Stockwinners Market Radar for October 28, 2018 - Earnings, Upgrades downgrades, option trades, Best Stock Advisory Service

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IBM...		Hot Stocks 19:26 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. IBM (IBM) and Red Hat (RHT) announced that the companies have reached a definitive agreement under which IBM will acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Red Hat for $190 per share in cash, representing a total enterprise value of approximately $34B. IBM and Red Hat will continue to build and enhance Red Hat partnerships, including those with major cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT) Azure, Google (GOOG; GOOGL) Cloud, Alibaba (BABA) and more, in addition to the IBM Cloud. Red Hat will continue to be led by Jim Whitehurst and Red Hat's current management team. Jim Whitehurst also will join IBM's senior management team and report to Ginni Rometty. IBM intends to maintain Red Hat's headquarters, facilities, brands and practices, and intends to suspend its share repurchase program in 2020 and 2021. The acquisition has been approved by the boards of directors of both IBM and Red Hat and is expected to close in the latter half of 2019. 2. The U.S. House of Representatives' leading lawmaker on taxes suggested that a new tax cut plan touted by President Trump was unlikely to see action in Congress before 2019, and then only if Republicans keep their majority in November 6 elections, according to Reuters. "Really common sense tells you that [Trump's new tax cut plan] is something, that as the Republicans retain the House and the Senate, that will advance in the new Congress," Representative Kevin Brady said on Fox News. 3. Bank of America (BAC) and other bank giants have been clobbered lately in the market as investors worry that the current economic expansion will not last for long, but it looks like an "overreaction," Andrew Bary wrote in this week's edition of Barron's. While it is understandable that investors are wary of banks, given their searing experience with them during the financial crisis, Bank of America has some "very good businesses valued cheaply" and can "almost bank on a comeback" for its stock, the report added. 4. Comcast (CMCSA) subsidiary Universal's "Halloween" grossed $32M from 3,990 theaters in its second outing, where it stayed atop the chart to finish the weekend with a domestic tally of $126.7M. Overseas, the direct sequel to the 1978 classic slasher hit ended Sunday with $25.6M from 47 markets for an offshore total of $45.6M and $172.3M globally. The movie earned a B+ CinemaScore and sports 80% Rotten Tomatoes score. 5. Yum China (YUMC), At Home Group (HOME), Sensata Technologies (ST), BP (BP), Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A), Eni (E), and Total (TOT) saw positive mentions in Barron's.
ESPR		Hot Stocks 17:19 EDT Esperion announces completion of Phase 3 LDL-C lowering development program - Esperion announced completion of the Phase 3 LDL-C Lowering Development Program of bempedoic acid and positive cumulative results. The program consisted of four, pivotal, Phase 3, randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled studies to evaluate the LDL-C lowering efficacy and safety and tolerability of bempedoic acid 180 mg compared to placebo in high cardiovascular risk patients including atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and/or heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia patients. The Phase 3 program included 3,621 high cardiovascular risk patients taking maximally tolerated statin who required additional LDL-C lowering. The Program achieved its efficacy endpoints and other key measures at 12 weeks for bempedoic acid, including: on-treatment LDL-C lowering of an additional 18% to 31%, and in the intent to treat analysis, LDL-C lowering of an additional 17% to 28%; reductions of 19% to 33% in high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, an important marker of the underlying inflammation associated with cardiovascular disease; reductions in hemoglobin A1c of 0.19% to 0.31% versus placebo in the subset of 1002 patients with diabetes. In the Phase 3 program, bempedoic acid was observed to be safe and well-tolerated. The vast majority of patients were studied for 52 weeks. Across the program there were no clinically relevant differences between the bempedoic acid and placebo treatment groups in the occurrence of adverse events with 73% in each group; serious adverse events with 14% and 13%, respectively; SAE neoplasms were balanced at 1% in both arms; discontinuations due to AEs with 11% and 8%, respectively; fatal adverse events were very low overall at 0.8% and 0.3%, respectively.
ESPR		Hot Stocks 17:13 EDT Esperion announces positive top-line results from Phase 3 Bempedoic Acid study - Esperion announced positive top-line results from its global, pivotal Phase 3 clinical study. This trial was a 52-week, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to evaluate the LDL-C lowering efficacy and the safety and tolerability of bempedoic acid 180 mg compared to placebo in patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and/or heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia. These results complete our global pivotal phase 3 LDL-C lowering development program of bempedoic acid. The study included 779 high cardiovascular risk patients taking maximally tolerated statins who required additional LDL-C lowering. The study achieved its efficacy endpoints and other key measures at 12 weeks, including: On-treatment LDL-C lowering of an additional 18%, and in the intent to treat analysis, LDL-C lowering of an additional 17%; Reduction of 19% in high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, an important marker of the underlying inflammation associated with cardiovascular disease; Reduction in hemoglobin A1c of 0.21% vs. placebo in patients with diabetes; Safety and Tolerability of Bempedoic Acid Over 52 Weeks. In this study, bempedoic acid was observed to be safe and well-tolerated. The results showed no clinically relevant differences between the bempedoic acid and placebo treatment groups in the occurrence of adverse events with 70% and 71%, respectively; serious adverse events with 20% and 19%, respectively; discontinuations due to AEs with 11% and 9%, respectively; fatal adverse events with 1.1% and 0.8%, respectively. No fatal adverse events were determined to be related to study medication. CV deaths were balanced between the study arms. The bempedoic acid arm included a case of gas poisoning and a case of sepsis as a complication of planned abdominal surgery. No fatal AEs due to neoplasms. Esperion plans to submit New Drug Applications to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for bempedoic acid and the bempedoic acid / ezetimibe combination pill for LDL-C-lowering indications during the first quarter of 2019. Additionally, Esperion plans to submit Marketing Authorization Applications to the European Medicines Agency during the second quarter of 2019.
T...		Hot Stocks 16:48 EDT Box Office Battle: 'Halloween' stays atop with $32M - Comcast (CMCSA) subsidiary Universal's "Halloween" grossed $32M from 3,990 theaters in its second outing, where it stayed atop the chart to finish the weekend with a domestic tally of $126.7M. Overseas, the direct sequel to the 1978 classic slasher hit ended Sunday with $25.6M from 47 markets for an offshore total of $45.6M and $172.3M globally. The movie earned a B+ CinemaScore and sports 80% Rotten Tomatoes score. BOX OFFICE RUNNERS-UP: AT&T (T) subsidiary Warner Bros' "A Star Is Born" remained at number two, with $14.1M domestically from 3,904 cinemas for a domestic tally of $148.7M. Behind it was Sony's (SNE) "Venom," finishing the weekend with $10.8M from 3,567 theaters for a North American total of $187.3M. Another Sony title, "Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween" placed number four with an estimated $7.5M from 3,723 locations. Rounding out the top five, Lionsgate's (LGF.A, LGF.B) "Hunter Killer" ended his debut weekend with $6.7M from 2,720 theaters. Other publicly traded companies in filmmaking include 21st Century Fox's (FOX, FOXA), Viacom (VIAB), and Disney's (DIS).
ON		Hot Stocks 16:26 EDT ON Semiconductor CEO says 'strong performance' shows strength of business - "Our strong performance in the third quarter clearly demonstrates the strength of our business, even in face of volatility in a few end-markets. The key driver of our business today is significant content increase in several applications in automotive, industrial and cloud power end-markets, as opposed to underlying unit growth in these end-markets. With a strong design win pipeline and expanding portfolio of power, analog, and sensor products, we are well positioned to capitalize on key mega-trends in automotive, industrial and cloud power end-markets," said Keith Jackson, president and CEO of ON Semiconductor. "Along with solid revenue performance, our operational execution continues to be robust, as demonstrated by our strong margin performance and free cash flow generation."
IBM...		Hot Stocks 14:54 EDT IBM to acquire Red Hat for $190 per share - IBM (IBM) and Red Hat (RHT) announced that the companies have reached a definitive agreement under which IBM will acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Red Hat for $190 per share in cash, representing a total enterprise value of approximately $34B. With this acquisition, IBM will remain committed to Red Hat's open governance, open source contributions, participation in the open source community and development model, and fostering its widespread developer ecosystem. In addition, IBM and Red Hat will remain committed to the continued freedom of open source, via such efforts as Patent Promise, GPL Cooperation Commitment, the Open Invention Network and the LOT Network. IBM and Red Hat also will continue to build and enhance Red Hat partnerships, including those with major cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT) Azure, Google (GOOG; GOOGL) Cloud, Alibaba (BABA) and more, in addition to the IBM Cloud. At the same time, Red Hat will benefit from IBM's hybrid cloud and enterprise IT scale in helping expand their open source technology portfolio to businesses globally. Upon closing of the acquisition, Red Hat will join IBM's Hybrid Cloud team as a distinct unit, preserving the independence and neutrality of Red Hat's open source development heritage and commitment, current product portfolio and go-to-market strategy, and unique development culture. Red Hat will continue to be led by Jim Whitehurst and Red Hat's current management team. Jim Whitehurst also will join IBM's senior management team and report to Ginni Rometty. IBM intends to maintain Red Hat's headquarters, facilities, brands and practices. The acquisition will accelerate IBM's revenue growth, gross margin and free cash flow within 12 months of closing. It also will support a solid and growing dividend. The company will continue with a disciplined financial policy and is committed to maintaining strong investment grade credit ratings. The company will target a leverage profile consistent with a mid to high single A credit rating. The company intends to suspend its share repurchase program in 2020 and 2021. The company intends to close the transaction through a combination of cash and debt. The acquisition has been approved by the boards of directors of both IBM and Red Hat. It is subject to Red Hat shareholder approval. It also is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. It is expected to close in the latter half of 2019.
CMRX		Hot Stocks 14:06 EDT Chimerix presents preclinical data showing antiviral activity of Brincidofovir - Chimerix announced data from two preclinical studies which assessed the in vivo antiviral activity of brincidofovir against polyomavirus. These studies are part of the company's ongoing effort to develop antivirals in high unmet medical need areas, including hematopoietic cell transplant and solid organ transplant patient populations. These two studies evaluated BCV's effect against MuPyV, a mouse polyomavirus closely related to the human BK virus. In these studies, mice with MuPyV were treated with BCV either 24 hours after being infected or prophylactically for a full week prior to infection. Data from the two studies show that BCV demonstrated significant antiviral activity against MuPyV and showed no safety signals across BCV doses administered. In mice treated after infection with MuPyV, BCV delivered via intraperitoneal injection once daily, twice weekly or once weekly reduced kidney viral loads by 100-fold relative to those that received placebo, while administration prophylactically showed that BCV 20 mg/kg or higher decreased viral load in the kidney by approximately 10-fold.
RTRX		Hot Stocks 14:01 EDT Retrophin reports positive long-term data from extension of Phase 2 DUET Study - Retrophin announced new positive data from the ongoing open-label extension of the Phase 2 DUET Study of sparsentan for the treatment of focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, a rare kidney disorder that often leads to end-stage renal disease. As previously reported, the overall sparsentan treatment group demonstrated a greater than two-fold reduction in proteinuria compared to the irbesartan treatment group, after an eight-week, double-blind treatment period in the Phase 2 DUET Study. Additional results showing that patients with FSGS who remained on sparsentan for 40 weeks during the open-label extension period of DUET achieved progressive reduction in proteinuria and stable estimated glomerular filtration rate, were reported at ASN Kidney Week 2017. New findings from the open-label extension of the Phase 2 DUET Study presented at ASN Kidney Week 2018 include: Patients with FSGS who remained on sparsentan for 76 weeks during the open-label period achieved additional progressive reduction of proteinuria. In patients who received sparsentan as part of the original eight-week, double-blind treatment period, median urine protein-to-creatinine ratio was reduced from 2.8 g/g at baseline to 0.9 g/g at week 84. Patients who crossed over to sparsentan from the original irbesartan control group experienced additional and sustained reduction in proteinuria during the treatment period, with median UP/C decreasing from 2.3 g/g at crossover to 1.1 g/g at week 84. An increasing proportion of patients achieved the FSGS partial remission of proteinuria endpoint, defined as UP/C: less than or equal to1.5 g/g and greater than 40% reduction of proteinuria from baseline, with ongoing sparsentan treatment in the open-label extension. In patients who received sparsentan as part of the original eight-week, double-blind treatment period, the proportion of patients who achieved FPRE increased from 28% at week eight to 60% at week 84. The proportion of patients who crossed over to sparsentan from the original irbesartan control group and achieved FPRE increased from 9% at week eight to 50% at week 84. Treatment with sparsentan in the open-label extension was associated with a stabilization of eGFR out to week 84. The observed beneficial effects of sparsentan on proteinuria were associated with a sustained reduction in mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Sparsentan continued to be generally well-tolerated during the open-label extension period. Sixty-two patients continue to receive treatment with sparsentan in the ongoing open-label extension of DUET.
NXPI...		Hot Stocks 13:52 EDT NXP Semiconductors to join NASDAQ-100 Index beginning November 5 - Nasdaq (NDAQ) announced that NXP Semiconductors (NXPI), will become a component of the NASDAQ-100 Index, the NASDAQ-100 Equal Weighted Index and the NASDAQ-100 Technology Sector Index prior to market open on Monday, November 5, 2018. NXP Semiconductors will replace CA Inc. (CA) in the indexes.