U.S. indices were in the red across the board Monday as falling crude prices caused markets around the globe to sputter at the start of the week.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq were both down 0.5% midday while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 0.6% lower. Asian and European stocks didn't fare much better, with the Hang Seng and Nikkei indices both closing trading down 0.8% and the Shanghai Composite falling 0.4%. European stocks were also feeling the crude headwinds, with the FTSE and Dax both falling 0.8% and the CAC 40 dropping 0.5%.
Crude futures were moving lower Monday as traders took profits from last week's strong showing and markets expressed concerns about the potential impact Saudi Arabia's proposed economic reform plan could have on global crude supplies.
While crude stocks were headed lower in conjunction with the commodity, the trading volume for those stocks was relatively weak. Exxon Mobil (XOM) was down 0.8%, ConocoPhillips (COP) was declining 2.5% and BP (BP) shares were down 1.5% midday.
Perrigo (PRGO) shares were tanking nearly 16% midday after the company's board of directors waived the non-compete clause in former CEO Joseph Papa's contract, allowing him to take over as CEO of Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX). Perrigo named former president John Hendrickson as its new CEO. Valeant shares rose 1% on heavy volume following the news.
Shares of newspaper owner Tribune Publishing (TPUB) spiked nearly 60% Monday after the company received an $815 million acquisition bid from Gannett (GCI). Gannett owns over 100 media properties across the country including USA Today, while Tribune owns several newspapers across the country including the LA Times and Chicago Tribune. Gannett offered Tribune $12.25 per share in cash, a 63% premium over Tribune's closing price on Friday.
Shares of Xerox (XRX) were declining 12% following the release of its latest quarterly results. The company missed analysts' bottom-line expectations of $0.23 per share by a penny, while also lowering its full-year EPS expectations to between $0.45 and $0.55 from its previous view of between $0.66 and $0.76.
Finally, shares of Action Alerts PLUS holding Apple (AAPL) were down 0.5% ahead of the release of the company's fiscal second-quarter earnings results after the closing bell tomorrow. Analysts on average are expecting the company to report EPS of $2, a 14% decline from the $2.33 it earned in the year-ago period. Revenue is expected to fall 10.4%, year over year, to $51.9 billion from $58.01 billion.
