Finance Stocks in Focus: Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC), Yamana Gold Inc. (USA) (NYSE:AUY), Opko Health Inc (NYSE:OPK)

Shares of  Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) dropped -1.26% and closed at $16.83 in the last trading session. The last trading range of the stock ranges between $16.83 and $17.07. On Dec 29, Bank of America declared the redemption of $2.0 billion of trust preferred securities. Starting in January of 2016, these securities, unlike the corporation’s other outstanding series of trust preferred securities, will completely phase out from regulatory capital.

As a result of the Bank of America Merrill Lynch merger in 2009, the company recorded a discount to par value as purchase accounting adjustments associated with these securities. Bank of America will record a non-cash reduction to net interest income and to pretax income of about $600 million in the fourth quarter of 2015 for the remaining discount to par value. The company anticipates to realize cash savings from lower funding costs as a result of the redemption.

The redemption affects all of the trust preferred securities of each trust listed in the table below. The redemption date for all such trust preferred securities is January 29, 2016, and the redemption price is 100 percent of the liquidation amount per trust preferred security, plus accumulated and unpaid distributions on the trust preferred securities through the redemption date.

Bank of America Corporation is a bank holding company and a financial holding company. The Company is a financial institution, serving individual consumers, small- and middle-market businesses, institutional investors, corporations and Governments with a range of banking, investing, asset administration and other financial and risk administration products and services.

Yamana Gold Inc. (USA) (NYSE:AUY) dropped -0.53% and closed at $1.86 in the last trading session. The last trading range of the stock ranges between $1.82 and $1.89. The company’s Market capitalization is $1.76B with the total Outstanding Shares of 946.71M. On Thursday, despite recentlys higher gold prices.

Gold for February delivery is rising by 0.11% to $1,061 per ounce on the COMEX.

Even though gold futures were higher, gold is poised for a third successive annual loss, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Gold is projected to end this year down around 10.4%, the Journal noted.

Adding to this bearish sentiment, investors are expecting that gold futures wont see much gains heading into the new year since the Fed decided earlier this month to improvement interest rates next year, for the first time in nine years.

Overall the headwinds for gold remain for next year, given interest rates and the dollar, said Xiao Fu, head of commodity markets strategy at BOCI Global Commodities Ltd, according to the Journal.

Yamana Gold Inc. is a Canada-based gold producer.

Shares of Opko Health Inc (NYSE:OPK), ended its last trade with -0.89% loss, and closed at $10.05. The Average Volume of the company is at 3.28M with the Outstanding Shares of 545.01M. The Earnings per Share of the company stands at $-0.23. On Dec 21, OPKO Health, Inc. (OPK) through its partner GeneDx, declared results from the largest published study to date of patients who received hereditary genetic testing with Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) cancer panels. The study, “Pathogenic and Likely Pathogenic Variant Prevalence among the First 10,000 Patients Referred for Next Generation Cancer Panel Testing,” was published in the December 2015 issue of Genetics in Medicine. GeneDx’s analysis of the data generated from the first 10,030 patients highlights the clinical utility of testing for multiple cancer genes to identify variants that would not have been identified through formerly used testing methods. The patients, who were referred for testing between August, 2013 and October, 2014, underwent genetic testing for panels of genes associated with hereditary cancer.

While many patients were found to carry pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants in well-established, high-risk cancer genes, about half of the pathogenic variants identified were in genes with moderate risk and in recently identified cancer genes. Notably, among women with breast cancer, 50% of positive findings were in genes other than BRCA1 or BRCA2. Additionally, several individuals had pathogenic variants in high-risk genes that were somewhat unpredictable, so clinical presentation alone might not have prompted testing for these genes.

About Travis Garlick 1822 Articles
Been writing about and trading stocks since 2013. Manage a group of micro-cap investors on Facebook with over 15,000 members. Turned $8,500 into 185k the first year I started trading stocks and haven't looked back.