President Donald Trump meets with business leaders including Elon Musk, left, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington on Jan. 23, 2017. Tesla Motors Inc. founder Elon Musk is pressing the Trump administration to adopt a tax on carbon emissions, raising the issue directly with President Donald Trump and U.S. business leaders at a White House meeting Monday regarding manufacturing.
Day: January 26, 2017
Trump Administration Pulls Some Obamacare Ads as Deadline Nears
The Trump administration has pulled some advertising designed to encourage people to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, days before the final deadline to buy 2017 health plans under the law. The Department of Health and Human Services withdrew about $5 million of advertising, according to Matt Lloyd, a spokesman for the department.
PayPal Has Been Talking With Amazon on Payments, CEO Says
Amazon.com Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc. have discussed letting shoppers pay for Amazon purchases using their PayPal accounts, highlighting how PayPal can attract new partners since its 2015 split from Amazon rival EBay Inc. “We have been in conversations with Amazon,” PayPal Chief Executive Officer Dan Schulman said Thursday in an interview with Bloomberg. “We’re closing in on 200 million users on our platform right now.
Toshiba to sell slice of smartphone memory chip unit
Toshiba has said it will split off its operation that makes memory chips for smartphones and computers, and will sell a stake in the new business. The Japanese company needs to raise funds after revealing a heavy one-off loss at its US nuclear power business.
Why This Analyst Raised General Motors’ Price Target
There hasn’t been a long list of analysts posting bullish notes on major automakers over the past year, due to the inevitable peaking of the U.S. new-vehicle cycle after the industry set sales records each of the past seven years. That’s why yesterday’s upgrade from Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, a highly respected analyst and longtime Tesla Motors bull, was a pleasant surprise for investors.
Report: NVIDIA Corporation’s in-House Graphics Cards to Affect Partners’ Profitability
In the past, the company would build what are commonly referred to as “reference design” graphics cards. These are add-in-boards that incorporate NVIDIA’s graphics processors that are sold to end users, who then plug them into their computers.
Futures Head Lower, Asia Mixed as Investors Mull Trump
All eyes will be on the Republicans and President Trump on Friday as a strategy session ends and the U.K. prime minister lands. Futures for U.S. markets indicated a lower open late Thursday after a turbulent political day and a number of high-profile earnings reports, including Starbucks and Alphabet , that fell short of investor expectations.
Cash Found ‘Floating’ Down From Top of Indianapolis Building
Cold hard cash came from the sky in Indianapolis Tuesday when an electrical worker found bills “floating” off the roof of a downtown building, police confirmed. The worker found the errant greenbacks atop 1 North Meridian Street, Indianapolis Metropolitan police Sgt.
Should You Sell Qualcomm After Apple’s $1 Billion Lawsuit?
Back in 2008, Sprint deployed its first WiMax network, a 4G standard which wasn’t heavily dependent on Qualcomm’s patent portfolio. Intel championed theuse of WiMax chips, but Qualcomm opposed WiMax in favor of its upcoming LTE standard — which it could generate more licensing fees from.
For Illinois Tool Works, Another Impressive Quarter
Its peer 3M Co. recently affirmed full-year 2017 guidance, and Illinois Tool Works did the same.
1 Statistic That Shows Why McDonald’s Struggles May Continue
Management blamed the strong response to the launch of all-day breakfast for the slide in domestic comparable sales. Outside the US, performance was strong as global comps were up 2.7%.
PayPal Talking With Amazon on Payments, PayPal CEO Says
Amazon.com Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc. have discussed letting shoppers pay for Amazon purchases using their PayPal accounts, highlighting how PayPal can attract new partners since its 2015 split from Amazon rival EBay Inc. “We have been in conversations with Amazon,” PayPal Chief Executive Officer Dan Schulman said Thursday in an interview with Bloomberg. “We’re closing in on 200 million users on our platform right now.
Alphabet Earnings Marred by Taxman, While Revenue Jumps
Alphabet Inc. reported better-than-expected revenue thanks to a fast-growing cloud-computing business and booming YouTube video advertising, but the taxman spoiled the party. Fourth-quarter revenue, after payments for online traffic from distribution partners, was $21.2 billion, up 23 percent from a year earlier, the company said in a statement Thursday.
Google’s Execution Remains Great, Even if Pricing and Spending Issues Have Markets Nervous
The search giant’s ad momentum remains strong, and it looks like the Pixel had a good quarter. But elevated spending and other factors weighed on its bottom line.
American Electric Power: Cramer’s Top Takeaways
Did you miss last night’s “Mad Money” on CNBC ? If so, here are some of Jim Cramer’s top takeaways. In his final “Executive Decision” segment, Cramer also spoke with Nick Akins, chairman, president and CEO of American Electric Power , the Action Alerts PLUS holding with a 3.7% dividend yield.
LAM Research: Cramer’s Top Takeaways
Did you miss last night’s “Mad Money” on CNBC ? If so, here are some of Jim Cramer’s top takeaways. In his second “Executive Decision” segment, Cramer also checked in with Martin Anstice, president and CEO of LAM Research , the semiconductor equipment maker which just posed a five-cents-a-share earnings beat on a 15% increase in revenues — news that spawned seven analyst upgrades but also saw shares decline by 2.2%.
ServiceNow: Cramer’s Top Takeaways
Did you miss last night’s “Mad Money” on CNBC ? If so, here are some of Jim Cramer’s top takeaways. In his first “Executive Decision” segment, Cramer spoke with Frank Slootman, president and CEO of ServiceNow , the IT service management company that just delivered a penny-a-share earnings beat on a 35% rise in revenues with strong guidance to boot.
Verizon is reportedly in talks to merge with Charter, America’s second-biggest cable company
Roughly a year after swallowing up Time Warner Cable, Charter Communications could merge with yet another massive broadband and TV provider: Verizon. The telecommunications giant is exploring a combination with Charter, the nation’s second-largest cable company, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Why a Toy Maker and a Coffee Company are Pushing Virtual Assistants
By now we have all seen demonstrations of the practicality of the virtual personal assistant . The biggest tech companies have made daily requests like directions, internet searches, and local restaurants commonplace, but companies like Microsoft aren’t the only ones playing in the virtual assistant space — plenty of other smaller players are incorporating the tech into their existing offerings to keep with the times and avoid being left behind.
Why Las Vegas Sands, Whirlpool, and F5 Networks Slumped Today
The stock market lost some of its upward momentum on Thursday, as major market benchmarks finished the day narrowly mixed. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both lost less than 0.1%, but the Dow Jones Industrials managed to post a gain of 32 points, which sent the average above the far less meaningful level of 20,100.
Why Ethan Allen Interiors Inc. Stock Fell 12%
The stock closed the trading day down 12.5%. Before Ethan Allen’s earnings release this week, the company had pre-announced its second fiscal quarter of 2017, which ends on Dec. 31, before the figures were finalized.
What Happened in the Stock Market Today
Both indexes changed less than 0.25% over the trading session despite a flood of fresh corporate earnings results. Dozens of companies posted updates on their operating trends as earnings season hit high gear.
Starbucks Sinks Despite Record Holiday Results
Yet even with such an impressive growth history in the rearview mirror, Starbucks still has to demonstrate to investors that it has the capacity to sustain that growth going forward. Coming into Thursday’s fiscal first-quarter financial report, Starbucks investors expected solid gains in revenue and earnings.
Qualcomm’s Earnings Call Dominated By Apple Lawsuit
While the results as well as guidance mostly topped analyst expectations, Apple ‘s recent lawsuit against the company expectedly dominated the subsequent earnings call . For good reason, too, since Apple is widely considered Qualcomm’s largest customer, combined with the fact that the lawsuit threatens Qualcomm’s licensing model.
Netflix, Inc. Will Launch 1,000 Hours of Original Content in 2017
Requiring big upfront investments, it was initially unclear just how well these big investments would pay off over the long haul. But as years passed, not only did Netflix’s “Originals” prove to be one of the company’s best strategic moves, but the company has embraced original releases far more than anyone anticipated.
Intel Corporation Doesn’t Raise Its Dividend
The lack of a dividend increase could give us some insight into Intel’s thinking around its cash generation and use during 2017. At $1.04 per share, at a share count of approximately 4.74 billion, Intel is paying out roughly $5 billion in dividends per year.
Slossberg wants FCC to end WFSB’s tiff with Optimum
State Sen. Senator Gayle Slossberg on Thursday fired off a letter to the Federal Communications Commission asking the agency to help end a contract dispute that has left Cablevision viewers without WFSB, the CBS affiliate in Connecticut, traditionally known as Channel 3. This blackout has left much of southern Fairfield County and parts of New Haven and Litchfield counties without access to WFSB, the only CBS-TV affiliate in Connecticut. Cablevision has been without WFSB since Jan. 13. “My constituents are outraged that they have missed the recent Patriots games, and they have every right to be,” Slossberg said, adding that the FCC “has failed to intervene,” even though it could help get the two sides together.
GOP Leaders Embrace Trump’s Border Wall But Split on Details
Republican leaders are finally climbing on board President Donald Trump’s plan for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border — and they say they’re ready to spend as much as $15 billion to build it. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell both suggested Thursday that, after months of studiously ignoring the border wall proposal, they’re now ready to act on the wall as part of a spending request they expect from Trump that would help jump-start construction.
Two Ex-Och-Ziff Executives Accused by SEC in Bribery Scheme
Two former Och-Ziff Capital Management Group executives, including the ex-head of the hedge fund’s European office, were sued by U.S. regulators over allegations that they spearheaded a sprawling bribery scheme that involved paying tens of millions of dollars across Africa to win business. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement action against Michael Cohen, who headed the European office, and Vanja Baros, an executive on Africa-related deals, follows a settlement with the U.S. government last year in which an Och-Ziff unit pleaded guilty to violating bribery laws and the firm agreed to pay $415 million.
Alphabet Earnings Miss Analyst Estimates on New Hardware Costs
Alphabet Inc. profit missed analysts’ estimates, dented by heavy spending to support the internet giant’s growing cloud business and a one-time tax payment. Fourth-quarter revenue, after payments for online traffic from distribution partners, was $21.22 billion, the company said in a statement Thursday.
Constellation, Maker of Corona Beer, Slips on Report of Possible Trump Border Tariff
Constellation Brands shares fell about 2.7% to $149.97 after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday that President Trump’s proposed wall on the border with Mexico will be financed with a 20% tax on imported goods from Mexico. Constellation, maker of Corona and Modelo beers, both brewed in Mexico, sold $3.44 billion worth of beer in the U.S. in 2016, according to the company’s fiscal 2016 year-end report, which came out in February.
Wynn Shares Skyrocket Despite Ugly Earnings Miss
Wynn Resorts shares jumped 7.6% to $102.80 in late trading Thursday despite the gaming company reporting a wide fourth-quarter earnings miss. The company reported a 37.3% increase in net revenue of $1.3 billion for the quarter with adjusted earnings of 50 cents a share, well short of analysts’ expectations for earnings of 67 cents a share.
PayPal Matches Profit Estimates as Schulman Plays Up Partnerships
A series of strategic partnerships with networks, financial institutions, technology companies, and mobile carriers, were transformational, the CEO said. Still, the low end of PayPal’s full-year revenue forecast trailed estimates.
Intel Shares Advance in After-Hours on Earnings Beat, Upbeat Guidance
Intel beat Wall Street’s expectations for the fourth quarter of 2016 and gave a positive outlook for the fiscal first quarter and the full year. Intel reported stronger-than-expected results for the fourth quarter of 2016 after Thursday’s closing bell, helped in part by growth in its data center unit.
Alphabet Scales Back Another ‘Moonshot’ With Verily Sale
The Google parent’s $800M sale to Temasek is the latest move to reel in some of its ambitious ‘Other Bets’ investments. In another move that suggests Alphabet Inc. is having second thoughts about big so-called “moonshot” investments, its life sciences subsidiary, Verily, said it will sell a minority stake to Singaporean firm Temasek Holdings Pte.
Facebook’s Big Hire Shows Zuckerberg’s Distinctive Vision for Virtual Reality
When Facebook bought Oculus VR for over $2 billion in 2014, the company was something of a trendsetter among tech giants when it came to virtual reality, which at the time was seen as the province of geeks, early adopters and futurists . Today, the field is a lot more crowded, enough so that Facebook/Oculus has often been pushed out of the media spotlight.
‘Oprah Effect’ Should Give Kraft Heinz a Lift
Kraft Heinz is joining forces with Oprah Winfrey for a new line of packaged food, and the media mogul has a history of boosting companies with whom she’s linked. Kraft Heinz announced a new partnership with a well-known former daytime TV host.
LendingRobot Sets Up ‘Hedge Fund’ to Simplify Online-Loan Investment
A one-stop shop for investors, the service’s costs are a fraction of typical hedge-fund fees. LendingRobot Series charges 1% of assets under management and caps fund expenses at 0.59% So you want to bankroll loans made by online firms like Prosper and Lending Club , which rely on individual investors for financing, but you don’t have time to analyze credit risk and potential returns for dozens of different borrowers? LendingRobot CEO Emmanuel Marot has the solution: a hedge-fund style investment vehicle for clients looking to park $100,000 or more in so-called peer-to-peer loans, with average returns as high as 11.5%.
Clever Hackers Love Call Centers to Tap Into Sensitive Information
Hackers are drawn to call centers because of the plethora of personal and financial information which is shared even in a few minutes of a conversation, which aids clever fraudsters. Hackers are drawn to call centers because of the plethora of personal and financial information which is shared even in a few minutes of a conversation, which aids clever fraudsters on the hunt for more data.
Qualcomm Headed South
It is always nice to see the fundamentals and the technicals come together. QCOM made a toppy pattern from October into January before prices began break down.