Tuesday’s Pre-Market Look: Stocks In The News Before The Open

American Express (AXP) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at Oppenheimer with an 18-month target price of $98.

Allstate (ALL) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Goldman Sachs.

Travelers Cos (TRV) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral’ at Goldman Sachs.

Williams Cos (WMB) slumped 7% in after-hours trading after it announced a plan to increase its ownership in Williams Partners to 72% from 58% and that it will launch a 65 million share public offering in order to pay for the share purchase.

Kite Pharma (KITE) gained 1% in after-hours trading after it entered into a joint venture licensing deal with Daiichi Sankyo to develop an experimental treatment for an aggressive type of blood cancer and will receive $50 million upfront plus an additional $200 million if developmental and regulatory milestones are met.

Boot Barn Holdings (BOOT) dropped 5% in after-hours trading after it reported preliminary Q3 EPS of 39 cents, weaker than consensus of 43 cents.

Barracuda Networks (CUDA) jumped 7% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 adjusted EPS of 22 cents, well above consensus of 14 cents, and said Q3 billings for core products were up +30% y/y to $61.6 million.

Nabors Industries Ltd (NBR) fell 4% in after-hours trading after it began an offering of $500 million of exchangeable senior unsecured notes due 2024.

Zeltiq Aesthetics (ZLTQ) lost nearly 3% in after-hours trading after it said CCO and President Keith Sullivan will retire effective Jan 16.

WD-40 (WDFC) fell 6% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 net sales of $89.2 million, weaker than consensus of $96.3 million.

Cray Inc. (CRAY) lost 4% in after-hours trading after it reported 2016 revenue of $630 million, below consensus if $633.2 million, and said for 2017 it “currently believes it will be difficult to grow over 2016.”

VOXX International (VOXX) rose 3% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 EPS of 24 cents and said Q3 net sales rose 3.3%.

Atwood Oceanics (ATW) dropped nearly 6% in after-hours trading after it announced a public offering of 13.5 million common shares.

Shoe Carnival (SCVL) fell 2% in after-hours trading after it cut its fiscal-year net sales estimate to $1 billion-$1.003 billion, below a November 28 forecast of $1.002 billion-$1.006 billion

City Office REIT (CIO) slid 3% in after-hours trading after it announced a public offering of 4 million shares of common stock.

Papa Murphy’s Holdings (FRSH) tumbled 7% in after-hours trading after it reported preliminary Q4 revenue of $35.5 million, weaker than consensus of $38.3 million.

Source: FoxBusiness, Barchart, CNBC, Reuters, Bloomberg