A Peek Into The Market Before The Trading Starts - Philip Morris Intl (NYSE:PM), Merrimack Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:MACK)

Pre-open movers

US stock futures are higher this morning. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 16 points to 15,409.00 and S&P 500 index futures rose 1.30 points to 1,671.40. Nasdaq 100 futures declined 3.75 points to 3,058.75.

A Peek Into Global Markets

European markets were higher today. The STOXX Europe 600 Index surged 0.44%, London's FTSE 100 index gained 0.48%, French CAC 40 Index climbed 0.27% and German DAX 30 index rose 0.88%. Asian markets ended mostly higher, with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average gaining 0.23%, China's Shanghai Composite dropping 1.62% and Australia's ASX/S&P500 rising 0.21%. Hong Kong's Heng Seng Index declined 0.75% and India's Sensex rose 1.44%.

Broker Recommendation

Analysts at Deutsche Bank downgraded Target

TGT

from “buy” to “hold.” The target price for Target is set to $74. Target's shares closed at $72.57 yesterday.

Breaking news

Merrimack Pharmaceuticals MACK announced that it has priced concurrent public offerings of 5,000,000 shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $5.00 per share and $125,000,000 aggregate principal amount of its 4.50% convertible senior notes due 2020, in each case, offered pursuant to Merrimack's effective Registration Statement on Form S-3 (File No. 333-186369) and a related prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. To read the full news, click here.
Tsinghua Unigroup, an operating subsidiary of Tsinghua Holdings Co, and Spreadtrum Communications SPRD jointly announced that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement under which Tsinghua Unigroup will acquire all of the outstanding Ordinary Shares of Spreadtrum for US$31.00 per American Depositary Share (or US$10.33 per Ordinary Share, each American Depositary Share representing three Ordinary Shares). To read the full news, click here.
Philip Morris International PM announced today that Philip Morris Investments B.V. (PM Investments), an affiliate of PMI, entered into a Funding and Cooperation Agreement with Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation (MTPC), a Japanese pharmaceutical company, to privatize Medicago. To read the full news, click here.
GlaxoSmithKline and Theravance THRX today announced that the licence application for the use of fluticasone furoate (FF) and vilanterol (VI) (proposed brand name RELVAR™ ELLIPTA™) in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has been withdrawn from the current Japanese New Drug Application (JNDA). To read the full news, click here.

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