By Geoffrey Smith
- Stocks in focus in premarket trade on Thursday, February 20th. Please refresh for updates.
8:47 AM ET: ING Group (NYSE:ING) ADRs were up 0.9% after the Dutch bank lost its CEO Ralph Hamers to Swiss banking giant UBS Group (NYSE:UBS). UBS’s local stock in Zurich was up 2.5% on the news.
The move indicates UBS intends to concentrate on catching up in digital banking, an area where it has lagged in recent years.
ING’s stock in the Netherlands had fallen sharply on Wednesday after the company pulled an issue of subordinated securities, something likely to be only a temporary disruption.
8:42 AM ET: Hydrogen fuel cell maker Plug Power (NASDAQ:PLUG) moderated its hyperbolic ascent, rising 2.8% after rising 30% in two days on nothing but speculation in the potential of alternative energy technologies.
8:36 AM ET: Virgin Galactic (NYSE:SPCE) stock rose a modest 2.5%, after surging 23% to a fresh record high on Wednesday in a frenzy of retail buying.
Reuters reported on Wednesday that short interest in the stock has risen to 31% of the outstanding free float, with traders paying interest rates of up to 34% to borrow the stock ahead of shorting it.
8:30 AM ET: Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) stock inched down 1.1%, pausing for breath after hitting another record high on Wednesday on the back of an upgraded price target from Piper Sandler analysts.
Earlier Thursday, Bloomberg reported that China is considering extending subsidies for purchases of ‘new energy vehicles’ beyond 2020, one of a handful of measures to support demand in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.
8:24 AM ET: L Brands (NYSE:LB) stock fell 11.6% as chairman and CEO Les Wexner agreed to step down, after selling a controlling stake in Victoria’s Secret, its most valuable asset, to Sycamore Partners for $525 million.
8:16 AM ET: Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) stock fell 3.6% after the bank said it will buy online brokerage E-Trade (NASDAQ:ETFC) for $13 billion in an all-stock deal, in a surprising twist to the ongoing consolidation in the brokerage sector.
The price is a 30% premium to E-Trade’s value as of Wednesday’s close, and the E*Trade stocks was up 24.2% at $55.80, an 18-month high, in response.
The deal is Morgan Stanley's biggest since the financial crisis over a decade ago and takes the Wall Street blue-blood in a radically new direction
Domino’s Pizza (NYSE:DPZ) stock was up 17% at a new all-time high after its results for the fourth quarter came in above expectations, reassuring investors that it can still compete in an increasingly difficult food delivery markets
Sales at its established U.S. restaurants rose 3.4% in the fourth quarter, ahead of a 2.3% consensus forecast and beating estimates for the first time in over a year.
