Newsmakers: Gilead, Amedisys, Compugen, ICAD, Cara Therapeutics

U.S. stocks dipped and bonds slid after the Federal Reserve offered a brighter assessment of the U.S. job market, a shift that investors reckoned could bring forward the timing of interest-rate increases. The Fed also said it would end its bond-buying program in October, as expected. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 35 points, or 0.2%, to 16970, trading near session lows. The S&P 500 fell six points, or 0.3%, to 1978.The Nasdaq Composite declined 25 points, or 0.5%, to 4540.

With doctors and patients waiting for the launch of Gilead's (NASDAQ:GILD) Harvoni hepatitis drug, Q3 Sovaldi sales ($2.8B) fell short of a FactSet consensus of $2.93B.Piper: "GILD reported a somewhat sloppy 3Q, with strong beats for the HIV franchise, particularly products that are facing generic entry over the next 5-7 years, while the HCV franchise that is also being replaced by the new HCV franchise came in weak."

Amedisys Inc (NASDAQ:AMED) Q3 results: Revenues: $300.3M (-0.3%); COGS: $170.2M (-2.9%); Operating Expenses: $284M (-37.7%); Operating Income: $16.2M (+110.5%); Net Income: $8.4M (+109.2%); EPS: $0.26 (+109.0%); Quick Assets: $5.5M (-68.2%); CF Ops: $25.3M (-9.3%).

Compugen Ltd. (USA) (NASDAQ:CGEN) Q3 results: Revenues: $1.7M (+6.2%); Gross Profit: $1M (+900.0%); Operating Expense: $5.6M (+24.4%); Operating Loss: ($4.6M) (-4.5%); Net Loss: ($5.4M) (-14.9%); Loss Per Share: ($0.11) (+8.3%); Quick Assets: $107.4M (+129.5%).

iCAD Inc (NASDAQ:ICAD) Q3 results: Revenues: $12.6M (+51.8%); Gross Profit: $9.2M (+55.9%); Operating Expenses: $7.8M (+30.0%); Operating Income: $0.9M (+325.0%); Net Income: $0.3M (+150.0%); EPS: $0.02 (+140.0%); Quick Assets: $33.4M (+180.7%); CF Ops: ($0.1M) (+96.9%).

Cara Therapeutics (NASDAQ:CARA) +16.7% premarket after announcing positive results from a human abuse liability trial of its peripheral Opioid for acute pain, an intravenous formulation of CR845.Top-line results showed that therapeutic and supratherapeutic doses of I.V. CR845 met the trial's primary endpoint by demonstrating highly statistically significant lower "drug liking" scores.