cabozantinib or vandetanib and 45% had received prior treatment with both agents. Of the patients with RET fusion-positive thyroid cancer, 78% had previously received radioactive iodine and 78% had previously received sorafenib or lenvatinib. Anti-tumor activity was observed regardless of RET mutation, RET fusion partner, and prior multikinase inhibitor treatment. One patient, with RET fusion-positive thyroid cancer, had RECIST target lesions in the central nervous system and exhibited an intracranial partial response by RECIST 1.1, pending confirmation. Of the 82 patients in the safety analysis, most treatment-emergent adverse events were Grade 1 in severity and judged by the investigator as not related to LOXO-292.

13:03 EDT PTC Therapeutics announces initial data from patient registry - PTC Therapeutics announced preliminary data from the first international drug registry for Duchenne patients receiving Translarna, underscoring the long-term clinical benefit of Translarna when used in routine clinical practice in delaying irreversible muscle loss in children with Duchenne caused by a nonsense mutation, when compared with published natural history. The data show that children and adolescents receiving Translarna in the real-world setting are continuing to walk years longer than untreated children, and are staying more physically able. A time-to-event analysis for loss of ambulation has shown that patients on Translarna had a median age of loss of ambulation of 16.5 years of age - up to 5 years later than seen with natural disease progression in untreated children. The data were presented as a late breaker at the 23rd International Annual Congress of the World Muscle Society in Argentina. Patients who received Translarna in routine clinical practice also experienced a slower decline in their physical function compared with the placebo arm of Phase 3 Study 020, as measured by a series of timed function tests. Safety outcomes for patients in the STRIDE Registry were consistent with the known safety profile of Translarna. The analysis was based on data captured from 216 patients, the majority of whom had not been previously enrolled in an ataluren clinical trial, across 11 European countries and Israel. Patients had a mean age of 9.8 years at first assessment and had been diagnosed with Duchenne caused by a nonsense mutation at approximately five years of age. Almost 90% had previously or were still receiving corticosteroids.

12:52 EDT Jeld-Wen announces rulings in Steves & Sons litigation - Jeld-Wen announced that the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Richmond Division, has recently issued a number of rulings in the company's ongoing antitrust and trade secrets litigation with Steves & Sons. First, the District Court entered judgment against Steves in the amount of $1.2M, in accordance with the previously announced jury verdict in Jeld-Wen's favor on its claims that Steves misappropriated Jeld-Wen's trade secrets. Second, the District Court granted Jeld-Wen's motion to vacate the jury verdict on Steves' breach of contract claims related to the quality of the company's doorskins. This ruling eliminates $2.2M of damages under the previously announced jury verdict on Steves' breach of contract claims against Jeld-Wen. Lastly, the District Court ruled that divestiture of the company's facility in Towanda, Pennsylvania, the primary asset acquired in Jeld-Wen's 2012 acquisition of CraftMaster and one of the company's four domestic doorskin manufacturing facilities, is an appropriate remedy in the antitrust litigation. A final judgment on the antitrust claims and the breach of contract claims has not yet been entered in the case, and the company does not expect a final judgment until later this year. Jeld-Wen intends to vigorously oppose entry of an adverse judgment and to appeal any judgment that may be entered awarding damages to the Steves. The company expects that the next procedural step in the case will be a final determination of remedies, following which the Court will enter judgment. Under the ruling, if divestiture of the Towanda facility is included in the final judgment, such a divestiture would not be required until sometime after the appeal process is complete. The initial appeal process is expected to take approximately 9-18 months following entry of a final judgment. Should an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court be necessary, the appeal process would be extended by an additional 6-18 months. The company continues to believe that any remedy requiring the company to sell the Towanda facility is both unprecedented and fundamentally incorrect as a matter of law. Jeld-Wen believes that both the jury verdict on Steves' breach of contract and antitrust claims and the rulings on those claims are incorrect due to multiple flawed rulings during the trial process. These rulings improperly limited the company's defenses in the trial by excluding key evidence and other relevant matters from the jury's consideration. Evidence that the company was prevented from presenting to the jury included the favorable results of the two previous DOJ antitrust enforcement reviews, the significant profitability growth and expansion of Steves' own business since the 2012 acquisition, and other benefits to the market resulting from the combination of Jeld-Wen and CMI. Finally, the company maintains that a potential remedy of divestiture in this matter is contrary to established legal and equitable principles due to the significant passage of time since the acquisition, Steves' own misconduct in misappropriating Jeld-Wen's trade secrets and the availability of monetary remedies. For the fiscal year ended 2017, the Towanda facility generated external revenues of approximately $120M from Steves and other third-party customers related to doorskins and other building products. The company continues to supply doorskins to Steves in the ordinary course of business pursuant to a long-term agreement that is currently set to terminate in September 2021. The company is unable to predict the ultimate timing of, transaction terms, or proceeds from any divestiture of the Towanda facility. In the event that a divestiture is ultimately required, Jeld-Wen expects the Towanda facility to be sold to an independent third-party buyer, in which case the company expects to meet its internal requirements for doorskins currently supplied by the Towanda facility through other existing internal sources of supply and from a supply agreement with the new owner.

12:41 EDT W&T Offshore announces pricing of $625M offering of senior second lien notes - W&T Offshore announced the pricing of its previously announced private offering of $625M in aggregate principal amount of senior second lien notes due 2023. The notes, which priced at par, will mature on November 1, 2023, and will pay interest at an annual rate of 9.75%. The closing of the offering of the Notes is expected to occur on October 18, 2018, subject to customary closing conditions. W&T Offshore intends to use the net proceeds of the offering, together with borrowings from a proposed amended revolving bank credit facility and cash on hand, to repay and retire its outstanding 11.00% 1.5 Lien Term Loan and 9.00% Second Lien Term Loan and redeem or repurchase in full all of its outstanding 8.500% Senior Unsecured Notes due 2019, 9.00%/10.75%, Second Lien PIK Toggle Notes due 2020 and 8.50%/10.00%, Third Lien PIK Toggle Notes due 2021. In connection with the offering, W&T Offshore has obtained a commitment letter from three commercial banks for a proposed amended revolving bank credit facility with initial bank lending commitments and borrowing base of $250M that is expected to close concurrently with the closing of the offering of the notes.