Technology shares rose while retailers tumbled, leaving U.S. stocks little changed overall.
Consumer-discretionary companies were among the worst performers in the S&P 500 after retailers including Macy’s and Kohl’s warned of weak holiday results.
Shares of Macy’s, which said Wednesday that its same-store sales fell in November and December, fell 13%. Kohl’s, which lowered its profit targets, fell 17%, while other retailers including Nordstrom, L Brands and Michael Kors fell more than 5% apiece.
The Dow industrials fell 2 points, or less than 0.1%, to 19941 shortly after the opening bell. The S&P 500 fell less than 0.1% and the Nasdaq Composite edged up 0.2%.
Most markets started this year where 2016 left off, said Jeroen Blokland, a senior portfolio manager at Robeco, with rising equities reflecting investor expectations of an improving economy that could be further boosted by President-elect Donald Trump’s expected policies of cutting taxes and increasing spending.
“Most people are trying to extend this positive sentiment from last year, but we do have some caution in the coming months something could turn,” said Mr. Blokland, who is taking a neutral stance on equities right now.
Ocera Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:OCRX), with shares lower -1.14 % is now trading at $2.17. The Stock is active as 224,970.00 shares changed hands versus its average volume of 379,290.00 shares. For investors focus on the performance of the stocks so the OCRX showed weekly ahead performance of 1.16% which was maintained for the month at -3.33%. Correspondingly the negative performance for the quarter was remained - 24.66% and if took notice on yearly performance that was -28.10% whereas the year to date performance halted at 4.76%.
Ocera Therapeutics, Inc. (OCRX), recently declared positive results from a Phase 1 clinical study of orally-administered OCR-002 (ornithine phenylacetate) in patients with cirrhosis. The Company is developing oral OCR-002 for chronic use to maintain remission of hepatic encephalopathy (HE), a neurocognitive disorder associated with serious liver disease.
“We are anxious to report the findings showed favorable oral absorption and pharmacokinetics in the intended population,” said Stan Bukofzer, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of Ocera. “This was the first study in which OCR-002 was delivered orally to patients with cirrhosis. We believe these data support our plan to study the administration of OCR-002 orally and chronically to patients with cirrhosis with the aim of keeping them stable in the outpatient setting.”
In light of the insight gleaned from these results, Ocera plans to conduct a multi-dose Phase 2a study in cirrhotic patients using a tablet formulation to determine the steady-state PK and pharmacodynamics of OCR-002 over a range of doses. The Phase 1 study declared recently used a liquid formulation. The Company anticipates to initiate the Phase 2a study in the first half of 2017.
Galena Biopharma Inc (NASDAQ:GALE), with shares fell -0.97% is now trading at $2.05. The Stock is active as 225,654.00 shares changed hands versus its average volume of 1.57M shares. The stock is going forward its 52 week low with 11.96% and lagging behind from its 52 week high price with - 95.86%. GALE last month stock price volatility remained 12.97%.
Galena Biopharma, Inc. (GALE), a biopharmaceutical company committed to the development and commercialization of hematology and oncology therapeutics that address unmet medical needs, recently offered a corporate and clinical outlook for 2017 and declared that Mark W. Schwartz, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer will give a company presentation at the Biotech Showcase 2017. The presentation will take place on Wednesday, January 11, 2017 at 10:30 a.m. PT at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square.
“2017 looks to be promising for Galena Biopharma as we prepare to initiate our Phase 3 clinical trial in patients with essential thrombocythemia (ET) with GALE-401, our controlled release version of anagrelide,” said Mark W. Schwartz, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer. “After a productive meeting with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last month, we were happy to confirm that the GALE-401 development program is appropriate for a New Drug Application (NDA) filing using the 505(b)(2) regulatory pathway in patients who are intolerant to or failed to achieve an optimal response with hydroxyurea. In the U.S., ET has a prevalence of about 150,000 people and we estimate up to 25% of those patients who receive initial treatment with hydroxyurea may be candidates for the GALE-401 trial. We expect to finalize the details of the Phase 3 clinical trial protocol counting the trial size, endpoints, and dosing this quarter and initiate the trial in the second quarter of 2017.”