Rates fall at weekly US Treasury bill auction

Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills fell in Monday’s auction, with rates on six-month bills dropping to their lowest level since early November. The Treasury Department auctioned $34 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 0.510 percent, down from 0.530 percent last week.

Kuwait Says Saudi Arabia to U.A.E. Complying With Oil Cuts

Oil producers from Saudi Arabia to the United Arab Emirates are complying with production cuts promised last year to stabilize the market, Kuwait’s governor to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said. Qatar, Kuwait and Oman are also complying, having announced cuts to customers, Nawal Al-Fezaia, Kuwait’s OPEC governor, said in an interview Monday in Kuwait City where OPEC’s Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo is scheduled to have talks on the cuts with Kuwait Oil Minister Essam Al-Marzouk and other officials.

Trump, Ryan Set the Stage for Tax Reform Overhaul

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan will meet on Monday with top members of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team to discuss their 2017 tax reform agenda, a senior Republican aide said. Ryan and his policy staff are expected to walk the Trump team members through the “Better Way” tax reform blueprint that the speaker and other House Republican leaders unveiled last June, the aide said.

Yahoo Leftovers Will Be Called Altaba, Mayer Will Not Be On Board

Yahoo Inc. disclosed Monday afternoon that the entity that remains after its merger with Verizon Inc. will be called “Altaba,” and current Chief Executive Marissa Mayer will not be on the board. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission , Yahoo said that the new company — which consists of Yahoo’s remaining investment in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Yahoo Japan, as well as cash and a few other assets — will only need five board members, and Mayer as well as Yahoo cofounder David Filo will not be among them.

Why Under Armour Inc. Stock Lost 28% in 2016

Shareholders at one point in the year were up more than 15%, but those gains gave way to minor losses, which then spiraled into a significant calendar-year decline. Zooming out, the stock is still soundly beating the market over the trailing three-year, five-year, and 10-year time frames.

Why Home Depot Inc Gained Just 1% in 2016

The performance gap meant that the retailer was one of the worst stocks on the blue chip index in 2016. That weak outing came even as revenue, earnings, and profitability all set record highs and as Home Depot widened its market share lead over its biggest national competition, Lowe’s .

Intel Corporation PC Chief Talks Manufacturing Strategy

These chips, as would be expected, deliver improved performance and power efficiency relative to the company’s sixth-generation Core processor family. What is interesting about these chips is that they represent a third wave of products manufactured in the company’s 14-nanometer manufacturing technology, which was first used to build the company’s fifth-generation Core processors.

IBM Is Betting Its Future on AI

Since Ginni Rometty started as CEO in January of 2012, IBM has had 18 consecutive quarters of year-over-year declining revenue– essentially every quarter of her tenure. The stock has lost nearly 10% compared with a gain of 78% for the S&P 500 over the last five years.

SUVs help BMW to record 2016 sales year

Luxury carmaker BMW AG had a record sales year in 2016, delivering 5.3 percent more vehicles as its line of SUVs boosted results despite declining sales in the U.S. Sales rose to 2.37 million for the company, which besides BMWs, makes Mini and Rolls-Royce cars. Important markets were China, where sales rose 11 percent, and Europe.

UnitedHealth Branches Out With $2.3 Billion Surgical Care Deal

The U.S.’s biggest health insurer, UnitedHealth Group Inc., will buy Surgical Care Affiliates Inc. for about $2.3 billion, adding an outpatient surgery chain to its growing health care-delivery business. UnitedHealth will pay $57 a share, with with 51 percent to 80 percent of that in stock and the rest in cash, the companies said in a statement.

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President-elect Donald Trump has not been shy about taking on major corporations on Twitter — and it’s forced companies to take action. (

Why VCA Inc Stock Popped Today

Mars will pay $7.7 billion, or $93 a share for VCA in a deal valued at $9.1 billion when the animal hospital chain’s $1.4 billion in debt is factored in. The agreement has been unanimously approved by directors of both companies, and VCA will join Mars’ Petcare division, which includes veterinary services like Banfield Pet Hospital, Bluefield, Pet Partners, and several animal nutrition brands.

Why Francesca’s Holdings Corp. Stock Popped Today

Specifically, Francesca’s now expects revenue in its fiscal fourth quarter — with ends Jan. 28 — to be in the range of $144 million to $146 million — narrowed from previous guidance, which called for $143 million to $148 million — assuming comparable sales ranging from a 1% decline to a 1% increase year over year. On the bottom line, that should translate to diluted earnings per share of $0.35 to $0.37.

Top Biotech Resolutions for 2017

The industry remains under scrutiny because of pricing decisions, pipeline failures, and profit concerns. What can top stocks like Gilead Sciences In this episode of The Motley Fool’s Industry Focus: Healthcare podcast, analyst Kristine Harjes is joined by Todd Campbell to offer up some resolutions they’d like biotech’s C-suite to stick to in 2017.

Is MannKind Corp. Ready to Rebound in 2017?

The drugmaker’s titanic plunge was catalyzed by the termination of itslicense and collaboration agreement with Sanofi for inhaled insulin product Afrezza last April. Sanofi decided to end the partnership with MannKind because of Afrezza’s unexpectedly weak launch that produced a grand total of $5.2 million in net sales during the first nine months of 2015.

Here’s Why Merrimack Pharmaceuticals Inc. Fell 47.3% in 2016

Investors in the cancer-focused biotech had to stomach a 47% decline during the year, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence . That was a far worse decline than the 17% pullback that was rung up by the First Trust NYSE Arca Biotech ETF As the chart above indicates, Merrimack’s stock gave its investors a wild ride during 2016.

Dollar Falls Against Yen on Risk Reduction; Sterling Sinks

The U.S. dollar slumped against the safe-haven yen on Monday on investors’ reduced appetite for risk, while sterling sank to more than two-month lows on talk that Britain would drastically rework trade ties with the European Union after Brexit. A fall in U.S. Treasury yields and U.S. stocks drove the dollar down as much as 0.6 percent against the yen to a session low of 116.16 yen.

Czech Republic, Slovakia to cooperate on guarding air spaces

The Czech Republic has approved a plan for Czech and Slovak air forces to cooperate in protecting air spaces over the two neighboring countries that once formed Czechoslovakia. The Czech Defense Ministry says the protection both the Czech Republic and Slovakia already receive as NATO members is effective only for military threats.

Banks, Oil Stocks Hinder Dow’s Pursuit of 20,000

Declines in bank and energy companies weighed on Wall Street on Monday, distancing the Dow from the 20,000 mark, while gains in technology stocks pushed the Nasdaq to a record intraday high. Two-thirds of the 30 Dow components were lower, with Goldman Sachs’s 0.7 percent decline weighing the most.

UnitedHealth Agrees to Buy Surgical Care for $2.3 Billion

UnitedHealth Group Inc. agreed to buy Surgical Care Affiliates Inc. for about $2.3 billion in cash and stock to add an outpatient surgery chain that will help the biggest U.S. health insurer diversify its business. UnitedHealth is paying $57 a share, with 51 percent to 80 percent of that in stock and the rest in cash, the companies said in a statement Monday.