It was a week that Wall Street would just as soon forget, as a hawkish Federal Reserve member’s jawboning about fighting an “inflation virus” undercut positive news about coming corporate profits.
Even a sharp decline in oil prices couldn’t seem to rouse many buyers, amid fears that interest rates will continue upward.
Locally, Abbott Laboratories Inc.’s stock got a boost after the Food and Drug Administration approved its Humira drug to treat psoriatic arthritis and expanded the drug’s use against another serious inflammatory disease.
Humira has been approved since 2002 to treat moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis in patients who had not responded to other therapies. The latest approvals add psoriatic arthritis–joint pain associated with skin psoriasis–and make it available as a first-line treatment for rheumatoid arthritis.
Abbott is running clinical trials to test Humira against other auto-immune diseases.
Shares of the North Chicago-based company finished at $42.70, up 5 percent from a 52-week low of $40.25. However, they have fallen from a recent high of $50.
The stock of Motorola Inc. inched higher after the world’s second-biggest maker of mobile phones said it will cut 1,900 jobs as the company retools manufacturing plants and changes materials purchasing to boost profits.
The moves came amid reports that the company’s new Rokr music phone, part of a joint venture with Apple Computer, has seen lagging sales. The Rokr is being outdistanced by Motorola’s fashionable, ultra-thin Razr phone, which has enjoyed huge success. Meanwhile, the company’s market share continues to grow.
Shares of Schaumburg-based Motorola ended at $21.60, up 49 percent from a 52-week low of $14.48.
And the stock of R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. moved higher after the Chicago-based printing and technology giant said it is acquiring Spencer Press Inc., a privately owned printing company in Maine that serves customers who market their products through catalogs and other direct mailings.
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Shares of Donnelley closed at $37.24, up 26 percent from a 52-week low of $29.54.
The stock of Boeing Co., the world’s largest aircraftmaker, hit an air pocket after European rival Airbus SAS said it has received “legally binding” pledges of government aid to develop its new A350 plane, which will compete with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
The announcement by Airbus came amid a deepening dispute between Europe and the United States over subsidies and tax breaks to the two huge aircraftmakers.
Shares of Chicago-based Boeing ended at $67.30, down 1.7 percent from a recent high of $68.48. They’re up, however, from a 52-week low of $48.10.
And the stock of Equity Office Properties Trust slipped after the Chicago-based real estate firm headed by investor Samuel Zell said it is buying a 23-story office building in Austin, Texas, for $131.7 million, and a four-building office complex in Palo Alto, Calif., for $41.3 million.
Shares ended at $31.05, off 13 percent from a 52-week high of $35.79.
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