ESI, APOL, BPI, DV, STRA, MCO, SWWC, INCY Popular Stocks
U.S. stocks were mixed Monday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.37% to 9784, the S&P 500 declined 0.32% to 1065 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.24% to 2138.
Shares of for-profit education companies were rising Monday after a report on the sector from the Government Accountability Office was better than the market’s dire expectations. ITT Educational Services Inc. (NYSE:ESI, $111.84, +$8.58, 8.31%) led the sector, while Apollo Group Inc. (NASDAQ:APOL, $73.72, +$4.70, 6.81%), Bridgepoint Education Inc. (NYSE:BPI, $17.70, +$1.39, 8.52%) and DeVry Inc. (NYSE:DV, $55.74, +$3.24, 6.18%) also climbed. Strayer Education Inc. (NASDAQ:STRA, $215.53, +$11.53, 5.65%) was also up.
After being criticized for turning down an invitation to attend a planned meeting of insurance regulators, Moody’s Investors Service, a unit of Moody’s Corp. (NYSE:MCO, $22.26, -$1.33, -5.64%), changed course and said it will attend a Thursday meeting of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, or NAIC. The meeting comes as the NAIC considers alternatives to relying on ratings agency grading of securities. Rival rating agencies Standard & Poor’s, Fitch Ratings, and DBRS Ltd. were scheduled to speak at the meeting but, until mid-morning Monday, Moody’s had declined the invitation, which prompted two members of the committee to suggest Moody’s could suffer as a result.
Southwest Water Co. (NASDAQ:SWWC, $5.45, -$0.21, -3.71%) swung to a fiscal second-quarter income profit on a gain from the sale of a New Mexico utility. Excluding the gain, the company would have posted a loss of 33 cents a share from continuing operations, far wider than its 2-cent loss a year earlier on the same basis. Chief Executive Mark Swatek said the company was pleased with the improved operating margins in all of its segments and added that the results included significant cost cuts associated with the restatement of historical results and a write-down.
Drug company Incyte Corp. (NASDAQ:INCY, $7.92, +$0.63, 8.64%) reported Monday that its experimental psoriasis drug was effective in a mid-state trial.
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