Pre-Market : Hawaiian Electric gains; Novocure falls: Stocks in news August 28

Pre-Market active stocks

Gainers

• Hawaiian Electric Company, Inc. (NYSE:HE) shares rose 30% after its subsidiary Hawaiian Electric Co. released a statement indicating its power lines were not powered when a deadly wildfire broke out on Maui earlier this month.  
• VinFast Auto (NASDAQ:VFS) shares rose 19% in the latest bout of turbulent trading in the Vietnamese electric car group that went public through a merger with a blank-check corporation on August 15. 
• 3M Company (NYSE:MMM) stock climbed 6.1%, following media reports that the industrial multinational has informally agreed to pay over $5.5 billion to resolve hundreds of thousands of claims alleging that its earplugs provided to the U.S. military were defective. 
• Xpeng Inc.’s (NYSE:XPEV) U.S. shares surged 5.4%, following a decision by the Chinese electric vehicle start-up to purchase DiDi Global Inc.’s (OTC:DIDIY) smart-car development business in a deal that both removes a likely competition and adds a tech-savvy strategic partner. 

Losers

• Novocure Ltd. (NASDAQ:NVCR) shares plummeted 34.8% after the oncology company reported a late-stage trial showed that its therapy missed its key aim of boosting survival rates in patients suffering from a kind of ovarian cancer. 

MARKET MOVERS 

MIDDAY MOVERS

GAINERS

• Hawaiian Electric Company, Inc. (NYSE:HE) shares rose 40% after its subsidiary Hawaiian Electric Co. released a statement indicating its power lines were not powered when a deadly wildfire broke out on Maui earlier this month.
• VinFast Auto (NASDAQ:VFS) shares rose 17.6% in the latest bout of turbulent trading in the Vietnamese electric car group that went public through a merger with a blank-check corporation on August 15.
• 3M Company (NYSE:MMM) stock climbed 5.1%, following media reports that the industrial multinational has informally agreed to pay over $5.5 billion to resolve hundreds of thousands of claims alleging that its earplugs provided to the U.S. military were defective.
• Xpeng Inc.’s (NYSE:XPEV) U.S. shares increased 4.3%, following a decision by the Chinese electric vehicle start-up to purchase DiDi Global Inc.’s (OTC:DIDIY) smart-car development business in a deal that both removes a likely competition and adds a tech-savvy strategic partner.

LOSERS 

• Novocure Ltd. (NASDAQ:NVCR) shares plummeted 35% after the oncology company reported a late-stage trial showed that its therapy missed its key aim of boosting survival rates in patients suffering from a kind of ovarian cancer.

UPGRADES BY EXPERTS 

Forward Air was promoted to Peerperform ‘following a major reset.

Forward Air (NASDAQ:FWRD) has been upgraded by Wolfe Research to Peerperform from Underperform. Since the news of the Omni Logistics acquisition on August 10, Forward Air shares have plunged by around 35%.  

Zimmer Biomet (NYSE:ZBH) shares gained more than 1% in premarket trading today after BTIG upgraded the firm to Buy from Neutral with a $139.00 price target.  

Wells Fargo raised UGI (NYSE:UGI) to Overweight from Equal Weight with a price objective of $27.00 (up from $28.00) today. 

DOWNGRADES BY EXPERTS

• Morgan Stanley has downgraded CrowdStrike ahead of the second quarter. 
• Crowdstrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) shares dipped more than 2% in premarket trading today after Morgan Stanley downgraded the firm to Equalweight from Overweight and reduced its price objective to $167.00 from $178.00 ahead of Wednesday’s Q2/24 earnings report. 
• Bernstein downgraded L3Harris Technologies (NYSE:LHX) from Outperform to Market Perform and reduced its price objective from $239.00 to $210.00. 

Gold, Oil and Gas

WTI Technical Outlook 

Oil prices may rise this week as macroeconomic concerns cloud a market already uncertain from sluggish Chinese demand and the fading of initial bull excitement over Saudi and Russian production cuts. August U.S. job statistics are due on Friday. 

WTI fell for a second week, below the daily Middle Bollinger Band of $81.30, while the 50-day EMA, or Exponential Moving Average, supported $78, according to Sunil Kumar Dixit, chief technical expert at SKCharting.com. 

Breaking below the horizontal support base of $77.60 enhances the likelihood of WTI falling below the 200-day SMA of $75.90 next week. WTI will follow the 100-day SMA of $75.20, which tends to remove it from the 200-day SMA. 

Dixit said WTI would have to close above the daily Middle Bollinger Band of $81.30 to rise to the previous week’s high of $82.50.  

The 100-week SMA of $85.75 and the monthly middle Bollinger Band of $86.75 are major obstacles above $83.20. 

Dixit said, “In summary, short-term resistance for the week may be at $81.25, while support is seen at $78.25.” 

Gold: Bullion Forecast  

A break below $1,908 will cause gold to retest $1,900, with immediate support at $1,885, said SKCharting’s Dixit. 

He stated, “For now, the major downside potential for spot gold is seen at $1,850.” 

Dixit said clearing $1,930 will continue gold’s upward rise to the descending weekly Middle Bollinger Band of $1,950. 

He continued, “This zone can act as a turning point for spot gold.” 

Gas price outlook 

Dixit of SKCharting said stability above $2.47, a horizontal support level produced by long consolidation above the 100-day SMA that’s closely correlated with the weekly Middle Bollinger Band, supports natural gas’ sideways motion. 

“As it stands, the daily 50 EMA of $2.60 and the daily Middle Bollinger Band of $2.64 are immediate resistance zones,” added Dixit. “If these levels are breached, major resistance will shift to the dynamic 200-day SMA at $3.10.” 

Insider trades and Hedge fund movment

Wendy’s owner Trian sells $58 million in stock. 

Trian Fund Management, a Wendy’s (NASDAQ:WEN) shareholder, revealed that it sold 2.9 million shares, valued more than $58 million, for $20.30 per share. Trian stated that the sales were done for portfolio management considerations. Messrs. Peltz, May, and M. Peltz did not own any of the shares that were sold. 

Stadium Capital has acquired an 8.5% interest in Sleep Number. 

Stadium Capital Management LLC reported an 8.5% (or 1,889,461 shares) interest in Sleep Number (NASDAQ:SNBR), valued at more than $42 million. 

Spectrum Brands (NYSE:SPB) CEO David Maura purchased 10,000 common shares at a cost of roughly $800,000 at a price range of $79.19-$79.22. Following the latest transaction, Maura now owns a total of 688,816 shares. 

Gerard Johan Hart, CEO of Red Robin Gourmet Burgers (NASDAQ:RRGB), purchased 25,000 common shares for more than $250,000 at an average price of $10.26 per share. Following the latest acquisition, Hart now owns 409,012 shares. 

Dusan Senkypl, Interim CEO of Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN), purchased 437,500 common shares at $6 per share, totaling more than $2.6 million, in connection with an earlier nonqualified stock option grant. Groupon shares ended at $12.99 on Friday, thus they were purchased at a more than 50% discount to the current market price. 

Dustin Moskovitz, CEO of Asana (NYSE:ASAN), purchased 689,999 common shares worth approximately $14 million at $19.79-$20.35. The current purchase is part of Moskovitz’s intention, which he announced in March 2023, to buy up to 30,000,000 shares of common stock before the end of 2023. 

Earnings Calendar

Monday, August 28 

• Heico Corporation (HEI)  

Tuesday August 29 

• Pinduoduo (PDD), Bank of Montreal (BMO), Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS), HP Inc. (HPQ), Nio Inc. (NIO), Best Buy (BBY), J.M. Smucker Company (SJM), Catalent Inc. (CTLT), and Donaldson Company (DCI)   

For details

Pre-Market Pre-Market Pre-Market Pre-Market Pre-Market Pre-Market Pre-Market Pre-Market Pre-Market Pre-Market Pre-Market Pre-Market