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Stock futures edged lower in the early trading hours on Monday as market participants await this week’s final Federal Reserve meeting of 2023, seeking clues on when central bankers will begin to cut interest rates.
Here are some of Monday’s biggest stock movers:
Biggest stock gainers
Cigna (NYSE:CI) shares surged over 9% after abandoning plans to merge with Humana (NYSE:HUM) due to an inability to reach a consensus on financial terms, including pricing. Instead, Cigna intends to pursue bolt-on acquisitions and undertake an additional $10B incremental stock buyback, which would bring the total amount of its repurchase authority up to $11.3B. The company is looking at buying back at least $5B in common stock before the end of the first half of 2024, with a portion of the buyback to be conducted through an accelerated repurchase program in Q1 2024. Humana (HUM) up 2% following the announcement. Macy’s (NYSE:M) shares jumped by 20% following a $5.8B buyout offer from Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital Management. The proposal values the established department store chain at $21 per share, representing approximately a 21% premium over Macy’s (M) closing price of $17.39 on Friday. Pinterest (NYSE:PINS) rose as much as 3% after RBC Capital Markets upgraded the social media platform’s rating to outperform from sector perform. Analyst Brad Erickson highlighted Pinterest’s potential to capitalize on impulse spending in digital advertising, raising its price target to $46 from $32. Erickson emphasized Pinterest as a strategic investment in intent-based ad platforms targeting impulse shopping, highlighting the growth of Amazon third-party ads and the introduction of direct links.
Biggest stock losers
Shares of Lucid Group (NASDAQ:LCID) plummeted by over 5%, JD.com (NASDAQ:JD) tumbled by 4% and Zoom Video (NASDAQ:ZM) fell by 3% on Monday, following the announcement that both companies would be removed from the prestigious NASDAQ-100 index, effective December 18th, 2023. BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) shares faced a 5% decline following the appointment of John J. Giamatteo as the new CEO, taking over from interim CEO Richard Lynch. Simultaneously, the company disclosed plans to divide its Internet of Things and cybersecurity divisions into independent entities, opting out of the initial public offering for the IoT business. This strategic restructuring aims to streamline corporate functions into division-specific teams, fostering independent and financially sustainable operations for each segment. Bitcoin (BTC-USD) slipped 4%, marking its longest losing streak this month and impacting the wider cryptocurrency market. Companies exposed to the crypto space faced downward pressure on their stock prices, with Hive Digital Technologies (NASDAQ:HIVE), Cipher Mining down about 4%, and TeraWulf (NASDAQ:WULF) slumping 6%. Other notable declines included Bitfarms (NASDAQ:BITF) down 10%, CleanSpark (NASDAQ:CLSK) -8%, Marathon Digital (NASDAQ:MARA) -6%, Riot Platforms (MARA) -5%, Hut 8 Mining (NASDAQ:HUT) -5%, Coinbase Global (NASDAQ:COIN) -4%, and MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) -3.5%.
