Wall Street Opens Higher Monday

Loews jumps on fourth quarter results

Author's Avatar
Feb 10, 2020
Article's Main Image

U.S. stocks were in the green on Monday morning, reversing losses from Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.35% to 29,205, the S&P 500 index jumped 0.39% to 3,340 and the Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.56% to 9,573.

Non-index stocks have also posted gains and losses recently.Shares of Loews Corporation (L, Financial)gained more than 4% on Monday,after the company announces fourth-quarter results. The company posted earnings of 73 cents per share, in line with estimates. Revenue of$3.88 billion registered a 17.9% year-over-year growth.

The CNA's earnings rose to higher net investment income and net investment gains and higher current year underwriting income driven mainly by lower catastrophe losses for the Property & Casualty business, which generated gross written premium growth of 8% and net written premium growth of 6%.

Further, the book value per share rose to $65.71 at the end of 2019 from $59.34 on Dec. 31, 2018. The company repurchased 8.3 million shares of its common stock in 2018 and 21.5 million shares in 2019 at an aggregate cost of $417 million and $1.1 billion, respectively.

During the quarter ended Dec.31, T Rowe Price Equity Income Fund (Trades, Portfolio) trimmed its holding by 0.3% to 3,400,000 shares and Diamond Hill Capital (Trades, Portfolio) reduced by 6% to 2,694,901 shares.

Gainers

• McKesson Corp (MCK, Financial) +4.4%

• Abbvie Inc (ABBV, Financial) +3.2%

• Under Armour Inc (UA, Financial) +2.4%

• NVIDIA Corp (NVDA, Financial) +2.3%

• Cardinal Health Inc (CAH, Financial) +1.9%

Losers

• National Oilwell Varco Inc (NOV, Financial) -3.8%

• Cimarex Energy Co (XEC, Financial) -3%

• News Corp (NWSA, Financial) -2.6%

• Concho Resources Inc (CXO, Financial) -1.8%

• Abiomed Inc (ABMD, Financial) -1.5%

Global Markets

The main European stock markets traded in the red. The UK.'s FTSE 100 fell 0.36%, France's CAC 40 lost 0.26%, Germany's Dax declined 0.19% and Spain's Ibex 35 slid 0.03%.

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 0.60%, India’s BSE Sensex lost 0.39%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng declined 0.59% and China's Shanghai Composite gained 0.51%.

Disclosure: The author holds no positions in any stocks mentioned.

Not a Premium Member of GuruFocus? Sign up for a free 7-day trial here