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MSFT | Avaya dials up RingCentral for cloud technology after suitor search | By Stephen Nellis
Reuters After months of evaluating sale and merger options telecommunications gear provider Avaya Holdings Corp on Thursday announced a strategic partnership and 500 million contribution from RingCentral Inc
Avaya long made hardware systems that sit inside of businesses to provide unified phone and video conferencing services as well as gear for call centers The company which emerged from a bankruptcy filing in 2017 after a previous 8 3 billion leveraged buyout by TPG Capital and Silver Lake in 2007 faces growing competition from large rivals such as Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT and Amazon NASDAQ AMZN Web Services
Those rivals deliver similar communications services as software running inside cloud data centers a capability Avaya has struggled to match but where RingCentral is a major player
Under the deal Avaya will rely on RingCentral to provide cloud technology in a new offering Both companies will contribute funding to the sales and marketing of the cloud product RingCentral will pay Avaya a 375 million advance for future sales commissions and licensing rights as well as 125 million in a preferred equity investment that could result a 6 stake in Avaya if converted to common stock
Executives from both companies declined to say exactly how the ongoing subscription revenue from the new partnership s product would be split up
Avaya has been considering selling itself since at least March when Reuters reported that its board was evaluating a private equity buyout offer that valued the firm at more than 5 billion versus its 1 1 billion market value at the close of business Thursday In August Reuters reported that Avaya was considering an all cash offer from private equity firm Clayton Dubilier Rice LLC CD R as an alternative to a potential merger with privately held peer Mitel Networks Corp
In an interview Avaya CEO James Chirico declined to comment on those other offers But he said the RingCentral deal with the infusion of RingCentral s 375 million advance payment and 125 million preferred equity investment was the best among the options the company evaluated during its strategic review undertaken with JP Morgan Chase NYSE JPM Co as adviser
In conjunction with the deal Avaya said its board authorized 500 million in share repurchases and that it will pay down 250 million of its nearly 3 2 billion debt pile
This is not a good deal this is the best deal Chirico said
RingCentral CEO Vlad Shmunis said the deal was a good use of his company s cash because it gives it access to Avaya s 100 million users RingCentral has about 2 million users which Shmunis said is an indication of how many businesses have not yet moved their phone networks to the cloud
We are optimistic that Avaya will blow through this sales commission advance and become a driving force in transition business phone systems to the cloud he said
Investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc NYSE GS and law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich Rosati served as adviser and legal counsel respectively to RingCentral | 10/3/2019 |
MSFT | U S allies urge Facebook for backdoor to encryption as they fight child abuse | By Joseph Menn Christopher Bing and Katie Paul WASHINGTON Reuters The United States the United Kingdom and Australia have called on Facebook Inc NASDAQ FB to not go ahead with end to end encryption across its messaging services unless law enforcement officials have backdoor access saying encryption hindered the fight against child abuse and terrorism The United States and United Kingdom also signed a special data agreement that would fast track requests from law enforcement to technology companies for information about the communications of terrorists and child predators Law enforcement could get information in weeks or even days instead of the current wait of six months to two years The latest tug of war between governments and tech companies over user data could also impact Apple Inc NASDAQ AAPL Alphabet NASDAQ GOOGL Inc s Google and Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT as well as smaller encrypted chat apps like Signal Washington has called for more regulation and launched anti trust investigations against many tech companies criticizing them over privacy lapses election related activity and dominance in online advertising In an open letter to Facebook and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg the three allies said that while they supported strong encryption it was necessary to balance the need for secure data with public safety They urged Facebook and other companies to enable law enforcement to obtain lawful access to content in a readable and usable format The letter was signed by U S Attorney General William Barr UK Secretary of State for the Home Department Priti Patel and Australian Minister of Home Affairs Peter Dutton Unfortunately Facebook has not committed to address our serious concerns about the impact its proposals could have on protecting our most vulnerable citizens the letter reads CHILD ABUSE FEARS Child predators have increasingly used messaging applications including Facebook s Messenger to groom their victims and exchange explicit images and videos The number of known child sexual abuse images has soared from thousands to tens of millions in just the past few years Speaking at an event in Washington on Wednesday Associate Attorney General Sujit Raman said the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received more than 18 million tips of online child sex abuse last year over 90 of them from Facebook He estimated that up to 75 of those tips would go dark if social media companies like Facebook were to go through with encryption plans Facebook said in a statement that it strongly opposes government efforts to build backdoors which it said would undermine privacy and security Zuckerberg said on Thursday he had been aware of child exploitation risks before announcing his encryption plan and acknowledged that it would reduce tools to fight the problem Speaking in a livestream of the company s weekly internal Q A session he said he was optimistic that Facebook would be able to identify predators even in encrypted systems using the same tools it used to fight election interference like patterns of activity and links between accounts on different platforms He also suggested the company might further limit the ways adults can interact with minors on Facebook s platforms DIRECT REQUESTS The bilateral agreement between the UK and the United States would empower the UK government to directly request data from U S tech companies which remotely store data relevant to their own ongoing criminal investigations rather than asking for it via U S law enforcement officials Susan Landau a professor of cybersecurity and policy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University said disputes over encryption have flared on and off since the mid 1990s She said government officials concerned with fighting child abuse would be better served by making sure investigators had more funding and training They seem to ignore the low hanging fruit in favor of going after the thing they ve been going after for the past 25 years she said WhatsApp s global head Will Cathcart wrote in a public internet forum on Saturday that the company will always oppose government attempts to build backdoors because they would weaken the security of everyone who uses WhatsApp including governments themselves
That app which is already encrypted is also owned by Facebook | 10/4/2019 |
MSFT | Iranian hackers targeted U S presidential campaign did not succeed Microsoft | By Akanksha Rana and Christopher Bing
Reuters A hacking group that appears to be linked to the Iranian government attempted to intrude into a U S presidential contender s campaign but did not succeed Microsoft Corp O MSFT said on Friday
Microsoft saw significant cyber activity by the group which also targeted current and former U S government officials journalists covering global politics and prominent Iranians living outside Iran the company said in a blog post In a 30 day period between August and September the group dubbed Phosphorous by the company made more than 2 700 attempts to identify consumer email accounts belonging to specific customers and then attacked 241 of those accounts
Four accounts were compromised as a result of these attempts these four accounts were not associated with the U S presidential campaign or current and former U S government officials the blog post said Microsoft has notified the customers related to these investigations and threats and has worked as requested with those whose accounts were compromised to secure them
Microsoft did not identify the election campaign whose network was targeted by Phosphorous hackers Nineteen Democrats are seeking their party s nomination to run against Republican President Donald Trump in the November 2020 election
Hacking to interfere in elections has become a concern for governments especially since U S intelligence agencies concluded that Russia ran a hacking and propaganda operation to disrupt the American democratic process in 2016 to help then candidate Trump become president Moscow has denied any meddling
Tensions between the United States and Iran have risen since May 2018 when Trump withdrew from a 2015 international nuclear accord with Tehran that put limits on its nuclear program in exchange for easing of sanctions Trump has since reinstated U S sanctions putting increased pressure on the Iranian economy including its oil trade
The Iranian government did not issue any immediate comment through state run media on Microsoft s statement
Phosphorus is also known as APT 35 Charming Kitten and Ajax Security Team according to Microsoft
The Redmond Washington based company said Phosphorous used information gathered from researching their targets or other means to game password reset or account recovery features and attempt to take over some targeted accounts
The attacks were not technically sophisticated the blog said Hackers tried to use a significant amount of personal information to attack targets it said
This effort suggests Phosphorous is highly motivated and willing to invest significant time and resources engaging in research and other means of information gathering the blog post said
Microsoft has been tracking Phosphorus since 2013 and said in March that it had received a court order to take control of 99 websites the group used to execute attacks https
A computer network used by 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton s campaign was hacked in a cyberattack on Democratic Party political organizations in that U S election
Big tech companies are under pressure to ramp up security for next year s U S elections and others around the world
Companies including Facebook Inc O FB Alphabet Inc s Google O GOOGL Microsoft and Twitter Inc N TWTR met with U S intelligence agencies earlier in September to discuss security strategies
Microsoft had said in a blog post in July that about 10 000 customers were targeted or compromised by nation state attacks in the past year Most of the activity originated from hackers in three countries Iran North Korea and Russia the company said | 10/4/2019 |
MSFT | France recruits Dassault Systemes OVH for alternative to U S cloud firms | PARIS Reuters France has enlisted tech companies Dassault Systemes and OVH to come up with plans to break the dominance of U S companies in cloud computing its finance minister said on Thursday
Paris is eager to build up a capacity to store sensitive data in France amid concerns the U S government can obtain data kept on the servers of U S companies such as Amazon NASDAQ AMZN and Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT
We have asked Dassault Systemes and OVH as well to work on this and we will have the first results in December 2019 Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told a conference at French online ad company Criteo
Based on these results we want to build a trustworthy cloud to store our companies most sensitive data he said adding the project would be done at the Franco German level at first and possibly at the European level later
Dassault Systemes is a French software company and OVH is a privately held French cloud computing company
Paris is concerned a 2018 U S law called the Cloud Act lets any U S agency access European corporate data that is stored on the data centers of U S companies without telling them
It s totally unacceptable Le Maire said adding a solution needed to be found urgently between Washington and the European Union
Le Maire said France would invest 1 5 billion euros 1 6 billion by 2020 in artificial intelligence AI with 600 million in research and 800 million in seed money and funds for bringing AI projects to market
The money will come from an innovation fund financed by the sell off of state assets starting with the sale of a stake in French lottery monopoly la Francaise des Jeux in the coming weeks he said | 10/3/2019 |
INTC | Israeli startup NeuroBlade raises 23 million to develop AI chip | TEL AVIV Reuters Israeli startup NeuroBlade said on Wednesday it has completed a 23 million early funding round led by Marius Nacht co founder of Check Point Software Technologies NASDAQ CHKP with the participation of new investor Intel NASDAQ INTC Capital
Existing investors StageOne Ventures and Grove Ventures headed by USB flash drive inventor Dov Moran also participated
In addition to 4 5 million previously raised the funds will be used by NeuroBlade to scale its workforce and ramp up efforts to bring its artificial intelligence chip to market
The AI processor market is led by Nvidia and Intel but is becoming more crowded with startups developing chips for different markets as well as large companies developing processors for their own needs AI chips are used in various applications including autonomous driving image and speech recognition and video analysis
The deployment and use of AI is still limited by size price and performance of these chips NeuroBlade said its chip maintains a strong performance level despite being smaller and less expensive to make | 6/26/2019 |
INTC | U S stocks mixed at close of trade Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0 04 | Investing com U S stocks were mixed after the close on Thursday as gains in the Telecoms Financials and Healthcare sectors led shares higher while losses in the Oil Gas Utilities and Industrials sectors led shares lower
At the close in NYSE the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0 04 while the S P 500 index gained 0 38 and the NASDAQ Composite index gained 0 73
The best performers of the session on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc NASDAQ WBA which rose 4 09 or 2 14 points to trade at 54 52 at the close Meanwhile Nike Inc NYSE NKE added 1 21 or 1 00 points to end at 83 55 and UnitedHealth Group Incorporated NYSE UNH was up 1 18 or 2 88 points to 246 35 in late trade
The worst performers of the session were Boeing Co NYSE BA which fell 2 94 or 11 01 points to trade at 363 93 at the close Cisco Systems Inc NASDAQ CSCO declined 1 54 or 0 87 points to end at 55 73 and Intel Corporation NASDAQ INTC was down 1 51 or 0 73 points to 47 46
The top performers on the S P 500 were Pacific Gas Electric Co NYSE PCG which rose 10 13 to 23 92 CenturyLink Inc NYSE CTL which was up 6 78 to settle at 11 65 and L Brands Inc NYSE LB which gained 6 21 to close at 26 34
The worst performers were ConAgra Foods Inc NYSE CAG which was down 12 13 to 25 42 in late trade Patterson Companies Inc NASDAQ PDCO which lost 4 87 to settle at 23 65 and Boeing Co NYSE BA which was down 2 94 to 363 93 at the close
The top performers on the NASDAQ Composite were ASV LLC NASDAQ ASV which rose 287 57 to 6 86 Cemtrex Inc NASDAQ CETX which was up 107 65 to settle at 3 8000 and Freds Inc NASDAQ FRED which gained 45 64 to close at 0 54
The worst performers were XpresSpa Group Inc NASDAQ XSPA which was down 56 48 to 2 050 in late trade Aclaris Therapeutics Inc NASDAQ ACRS which lost 52 13 to settle at 2 13 and Naked Brand Group Ltd NASDAQ NAKD which was down 33 92 to 0 140 at the close
Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the New York Stock Exchange by 2151 to 875 and 22 ended unchanged on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange 1991 rose and 690 declined while 78 ended unchanged
Shares in Aclaris Therapeutics Inc NASDAQ ACRS fell to all time lows falling 52 13 or 2 32 to 2 13 Shares in Naked Brand Group Ltd NASDAQ NAKD fell to all time lows down 33 92 or 0 072 to 0 140
The CBOE Volatility Index which measures the implied volatility of S P 500 options was down 2 41 to 15 82
Gold Futures for August delivery was down 0 18 or 2 50 to 1412 90 a troy ounce Elsewhere in commodities trading Crude oil for delivery in August fell 0 19 or 0 11 to hit 59 27 a barrel while the September Brent oil contract fell 0 11 or 0 07 to trade at 65 46 a barrel
EUR USD was up 0 00 to 1 1368 while USD JPY rose 0 04 to 107 83
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0 03 at 95 752 | 6/27/2019 |
INTC | Stocks S P s June Gain Is Its Biggest Since 1955 | Investing com Stocks finished a historic June with modest gains Friday as weakness in big tech stocks offset gains in big banks freed to boost dividend payouts by the Federal Reserve
But the real drama is still to come a meeting between President Donald Trump and China President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Osaka Japan The leaders were set to meet Saturday local time for an hour in hopes of setting up a process to resolve Sino U S trade differences The Trump administration has raised tariffs on goods imported from China China has retaliated by boosting tariffs on U S goods with farm products very hard hit
The S P 500 finished with a 0 6 gain and a 6 9 gain for June The Dow Jones industrials rose 0 3 and the Nasdaq Composite Index added 0 5 The S P had its best June performance since 1955 according to S P Dow Jones Indices The Dow s 7 2 gain for the month was its best since 1938 The Nasdaq was up 7 4 on the month
But the finish had a familiar ring to it The market opened with a big jump only to fall back as the day wore on The Dow was up as many as 111 points in the session before falling back to a small decline A last minute surge of buying pushed the indexes to more respectable finishes
Pressuring the Dow were components Apple NASDAQ AAPL Cisco Systems NASDAQ CSCO and Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT which retreated during the day So too did health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group NYSE UNH which fell in part because of an executive shakeup and worries about what might happen to the private health insurance business after most Democratic candidates spent much of the last two nights criticizing it Sen Bernie Sanders vowed to put them all out of business
But big banks enjoyed a big day after the Federal Reserve said the nation s largest financial institutions passed their annual stress tests and could boost dividend payouts substantially JPMorgan Chase NYSE JPM and Goldman Sachs NYSE GS were the top Dow performers with gains of 2 7 and 2 65 respectively Together they contributed 56 points to the Dow s gain
The Nasdaq 100 index was down 10 points at about 3 PM ET 19 00 GMT with Apple Amazon com NASDAQ AMZN Cisco and Microsoft contributing cutting 29 points off the index Late buying for those stocks trimmed the losses Meanwhile gains for such stocks as Facebook NASDAQ FB Google parent Alphabet NASDAQ GOOGL and chip stocks including Intel NASDAQ INTC Broadcom NASDAQ AVGO and Qualcomm NASDAQ QCOM pushed the index to a 0 2 gain
Gold was up slightly with the August contract up 0 1 to 1 413 70 an ounce Gold was up nearly 8 for the month nearly 9 for the second quarter and 10 3 for the year
The gains are tied to falling interest rates and the Federal Reserve s vow to support the economic recovery The U S 10 Year Treasury yield fell to 2 on Friday a decline of 6 6 for June and 25 5 this year Investors have worried about a global economic slowdown In addition Trump has criticized Fed Chairman Jerome Powell for not cutting interest rates quickly enough
WTI oil futures settled down 96 cents to 58 47 a barrel The August contract Brent oil futures the global benchmark closed flat at 66 55 a barrel The more active September contract fell 93 cent to 64 74
Members of OPEC will meet next week on whether to continue cutting production to support prices Oil prices were up about 2 on the week For the year WTI is still up 28 8 with Brent up nearly 24 | 6/28/2019 |
MSFT | NewsBreak Jobs Report Pushes Stocks to Biggest Gains in a Month | Investing com Stocks were rallying strongly Friday afternoon with their best one day gains in a month after a positive jobs report that allayed fears of recession and showed few signs of inflation
The S P 500 was up 1 12 The Dow Jones industrials were up 1 1 The Nasdaq Composite gained nearly 1 2 with the Nasdaq 100 index dominated by big tech stocks up nearly 1 4 Apple NASDAQ AAPL up 2 8 and Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT ahead by 1 2 contributed a third of the Nasdaq 100 s 100 point gain
The jobs report showed payrolls growing by 136 000 in September But estimates for August and July were revised higher and the jobless rate hit a 50 year low
Since its Thursday bottom the Dow has climbed more than 750 points The major indexes are still off about 1 on the week | 10/4/2019 |
MSFT | Exclusive Trump campaign targeted by Iran linked hackers sources | By Christopher Bing and Raphael Satter
WASHINGTON Reuters A hacking group that appears to be linked to the Iranian government attempted to break into President Donald Trump s re election campaign but did not succeed sources familiar with the operation said on Friday
Earlier in the day Microsoft Corp O MSFT said that an unnamed presidential campaign was targeted by hackers which the software company linked to Iran
The Trump campaign s Director of Communications Tim Murtaugh said We have no indication that any of our campaign infrastructure was targeted | 10/4/2019 |
INTC | Nvidia boosts self driving AI business with Volvo trucks deal | By Johannes Hellstrom STOCKHOLM Reuters Sweden s AB Volvo is joining forces with Nvidia Corp to develop artificial intelligence used in self driving trucks in a boost for the U S chipmaker that was dropped by Tesla NASDAQ TSLA Inc last year The agreement announced on Tuesday by Nvidia and Volvo the world s second biggest truckmaker after Daimler AG DE DAIGn is a long term partnership spanning several years Work will begin immediately in Santa Clara California and Gothenburg Sweden Financial terms were not disclosed Volvo which last year demonstrated its first cabin less autonomous truck Vera said the partnership would develop a flexible scalable self driving system which is planned to be used first in pilot schemes before commercial deployment The resulting system is designed to safely handle fully autonomous driving on public roads and highways Volvo said in a statement Nvidia known for its powerful gaming graphics chips has been aggressively expanding into the automotive sphere where trucks with their regular routes that are easier to automate than cars navigating traffic may lead the way in self driving Nvidia dominates the fast growing AI chip market alongside Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC Tesla Ford Motor NYSE F Co Daimler and several startups are racing each other towards autonomy using closed area pilots such as warehouse to warehouse delivery or mining site operations to speed up testing and commercialization Volvo s first commercial autonomous technology will move into real operation from pilot mode in winter this year Seven Volvo FH16 trucks will transport limestone for Norway s Broennoey Kalk AS from a mine to a nearby port Volvo Trucks autonomous solutions director Sasko Cuklev said on Tuesday This coming winter Volvo Trucks autonomous mining solution will be in operation and we will get paid per transported tonne Cuklev said at the company s annual general meeting in Gothenburg He said the seven trucks together with a site management system truck services and support workshop set up and insurance would be wrapped together to make Volvo s first commercial autonomous transport package Volvo Chief Technology Officer Lars Stenqvist said he preferred not to set a firm date for when a self driving Volvo truck using Nvidia technology would travel a public highway Deployment will start in areas that are not open to the public and gradually grow into more complex situations he told reporters on a conference call on Tuesday We are humble as to the challenges we have Morgan Stanley NYSE MS analysts said last month that Nvidia backed startup TuSimple had secured 12 customers that were generating revenue TuSimple last month said it had begun testing for the U S Postal Service PILOT PROJECT Nvidia which has previously announced technology partnerships with automakers including Volkswagen DE VOWG p AG Mercedes Benz and Toyota Motor Corp said it was thrilled to team up with Volvo The latest breakthroughs in AI and robotics bring a new level of intelligence and automation to address the transportation challenges we face Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang told reporters on a conference call Huang emphasized that for Nvidia the partnership with Volvo goes beyond supplying chips and includes work on developing software on board computers and sensor systems for autonomous commercial vehicles The technology inside the vehicle is much more significant than we would apply to a consumer owned car he said Volvo said last week its Vera self driving truck would begin transporting goods from a logistics center to a port terminal in Gothenburg in collaboration with logistics firm DFDS in a first step towards operations on public roads Systems designed under the partnership with Nvidia would be used to develop vehicles capable of operating on public streets Stenqvist said Nvidia s so called Drive Constellation chips often power the machine learning used to refine self driving car software algorithms inside data centers and the company has also been working to build its Drive chips into cars Automotive chips accounted for 641 million of Nvidia s 11 7 billion in revenue in its most recent fiscal year Tesla was previously a major customer for Nvidia s automotive chips but last year CEO Elon Musk said the electric car pioneer was developing its own chip
AB Volvo s and Nvidia s collaboration will be built on Nvidia s full software package for sensor processing perception map localisation and path planning | 6/18/2019 |
INTC | Stocks U S Futures Inch up as Investors Await Fed Meeting | Investing com U S futures were slightly higher on Monday with investors happy to wait for the Federal Reserve s policy meeting later in the week in the absence of other major news
Tech heavy Nasdaq 100 futures gained 12 points or 0 2 by 6 49 AM ET 10 49 GMT while Dow futures rose 115 points or 0 1 and S P 500 futures was up 2 points or 0 1
While no rate cut is expected this week traders have increased their expectations that the Fed will cut rates this year as the U S s trade dispute with China slows the economy and leaves inflation below target
Illustrating the effects of the trade war the founder of Chinese tech giant Huawei said he expects the company s sales to drop to 100 billion this year due to the White House banning American companies from doing business with it
Many U S chipmakers and technology companies rely on Huawei for products and the ban is widely expected to have a negative impact on the sector Chip giants including Intel NASDAQ INTC and Qualcomm NASDAQ QCOM are lobbying for the U S government to ease up on its restrictions on Huawei Reuters reported
Intel was up 1 1 in premarket trade while Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT inched up 0 6 and Advanced Micro Devices NASDAQ AMD gained 0 4
Elsewhere Coca Cola NYSE KO edged down 0 1 while Walt Disney NYSE DIS fell 0 6
On the data front the Empire State manufacturing data is released at 8 30 AM ET 12 30 GMT and the National Association of Home Builders housing index is due at 10 00 AM ET 14 00 GMT
In commodities crude oil fell 0 7 to 52 17 a barrel after reaching an earlier high of 52 91 CFTC data showed the number of long speculative positions on oil had fallen to its lowest level since March last week after a seventh straight weekly drop Gold futures slipped 0 6 to 1 337 15 a troy ounce while the U S dollar index which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies was flat at 97 032 | 6/17/2019 |
MSFT | NewsBreak Wall Street Trades at Lows on Talk of China Investment Limits | Investing com Stocks were slumping to near session lows in late trading as investors tried to understand the Trump Administration s thinking on limiting investment dollars from flowing to China
Ideas being considered even include delisting Chinese stocks from U S markets according to Bloomberg News
The S P 500 was down 1 by 3 05 PM ET 19 05 GMT The Nasdaq Composite was off about 1 6 The Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen 0 6 or 152 points after falling as many as 175 points The blue chips had been up as many as 121 points early in the day
The slump was hitting technology stocks like Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT and Apple NASDAQ AAPL hardest as well as electronic payment processor Visa NYSE V | 9/27/2019 |
MSFT | Apple and Microsoft push Wall Street higher as trade worries abate | By Noel Randewich Reuters U S stocks climbed on Monday helped by gains in Apple Microsoft and Merck Co as investors set aside worries about the U S China trade war Shares of Apple Inc O AAPL rose 2 4 after Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook told a German daily that sales of the company s newest iPhones were off to a strong start while JP Morgan raised its forecast for shipment volumes Apple is struggling to reverse shrinking iPhone sales amid tepid global demand for smartphones Also helped by a 0 9 rise in Microsoft Corp O MSFT the S P 500 technology index SPLRCT added 1 0 leading other sectors Sentiment on Wall Street got an additional boost after White House trade adviser Peter Navarro dismissed reports that the Trump administration was considering delisting Chinese companies from U S stock exchanges as fake news Concerns related to those reports had sent the S P 500 SPX and Nasdaq IXIC to a more than three week low on Friday This idea of using different types of levers that impact trade negotiations is something that we will get accustomed to said Phil Blancato chief executive officer of Ladenburg Thalmann Asset Management in New York U S listed shares of Chinese firms Alibaba Group Holding Ltd N BABA and Baidu Inc O BIDU rose 0 8 and 1 5 respectively The next round of high stakes trade talks between the world s two largest economies is scheduled for October Wall Street s main indexes are on course to end September with the weakest quarterly performance so far this year rattled by a host of factors including an escalation in U S China trade tensions the inversion of an important part of the U S yield curve and political turmoil in Washington Click here to view the interactive graphic The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI rose 0 36 to end at 26 916 83 points while the S P 500 SPX gained 0 50 to 2 976 73 The Nasdaq Composite IXIC added 0 75 to 7 999 34 For the month the S P 500 rose 1 7 the Dow added 2 1 and the Nasdaq gained 0 5 For the third quarter the S P 500 and Dow moved up 1 2 while the Nasdaq dipped 0 1 Merck Co Inc N MRK gained 1 5 as it presented promising data for its Lynparza cancer drug which it developed in partnership with Britain s AstraZeneca PLC L AZN Newell Brands Inc O NWL jumped 2 9 after SunTrust Robinson Humphrey upgraded the household goods maker to buy Investors this week will focus on economic reports including a key jobs report and the September ISM purchasing managers index PMI August s PMI data showed a contraction in the manufacturing sector Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1 45 to 1 ratio on Nasdaq a 1 28 to 1 ratio favored advancers The S P 500 posted 18 new 52 week highs and 1 new lows the Nasdaq Composite recorded 31 new highs and 117 new lows
Volume on U S exchanges was 6 2 billion shares compared to the 7 2 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days | 9/30/2019 |
MSFT | U S online privacy rules unlikely this year hurting big tech | By Nandita Bose and Diane Bartz WASHINGTON Reuters A U S online privacy bill is not likely to come before Congress this year three sources said as lawmakers disagree over issues like whether the bill should preempt state rules forcing companies to deal with much stricter legislation in California that goes into effect on Jan 1 Without a federal law technology companies retailers advertising firms and others dependent on collecting consumer data to track users and increase sales must adapt to the California law potentially harming corporate profits over the long term The delay is a setback for companies ranging from Amazon NASDAQ AMZN and Facebook Inc NASDAQ FB to Alphabet NASDAQ GOOGL Inc s Google and retailers like Walmart NYSE WMT Inc who either directly collect shopper information to run their websites or provide free services and derive revenues from advertising that relies on online data collection This will be tremendously challenging companies need to really focus on complying with California now because there is not going to be a life raft from a federal level Gary Kibel a partner specializing in technology and privacy at law firm Davis Gilbert While the sources who are involved in the negotiations still think it is possible at least one discussion draft of the bill could land before the year ends congressional negotiators must still agree on whether it is adequate to simply ask consumers to consent to collection of personally identifiable information and give them the opportunity to opt out and how the new law would be enforced They are also negotiating how much information should be deemed private and where one should draw the line in terms of exchange of consumer information with third parties the sources said The effort to draft a federal bill is being led by Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal Brian Schatz and Maria Cantwell along with Republican Senators Jerry Moran Commerce Committee chairman Roger Wicker and the Senate s No 2 Republican John Thune Two sources said Senators Blumenthal and Moran s staff are working on the federal bill and expected to release a draft before the end of the year One of those sources said a draft of the House version of the bill could land in a few weeks California s data privacy law will affect any major company with an online presence and requires companies with data on more than 50 000 people to allow consumers to view the data they have collected on them It also lets consumers request deletion of data and opt out of having the data sold to third parties Each violation carries a 7 500 fine Companies are also waiting for the state attorney general to roll out regulations around the law in California While it is only meant to protect California consumers it is not known whether companies adapt their business practices to work under one set of rules for the most populous U S state and existing rules for the other 49 states California will go into effect without Congress doing anything this year on the federal bill said a source with direct knowledge of the matter who did not wish to be named and is pushing for a federal privacy bill That s a big problem because of the business impact this will have the source said Facebook did not respond to a request for comment Google and Amazon declined comment President CEO Michael Beckerman of the Internet Association which counts Amazon Facebook Google Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT as its members said in a statement that there is broad bipartisan consensus for a federal privacy law and urged Congress to act on it now Walmart did not comment and referred Reuters to the Retail Industry Leaders Association RILA Nicholas Ahrens a vice president at RILA which counts Walmart as a member said the group is continuing to work with Congress toward a federal legislation and is hopeful a bipartisan solution can be reached
Despite the immediate delay the privacy bill remains one of the few pieces of legislation that many lobbyists still believe has a decent chance of becoming law because it is a bipartisan concern and does not cost taxpayers money | 9/30/2019 |
MSFT | Stocks Apple Helps S P Rally as a Quarter of Struggles Ends | Investing com Stocks finished the third quarter on a high note led by strength in Apple NASDAQ AAPL Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT and other tech stocks
The S P 500 finished the day up 0 5 The Nasdaq Composite rose 0 75 and the Nasdaq 100 climbed 0 88 The Dow Jones industrials added 0 36
The quarter showed the smallest gains for stocks in the first three quarters of the year with the gains fading toward Monday s close
The S P 500 and Dow were up 1 2 for the quarter with the Nasdaq up down 0 09
The market was buffeted repeatedly by fears of an all out trade war between the United States and China malaise in Europe and the threat of impeachment of President Donald Trump The uncertainty cut down what began as a strong start to the quarter
On July 26 the S P 500 was up nearly 2 9 and reached an all time high of 3 028 Then it faded Monday s close was its seventh straight close below 3 000
But the S P 500 Dow and Nasdaq all moved higher for the month
The S P 500 is up 18 7 for the year with the Dow up 15 4 and the Nasdaq up 20 6 The S P 500 s nine month gain is its best since 1997
While the market is up strongly for the year most of the gains came in the first quarter and a clear stall starting in late July Moreover indexes have been boosted by gains in an increasingly narrow band of stocks
Monday s rally was set off by assurances from the Trump Administration that it was not planning to disrupt capital flows between the U S and China On Friday a report the U S might try to delist Chinese companies listed on U S stock exchanges blew up a rally
Apple NASDAQ AAPL rose 2 44 and saw its market capitalization top 1 trillion for the first time since Sept 18 behind only Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT which also moved higher on Monday
Apple was the biggest driver for gains in all the indexes The gain resulted when JPMorgan NYSE JPM analyst Samik Chatterjee boosted his price target on the stock to 265 from 243 citing better than expected sales of the new iPhone 11
The consensus target price among analysts tracked by Investing com is 226 48
Also boosting the Dow overall was Merck NYSE MRK up 1 6 on promising data from its Lynparza cancer drug The company is developing the drug with AstraZeneca NYSE AZN AstraZeneca however was off 1 6 in New York
The market gains came as U S crude oil fell 70 cents to 55 21 along with gold futures The December gold contract closed down 33 50 to 1 472 90 an ounce
U S crude finished the quarter down about 5 6 Brent the global benchmark was off more than 7 in the quarter after falling to 60 78 a barrel on Monday
Interest rates were mostly flat with the 10 Year Treasury yield at 1 675 up from Friday s 1 674 The dollar hit a 52 week high against EUR USD on reports economists expect to cut growth forecasts for Germany Germany s DAX index was up 0 38 on the day | 10/1/2019 |
MSFT | Stocks S P Sees Worst Loss Since August on Global Economic Fears | Investing com U S stocks suffered their worst losses since late August on Wednesday as worries built up about slowing global growth
The selloff in the United States followed a nasty slump in Europe with indexes in Germany the U K and France falling around 3 The violence of the slump boosted expectations the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates later this month
The S P 500 was down 1 79 The Dow fell 1 86 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 1 56 The Nasdaq 100 Index weighted toward big technology companies fell 1 74
The Dow was off as many as 598 points before bargain hunters stepped in and trimmed the losses nearly down to about 400 points before late selling set in again It closed off nearly 500 points The S P and Dow have fallen about 3 in two days with the Nasdaq dropping 2 7
U S stocks have been buffeted by the ongoing U S China trade fight and slowing economies elsewhere especially Europe Both the trade fight and slowdown issues are starting to affect domestic manufacturing and financial stocks The issues have been visible since the market peaked in mid July
The S P 500 is now down 4 64 from its July all time high The Dow s decline is 4 8 and the Nasdaq s is 6 65 But it should be noted stocks for the year are still up nicely The problem is that most of the gains came in the first quarter as equities recovered from last year s ugly fourth quarter slump
Only one of the 30 Dow stocks was higher Johnson Johnson NYSE JNJ moved up 1 55 after settling an opiod suit in Ohio for 20 million Only 10 stocks in the Nasdaq 100 Index showed gains led by payroll processor Paychex NASDAQ PAYX and Charter Communications NASDAQ CHTR
Apple NASDAQ AAPL dropped 2 5 with Amazon com NASDAQ AMZN down 1 29 and Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT off 1 77
Energy consumer staples and financials were the weakest sectors all falling more than 2 Industrial stocks were off 1 9 No S P 500 sector was positive on the day
An exception was homebuilder Lennar NYSE LEN up 3 77 after easily beating expectations for third quarter earnings Shares of the second largest builder by units sold briefly hit a 52 week high of 57 92
Lennar was top performing S P 500 stock followed by Paychex NASDAQ PAYX Johnson Johnson NYSE JNJ and Charter Communications NASDAQ CHTR
Among the biggest S P 500 losers were retailers including Macy s NYSE M Kohl s NYSE KSS L Brands NYSE LB and Nordstrom NYSE JWN
The selloff helped push oil prices and oil stocks lower West Texas Intermediate crude fell 98 cents to 52 64 a barrel and is off 5 85 this week Brent crude the global benchmark fell 1 20 to 57 69
Gold futures jumped 18 90 to 1507 90 an ounce along with other precious metal prices as investors sought safety They also sought safety in bonds The 10 Year Treasury yield fell to 1 601 from Tuesday s 1 644 | 10/2/2019 |
INTC | Dell HP Microsoft Intel oppose proposed tariffs on laptops tablets | Reuters Dell Technologies Inc HP Inc NYSE HPQ Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT and Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC on Wednesday opposed U S President Donald Trump s proposal to include laptop computers and tablets among the Chinese goods targeted for tariffs Dell HP and Microsoft which together account for 52 of the notebooks and detachable tablets sold in the United States said the proposed tariffs would increase the cost of laptops in the country The move would hurt consumers and the industry and would not address the Chinese trade practices that the Trump administration s office of the U S Trade Representative USTR seeks to remedy the four companies said in a joint statement posted online Implementing the proposed tariffs would increase U S prices for laptops and tablets by at least 19 or around 120 for the average retail price of a laptop the companies said citing a recent study by the Consumer Technology Association A price increase of that magnitude may even put laptop devices entirely out of reach for our most cost conscious consumers the companies said noting that the price hikes would occur during peak holiday and back to school seasons In a separate statement Microsoft along with video game makers Nintendo of America Inc and Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC said the tariffs on video game consoles could stifle innovation hurt consumers and put thousands of jobs at risk The USTR kicked off seven days of testimony from U S retailers manufacturers and other businesses about Trump s plan to hit another 300 billion worth of Chinese goods with tariffs
The hearings will end on June 25 and the tariffs will not come into effect until after July 2 when a seven day final rebuttal comment period ends | 6/19/2019 |
INTC | Stocks U S Futures Jump on Prospect of Fed Rate Cut | Investing com U S futures jumped on Thursday as investor sentiment was boosted after the Federal Reserve kept open the possibility of rate cuts in the future
Policymakers signaled on Wednesday that they would be willing to cut rates in order to combat slowing global growth and cooling inflation Fed central bankers slashed their rate outlook for the rest of the year according to the Fed s dot plot projections while Chairman Jerome Powell said at a press conference that many agree the case for lowering rates is increasing
Tech heavy NASDAQ 100 futures jumped 90 points or 1 2 by 6 46 AM ET 10 46 GMT while Dow futures rose 211 points or 0 8 and S P 500 futures inched up 24 points or 0 8
Central banks around the world could soon take the Fed s lead The Bank of Japan left interest rates unchanged overnight but signaled it could provide stimulus measures in light of escalating global risks
Meanwhile the Bank of England is expected to keep rates steady this morning
Oracle NYSE ORCL surged 5 9 in premarket trade after its quarterly profit beat estimates while Advanced Micro Devices NASDAQ AMD gained 2 4 and Intel NASDAQ INTC was up 1 4
Boeing NYSE BA jumped 1 6 on news that it is in talks with airlines for its grounded 737 Max models after it received a letter of intent for 200 plans from IAG LON ICAG
Facebook NASDAQ FB was up 1 2 while Tesla NASDAQ TSLA inched up 0 2 after it tumbled to third place in the face for U S residential solar installations
In commodities crude oil jumped 3 5 to 55 84 a barrel Gold futures gained 2 7 to 1 384 85 a troy ounce while the U S dollar index which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies fell 0 4 to 97 208 | 6/20/2019 |
INTC | Stocks Wall Street Lower on U S Iranian Tensions | Investing com Wall Street opened lower on Friday as fears of a possible war between the U S and Iran kept investor sentiment in check
The S P 500 inched down 5 points or 0 2 of 10 12 AM ET 14 12 GMT The Dow was flat and tech heavy Nasdaq composite fell 23 points or 0 3
U S President Donald Trump said via Twitter that he had come within minutes of firing missiles at Iran in response to it shooting down a surveillance drone
Tensions between the two countries have been fragile since the White House decided to withdraw from the UN backed 2015 Iran nuclear agreement The administration most recently accused Iran of last week s attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf which Tehran denies
Beyond Meat NASDAQ BYND slumped 3 4 while Tesla NASDAQ TSLA dipped 0 4 and Canopy Growth NYSE CGC was down 8 1 after it reported a loss in its last quarter largely due to expansion costs
Elsewhere Netflix NASDAQ NFLX gained 1 2 while Intel NASDAQ INTC was up 0 5 and Advanced Micro Devices NASDAQ AMD jumped 0 7
UnitedHealth NYSE UNH inched up 0 2 after The Wall Street Journal reported that it had agreed to buy health care payments firm Equian for 3 2 billion
In commodities crude jumped 0 6 to 57 38 a barrel Gold futures gained 0 2 to 1 399 65 a troy ounce while the U S dollar index which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies fell 0 1 to 96 067 | 6/21/2019 |
INTC | U S bars China supercomputer firms institute from buying American parts | By David Shepardson WASHINGTON Reuters The U S Commerce Department said on Friday it was adding several Chinese companies and a government owned institute involved in supercomputing with military applications to its national security entity list that bars them from buying U S parts and components without government approval The export restriction announcement adding the firms to what is effectively a trade blacklist is the latest effort by the Trump administration to restrict the ability of Chinese firms to gain access to U S technology amid an ongoing trade war The department said it was adding Sugon the Wuxi Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology Higon Chengdu Haiguang Integrated Circuit and Chengdu Haiguang Microelectronics Technology along with numerous aliases of the five entities to the list over concerns about military applications of the supercomputers they are developing Wuxi Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology is owned by the 56th Research Institute of the General Staff of China s People s Liberation Army the Commerce Department said adding its mission is to support China s military modernization The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately return a request for comment China s state broadcaster China Radio International said in an editorial on Saturday that the move was one of a series of recent actions by the United States that violated the consensus reached by President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Argentina last December No matter whether it is aimed at suppressing Chinese technology or its long term economic development or put pressure on China in the trade negotiations the United States will not achieve its aims it said In 2015 the Commerce Department added China s National University of Defense Technology NUDT to the list because of its use of U S origin multicores boards and co processors to power supercomputers believed to support nuclear explosive simulation and military simulation activities The Commerce Department said on Friday that since 2015 NUDT has procured items under the name Hunan Guofang Kei University using four separate additional addresses not already on the entity list The department said on Friday it is now adding Hunan Guofang and the four addresses to the list The companies pose a significant risk of being or becoming involved in activities contrary to the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States the Commerce Department said In May the Trump administration added China s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd to the entity list and 68 affiliates in more than two dozen countries U S President Donald Trump has said that the United States could resolve complaints about Huawei as part of a trade deal The world s two largest economies have ratcheted up tariffs in a battle over what U S officials call China s unfair trade practices The United States China the European Union and Japan have all announced plans to build exaflop capable supercomputers In March a U S government led group said it was working with chipmaker Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC and computermaker Cray Inc to develop and build the country s fastest computer by 2021 for conducting nuclear weapons and other research The Department of Energy and the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois are working on a supercomputer dubbed Aurora with Intel the world s biggest supplier of data center chips and Cray which specializes in the ultra fast machines The 500 million contract for the project calls on the companies to deliver a computer with so called exaflop performance that is being able to perform 1 quintillion or 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 calculations per second Earlier this week Nvidia Corp a major chip supplier to supercomputer makers said it was working with Softbank Holdings Group owned chip firm Arm Holdings to make its chips work with Arm s for supercomputers Ian Buck vice president of Nvidia s accelerated computing unit said that the effort was aimed at European and Japanese customers rather than Chinese groups which are increasingly turning to domestic chips In terms of China I think they ve clearly stated that they have a domestic accelerator and processor strategy that they will pursue and that s clearly what they are doing Buck said | 6/22/2019 |
INTC | U S tariffs on China made consumer tech goods seen cutting sales delaying upgrades | By David Lawder WASHINGTON Reuters U S consumers will delay or forgo technology upgrades if President Donald Trump imposes a new round of 25 tariffs on Chinese goods slowing the U S innovation engine technology industry executives said on Monday Trump s administration is preparing to levy tariffs on an additional 300 billion worth of Chinese imports after a public comment period ends on July 2 if the U S and Chinese presidents cannot relaunch talks to end their trade war The two countries have been at odds since July 2018 over a host of U S demands that Beijing adopt policy changes that would better protect American intellectual property and make China s market more accessible to U S companies Consumer technology products including cellphones laptop and tablet computers smart speakers and video gaming consoles would make up 167 billion of that 300 billion total or more than half the target list said Sage Chandler vice president of international trade for the Consumer Technology Association Chandler told a hearing on the tariffs hosted by the U S Trade Representative s office that imposing the tariffs would raise the retail price of cellphones by an average of 70 while the price of laptop computers would rise by 120 and video game consoles by 56 A lot of consumers will look at that and say I ll just wait for the next generation That s a lot of money for the average consumer Chandler told Reuters Chandler whose association represents major tech groups including Apple Inc NASDAQ AAPL Facebook Inc NASDAQ FB Alphabet NASDAQ GOOGL Inc s Google and Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC told the hearing the proposed tariffs would extend a ripple effect that would spread through the U S economy Because technology is now the backbone of so many other industries from agriculture to manufacturing taxes on technology hit far beyond the technology industry Chandler said Win Cramer founder and chief executive of JLab Audio a California based maker of Bluetooth wireless headphones said he added eight employees after the company s products were spared from the previous round of tariffs But Cramer said he may have to lay off some of those people as a 25 percent tariff would shrink sales The proposed tariffs on products that make up 80 percent of our business would be catastrophic We would be forced to lay off employees and raise prices to consumers he said The factory jobs that build our products never existed in America Other company executives from industries ranging from food equipment to fashion products repeated a refrain from five days of hearings last week that they relied heavily on China for production and it would be extremely difficult and costly to shift their supply chains to other countries taking two to three years to do so
Christine Robins chief executive of Georgia based gas barbecue grill maker Char Broil LLC said the tariffs would force the company to raise prices increasing the risk that large retailers would try to cut costs by contracting directly with Chinese factories for private label grills and squeeze out established U S brands such as Char Broil | 6/24/2019 |
MSFT | Apple CEO Cook opposes Trump backs dreamer immigrants in Supreme Court | By Lawrence Hurley
WASHINGTON Reuters Apple Inc NASDAQ AAPL CEO Tim Cook on Wednesday filed a brief at the U S Supreme Court opposing President Donald Trump s effort to end a program that protects from deportation hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were brought into the United States illegally as children
The brief was filed on behalf of the company and Cook as an individual as well as Deirdre O Brien Apple s senior vice president of retail and people The company said it has 443 employees who have benefited from the program which was implemented in 2012 by the Republican Trump s Democratic predecessor Barack Obama
Cook has previously criticized Trump s hardline immigration policies including his plan to end the program but has generally maintained a close relationship with the president They have dined together at least twice and Cook has regularly spoken with Trump about the economic impact of U S tariffs on Chinese made goods
The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on Nov 12 over Trump s 2017 plan to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals DACA program Trump s move to rescind DACA was blocked by lower courts
The program currently shields about 700 000 immigrants often called Dreamers mostly Hispanic young adults from deportation and provides them work permits though not a path to citizenship
More than 100 companies including Alphabet NASDAQ GOOGL Inc s Google and IBM NYSE IBM Corp joined a brief backing Dreamers at an earlier stage of the litigation
Cook s brief stated that the motivation for weighing in on one of the biggest cases before the Supreme Court in its new term that starts on Monday was to support of the company s diverse workforce
Among those people are hundreds of DACA recipients who had no say in the decision to travel to this country and have known no other home the brief stated
They spark creativity and help drive innovation They are among our most driven and selfless colleagues the brief said
Cook s brief is likely to be one of many filed in support of DACA recipients in the coming days ahead of a Friday deadline
A Supreme Court decision is due by the end of June in the thick of next year s presidential race in which Trump is seeking re election Democratic presidential candidates including Joe Biden have pledged actions to protect the Dreamers and offer them citizenship
Apple s big tech rival Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT has been part of the legal challenge against Trump s DACA effort from the beginning expressing similar concerns about how its employees would be affected
Others that have challenged Trump s action include the University of California labor unions and various states including California and New York
Trump and Cook had a previous tussle after the Wall Street Journal reported in June that Apple planned to move production of a new high end Mac Pro computer from Texas to China
Cook publicly said that Apple wanted to keep making the machines in the United States and the company in July asked for tariff exemptions on imported parts
Trump said he would refuse to grant the exemptions but hoped Apple would build a plant in Texas Last month his administration lifted tariffs on some of the parts used to make the computers and days later Apple said it would make the computers in Texas | 10/2/2019 |
INTC | AMD Slips as Analyst Warns on Valuation Backs Nvidia | Investing com Advanced Micro Devices has been on a tear since its December low up nearly 90 but Oppenheimer delivered a caution note on the chipmaker and suggested there were better growth opportunities elsewhere not least in rival Nvidia
Advanced Micro Devices NASDAQ AMD has been riding a wave optimism thanks partly to rival Intel NASDAQ INTC s chip shortage woes The chipmaker has been scooping up new business at the lower end of market providing chips to manufacturers who haven t been able to source them from Intel
But the growth from gains in the PC and server market is already baked in leaving little room for further upside Oppenheimer warned sending the chipmaker s shares down 2 7
Despite maintaining its perform rating on AMD the bank said it would remain on the sidelines claiming that investors can find better growth and capital allocation opportunities elsewhere for the time being not least in Nvidia NASDAQ NVDA
Nvidia s revenue has returned to growth following the clearance of excess cryptocurrency mining inventory the analyst said Data center growth has cooled but management is projecting inference will be a 20 billion market by 2023 Oppenheimer said and reiterated his outperform rating on the stock
The tone of the meeting was confident highlighting NVDA s leading position in core DC AI gaming and autonomous growth verticals it added | 6/13/2019 |
MSFT | Tech group to revamp in fight against online extremist content | Reuters A consortium of global tech companies set up to combat extremist content online said on Monday it plans to revamp the two year old organization and appoint an executive director
Facebook Inc NASDAQ FB said the move makes the body an independent organization that would allow it to work with experts and government stakeholders
The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism also includes Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT Twitter Inc NYSE TWTR and Alphabet NASDAQ GOOGL Inc s YouTube and was formed after the companies came under pressure from governments in Europe and the United States following a spate of deadly attacks
The companies as part of the group have shared solutions to remove extremist content online and commissioned research to fight such content and work more with counter terrorism experts
The announcement coincides with group members meeting leaders including New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at the United Nations General Assembly to share the progress regarding an action plan in response to Christchurch s mosques shooting massacre
While the New Zealand incident was not the first internet broadcast of a violent crime the livestream of the massacre showed that stopping gory footage from spreading online remains a major challenge for tech companies despite years of investment | 9/23/2019 |
MSFT | Tech companies back independent watchdog to tackle online extremism | By Michelle Nichols NEW YORK Reuters A global working group set up by Facebook Twitter YouTube and Microsoft to remove extremist content will become an independent watchdog working to respond quicker and work more collaboratively to prevent attacks like Christchurch New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday Ardern has pushed for stronger action since New Zealand s worst peacetime mass shooting in March when a gunman attacked Muslims attending Friday prayers in Christchurch He killed 51 people and broadcast the attack live on Facebook In the same way that we respond to natural emergencies like fires and floods we need to be prepared and ready to respond to a crisis like the one we experienced Ardern told reporters on the sidelines of the annual United Nations gathering of world leaders The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism was created in 2017 under pressure from U S and European governments after a spate of deadly attacks It will now become an independent organization led by an executive director funded by Facebook Inc NASDAQ FB Google s YouTube Twitter Inc NYSE TWTR and Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT Speaking at a joint news conference with Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg Ardern said the organization would be governed by an operating board made up of company representatives and would have an independent advisory committee composed of government and civil society members Ardern said some of the group s work would be to fund and coordinate academic research on terrorism and violent extremist operations and on best practices for data sharing Sandberg said the forum had already shared some 200 000 digital fingerprints because when terrorists try to use one platform they try to use all the platforms so when one of us find them we can take them down across multiple platforms She added that while the fastest growing messaging platforms were encrypted Facebook was still able to combat extremism while aiming to protect users privacy She noted that even though WhatsApp is encrypted Facebook and Facebook owned Instagram are not
We are often able to find people on one and then take then down off the encrypted platforms Sandberg said | 9/23/2019 |
MSFT | Shares in TeamViewer drift lower in Europe s biggest IPO of 2019 | By Douglas Busvine
FRANKFURT Reuters German software company TeamViewer drifted lower in its stock market debut on Wednesday after the remote connectivity specialist launched Europe s biggest initial public offering of 2019
Shares opened in line with the offer price of 26 25 euros but slipped to 25 32 euros in early trading as European tech stocks fell 2 even though the offering was oversubscribed
The IPO delivered a bonanza for investor Permira which bought TeamViewer outright in 2014 for 870 million euros Its sale of a 42 stake generated proceeds of 2 21 billion euros 2 43 billion
The float which valued TeamViewer at 5 25 billion euros marks a rare tech debut on a Frankfurt market heavy with industrial and auto stocks
TeamViewer has developed from a small IT company into a true global player CEO Oliver Steil who moved from Permira two years ago to run the business told cheering staff on the floor of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange
Permira s proceeds exceeded the 2 billion euros raised when Italian payments group Nexi MI NEXII floated in Milan in April in what had been Europe s biggest IPO this year so far
One trader said many investors viewed the IPO as expensive and that there was scepticism over the future intentions of Permira which retains a 58 stake The private equity house says it will remain a strategic investor
ANYTIME ANYWHERE
TeamViewer offers an anyone anything anytime anywhere connectivity tool used in applications including remote IT support and online meetings
It s also a play on the growth of the so called internet of things the billions of smart devices that are expected to populate digital workplaces and homes and spans both desktop and mobile
The tool has been installed on 2 billion devices with the company running a freemium model that allows cost free access for personal users while enterprise customers pay a subscription fee
CFO Stefan Gaiser told Reuters that TeamViewer s short term priority was to build its presence in the Asia Pacific region and United States It will also beef up the marketing team for its enterprise product
The company lacks peers in Europe and the big question for investors is whether it will be able to command the kind of valuations enjoyed by U S players that trade on double digit revenue multiples
Listed peers include Zoom Video Communications Inc Okta Inc and Slack Technologies Inc which listed on the New York Stock Exchange in June at a valuation of more than 50 times revenues
Shares in collaboration app Slack have nearly halved from their peak however reflecting the challenge of delivering revenue growth and turning a profit as Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT hits back with its competing product Teams
TeamViewer estimates that its potential market now worth 10 billion euros will treble in size by 2023 as companies invest in digital production and more people work from home
Its cash billings grew 25 last year to 230 million euros accelerating to 37 growth in the first half of 2019 TeamViewer generated core cash profit margins of 52 and was profitable in the first six months of this year
Goldman Sachs NYSE GS and Morgan Stanley NYSE MS organized the IPO with the help of Bank of America NYSE BAC Barclays LON BARC and RBC Capital Markets while Lilja Co acted as IPO adviser | 9/25/2019 |
MSFT | Nintendo s Mario mobile game suffers launch day server overload | By Sam Nussey
TOKYO Reuters Nintendo Co Ltd s T 7974 hotly awaited mobile title Mario Kart Tour launched on Wednesday with many users complaining server overload meant they were unable to play the game seen as a major test of the Kyoto based company s mobile ambitions
The servers are experiencing heavy traffic Your log in request will be processed in the order it was received reads a message that appears when the game is launched
A Nintendo spokesman said the company is aware that due to heavy traffic some users were having trouble accessing the game but that the situation is improving
Nintendo has been slow to expand into mobile gaming choosing to focus on its hybrid Switch console Its online subscription gaming business has lagged rivals Sony Corp T 6758 and Microsoft Corp O MSFT | 9/25/2019 |
MSFT | Nintendo s Mario mobile game has server overload on launch day | By Sam Nussey TOKYO Reuters Nintendo Co Ltd s T 7974 hotly awaited mobile title Mario Kart Tour launched on Wednesday with many users initially complaining server overload meant they could not play the game that is seen as a major test of the Kyoto based company s mobile ambitions Expectations have been high for the title where users steer characters such as Bowser Yoshi and even Mario s first love interest Pauline as they race karts through world cities with New York the launch location The servers are experiencing heavy traffic Your log in request will be processed in the order it was received read a message that appeared when the game was launched A Nintendo spokesman said the company was aware that due to heavy traffic some users were having trouble accessing the game but he said the situation was improving Nintendo has been slow to expand into mobile gaming choosing to focus on its hybrid Switch console Its online subscription gaming business has lagged rivals Sony Corp T 6758 and Microsoft Corp O MSFT Mario Kart Tour which risks disappointing gamers with its initial lack of a multiplayer option includes an in game currency that can be used to try and win rare characters and items and a 4 99 monthly subscription to unlock in app rewards That s the same price point as Apple Inc s O AAPL Apple Arcade streaming service which offers more than 100 titles The game s teething problems came after Nintendo launched a lower priced handheld only version of its 300 Switch console on Friday aiming to provide an alternative to its aging 3DS device and to encourage people to buy multiple Switch units In Japan the Switch Lite is estimated to have sold around 180 000 units in its first three days based on data by industry magazine Famitsu The sales figures are a spectacular start Jefferies analyst Atul Goyal wrote in a note adding that Switch Lite s lower price point was likely to drive demand for the device into the holiday season at the end of the year
Nintendo s shares slid on Wednesday closing down 4 3 ahead of the Mario Kart game launch Its shares have climbed almost 40 this year | 9/25/2019 |
MSFT | Microsoft challenges federal judge s order on sneak and peek searches | Reuters Microsoft O MSFT said on Wednesday it was challenging a federal judge s order that prevents the software maker from informing one of its large corporate customers that the U S government has issued a warrant for the customer s data
We have challenged that order in the lower court and we will pursue an appeal in the appellate court if necessary said Dev Stahlkopf Microsoft s general counsel said in a blogpost https The warrants called sneak and peek do not require the subject of a federal inquiry to be informed that the U S government has requested for their data
In 2016 Microsoft with backing from other technology giants such as Apple Inc O AAPL and Amazon com Inc O AMZN had sued the government over this practice
Stahlkopf said Microsoft had limited information on this specific case but said the customer had thousands of employees
Based on the limited information available to us in this case we feel the secrecy order was too broadly drawn and is inconsistent with the U S government s policy that secrecy orders be narrowly tailored Stahlkopf said | 9/25/2019 |
INTC | Stocks Wall Street Rises Despite Oil Tensions | Investing Stocks finished higher Thursday despite worries about Middle East tensions after two tankers were attacked in the Gulf of Oman
The S P 500 finished up 0 41 The Nasdaq Composite finished 0 57 higher and the Dow Jones industrials rose 0 39
The averages were all higher with the Dow up as many as 142 points when the potential for disruption of crucial Middle East oil supplies seemed to creep into investors thinking That trimmed the early gains by half or more A very late bout of buying boosted the averages at the close with the Dow rising 40 points in the last nine minutes of the regular session
The rally was supported by lower interest rates The 10 Year yield fell to 2 098
Airlines had a strong day thanks to an upgrade for American Airlines NASDAQ AAL up 6 4 and Walt Disney NYSE DIS moved up 4 4 because of a Morgan Stanley NYSE MS report extolling the potential of Disney s streaming service due to launch in November
American Airlines was the top gaining S P 500 stock because it was able to boost fares last month and the increases have stuck while fuel prices have moved lower in the last month Disney third best among S P 500 stocks was the top percentage and point gainer among the 30 Dow stocks
Energy was the market s leading sector on the day thanks to rebounding oil prices the product of renewed unease in the Middle East WTI futures rose 2 23 to 52 28 after falling about 4 on Wednesday Brent futures rose 1 34 to 61 31
Exxon Mobil NYSE XOM and Chevron NYSE CVX rose modestly But such stocks as Chesapeake Energy NYSE CHK Schlumberger NYSE SLB Devon Energy NYSE DVN Halliburton NYSE HAL and offshore boat company Tidewater NYSE TDW rose 2 or more
Prices rose after attacks on two tankers sailing through the Straight of Oman The United States said Iran was the aggressor though that could not be confirmed There have been two other tanker attacks in the Persian Gulf through which about 20 of the world s oil flows
Healthcare stocks were the market laggards Pfizer NYSE PFE Merck NYSE MRK and Johnson Johnson NYSE JNJ three of the biggest pharmaceutical stocks were the Dow laggards on the day
Big tech stocks were mostly higher led by Facebook NASDAQ FB Google parent Alphabet NASDAQ GOOGL and Intel NASDAQ INTC Amazon com NASDAQ AMZN and Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT with the biggest market caps saw small gains Apple NASDAQ AAPL dipped slightly
Winners and Losers in the S P 500
American Airlines NASDAQ AAL Fertilizer maker CF Industries NYSE CF and Walt Disney NYSE DIS were the top S P stocks on the day
Monster Beverage NASDAQ MNST Eli Lilly NYSE LLY and Alexion Pharmaceuticals NASDAQ ALXN were among the weakest S P performers on the day | 6/13/2019 |
INTC | Stocks Nasdaq Futures Tumble as Broadcom Sounds the Alarm | Investing com U S futures fell on Friday after weak Chinese industrial data and lowered forecasts from Broadcom NASDAQ AVGO sent fresh tremors through stock markets that are increasingly afraid of a global downturn
China s industrial output growth slowed to its slowest rate in over 17 years in May as the world s second largest economy showed signs of weakening under U S trade pressure
Meanwhile Broadcom NASDAQ AVGO slumped 8 7 in premarket trading after forecasting a slowdown in demand for chips citing the trade war between the U S and China Most chipmakers have been predicting a stronger second half to the year after a weak first half and Broadcom s warning damages one of the biggest props to sentiment for the sector
Tech heavy Nasdaq 100 futures lost 66 points or 0 9 by 6 40 AM ET 10 40 GMT while Dow futures fell 63 points or 0 2 and S P 500 futures was down 10 points or 0 4
Chipmakers stocks were among the hardest hit in the tech sector with AMD NASDAQ AMD and Nvidia NASDAQ NVDA falling 3 4 Qualcomm NASDAQ QCOM falling 2 9 and Intel NASDAQ INTC losing 2 2
Tesla NASDAQ TSLA also fell 1 6 and Facebook NASDAQ FB dipping 0 4 after its Instagram app suffered another major outage on Thursday
Elsewhere energy stocks were up with Exxon Mobil NYSE XOM rising 0 2 as traders monitored developments in the Middle East after two oil tankers were apparently attacked on Thursday near the Straits of Hormuz through which a fifth of the world s oil supply passes
The White House blamed Iran for the attacks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying Tehran wants our successful maximum pressure campaign lifted Iran has denied involvement
In commodities crude oil fell 0 4 to 52 03 a barrel after reaching an intraday high of 53 37 on Thursday Gold futures stormed over 1 higher to 1 358 85 a troy ounce their highest in over a month as fears of war in the Middle East spurred demand for haven assets while the U S dollar index which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies inched up 0 01 to 97 072
On the economic front retail sales come out at 8 30 AM ET 12 30 GMT while preliminary University of Michigan consumer sentiment data is released at 10 00 AM ET 14 00 GMT | 6/14/2019 |
INTC | Stocks Wall Street Mixed as Broadcom Predicts Slowing Growth | Investing com Wall Street was mixed on Friday as gloomy predictions from Broadcom NASDAQ AVGO weighed on the Nasdaq
The Dow lost 60 points or 0 2 by 9 49 AM ET 13 49 GMT while the S P 500 rose 4 points or 0 2 and the tech heavy Nasdaq composite slumped 42 points or 0 5
Broadcom slumped 6 9 after forecasting a slowdown in demand for chips citing the trade war between the U S and China Most chipmakers have been predicting a stronger second half to the year after a weak first half and Broadcom s warning damages one of the biggest props to sentiment for the sector
Broadcom is definitely leading markets lower and that might drive other chips lower as well Some of it is also about the U S China trade war and the fight over Huawei said Kim Forrest chief investment officer at Bokeh Capital Partners
China s industrial output growth slowed to its slowest rate in more than 17 years in May as the world s second largest economy showed signs of weakening under U S trade pressure
Chipmakers fell with Advanced Micro Devices NASDAQ AMD losing 2 8 Nvidia NASDAQ NVDA slumping 3 1 and Intel NASDAQ INTC slipping 1 7
Tesla NASDAQ TSLA inched down 0 6 after the electric car company lost its autopilot head Zeljko Popovic to Embark a self driving trucking startup while Blue Apron NYSE APRN slumped 10 3 due to a planned 1 to 15 reverse stock split
In commodities crude inched up 0 2 to 52 38 a barrel gold futures rose 0 8 to 1 355 05 a troy ounce while the U S dollar index which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies gained 0 3 to 97 282
Reuters contributed to this report | 6/14/2019 |
INTC | Intel launches project to help Israeli tech start ups | By Tova Cohen TEL AVIV Reuters Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC launched a project on Sunday to help start ups in Israel develop technologies in artificial intelligence AI and autonomous systems and said it planned to bring the scheme to other countries as well The 20 week program called Ignite will offer business and technical support to up to 15 start ups the California based company said adding it would not take equity stakes in the start ups now but might do so eventually Intel is one of the biggest employers and exporters in Israel where many of its new technologies are developed and this year said it was investing 40 billion shekels 11 billion to expand its manufacturing operations there Israel has the deep skill base in AI autonomous systems and the underlying technologies critical to these inflections that make it a natural choice to launch our Ignite program said CEO Bob Swan Intel paid 15 3 billion to buy Israeli autonomous vehicle technology company Mobileye F 0ME two years ago I have absolutely no regrets with the acquisition of Mobileye Swan told reporters in Tel Aviv adding that since its purchase Mobileye had doubled its penetration into the high growth industry of autonomous driving vehicles Last month the U S Commerce Department added Huawei Technologies Co to its so called Entity List a move that bans the telecom giant from buying parts and components from U S companies without U S government approval China is an important market for Intel and Huawei is a large customer What we intend to do is be very focused on serving customers around the world but at the same time abide by the rules We aren t shipping anything that s specified on the entity list Swan said | 6/16/2019 |
INTC | Nvidia to work with Arm chips deepening push into supercomputers | By Stephen Nellis
Reuters Nvidia Corp on Monday said it will make its chips work with processors from Arm Holdings Inc to build supercomputers deepening Nvidia s push into systems that are used for modeling both climate change predictions and nuclear weapons
Nvidia was long known as a supplier of graphics chips for personal computers to make video games look more realistic but researchers now also use its chips inside data centers to speed up artificial intelligence computing work such as training computers to recognize images
To do so Nvidia s so called accelerator chips work alongside central processors from companies such as Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC and International Business Machines NYSE IBM Corp
At a supercomputing conference held in Germany on Monday Nvidia said its accelerator chips will work with Arm processors by the end of the year
Arm owned by Japan s SoftBank Group Corp provides the underlying processor technology for the chips in most mobile phones But companies such as Ampere Computing headed by Intel s former president have been working to take those chips into data centers where Intel s chips are dominant
But Arm processors are different from Intel or IBM chips in that Arm itself does not make chips Instead it licenses out the underlying technology so others can make chips with it
Ian Buck vice president of Nvidia s accelerated computing unit said the project to build a supercomputer with Arm will be a heavy lift from a technical perspective
But he said Nvidia undertook it because researchers in Europe and Japan want to develop super computing chips with Arm s technology essentially giving them a third option beyond IBM and Intel over which they can have more control
That openness makes it very attractive Buck said of Arm s technology during an interview with Reuters before the conference What makes Arm interesting and why we re announcing support is is its ability to provide an open architecture for supercomputing
The move to work with Arm on supercomputers follows Nvidia s 6 8 billion deal to buy Israeli firm Mellanox Technologies Mellanox makes high speed networking chips that help stitch together many smaller computers into a larger one and is found in some of the world s most powerful supercomputers | 6/17/2019 |
MSFT | Exclusive Texas signs ex Microsoft lawyer others to aid in Google antitrust probe | By Paresh Dave and Diane Bartz SAN FRANCISCO WASHINGTON Reuters The Texas attorney general s office has hired three consultants for a multi state probe it is leading into Alphabet NASDAQ GOOGL Inc s Google including an economist who worked with some of the firm s major rivals and a lawyer who is a Microsoft veteran A group of 48 state attorneys general joined by Washington D C and Puerto Rico announced this month that they were investigating accusations of antitrust violations by search and advertising giant Google one of several focused on tech firms The three consultants are Roger Alford until this year a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department s antitrust division Eugene Burrus an external adviser at McKinsey Co who was assistant general counsel at Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT and Cristina Caffarra an economist heading the European competition team at consultancy Charles River Associates Everyone knows this will be a long running investigation said Alford who has taught law at the University of Notre Dame since 2012 He told Reuters that meetings on the matter began in August but declined to comment further Texas contracts with Alford and Burrus seen by Reuters on Wednesday through a public records request ran from May 29 through Aug 31 with a maximum hourly fee of 500 and an optional extension Alford said his contract had been extended through Aug 31 2021 Caffarra s contract runs from Sept 3 to Aug 31 2021 with maximum fees of 0 Marc Rylander a spokesman for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in statement that as we often do the state has acquired legal consulting experts for this ongoing investigation Google which has said it is cooperating with investigators declined to comment Burrus spent 15 years at Microsoft before joining law firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro in 2017 for a short stint It has represented clients in antitrust and other lawsuits against Google and his firm biography says he developed an antitrust case that led the EU to fine Google 2 7 billion for its shopping tool in 2017 McKinsey said Burrus work for the states investigation is in his personal capacity A spokesman for Microsoft which has complained about Google s competitive tactics did not provide immediate comment Caffarra standing among several attorneys general this month at a news conference for the Google investigation posted on Twitter that the announcement was a huge deal Alford said he was also at the event Though Caffarra s contract with Texas calls for her to earn no money a slide presentation from August posted on the Charles River website lists Google critic News Corp NASDAQ NWSA and competitors Microsoft and Amazon com Inc NASDAQ AMZN among her clients on antitrust matters Caffarra told Reuters on Thursday that she decided to work pro bono for the states investigation after Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson approached her My position is that when working for a government body I don t need to do anything besides work pro bono she said I am not funded by anyone adverse to Google right now As part of its investigation the Texas AG s office has sought information from Oracle Corp NYSE ORCL its executive vice president Ken Glueck told Reuters on Wednesday Oracle has feuded with Google over several business issues and was involved in advocacy group FairSearch that pushed for the European Union to investigate Google Oracle has also heard from the House Judiciary Committee Glueck said and has met the Justice Department The Federal Trade Commission and several states led by New York s attorney general have confirmed antitrust investigations into Facebook Inc NASDAQ FB
The FTC is also looking at Amazon sources have said The Justice Department has launched a broad review of large internet companies | 9/26/2019 |
INTC | Palestinian contractors poised for riches from Israeli tech firm s takeover | By Rami Ayyub and Tova Cohen RAWABI West Bank TEL AVIV Reuters Palestinian engineers working for Israeli chip designer Mellanox Technologies are poised to share a 3 5 million payout when the company s takeover by U S chip supplier Nvidia Corp is completed Mellanox is one of a handful of Israeli firms that have begun to collaborate with the emerging Palestinian tech scene bypassing the political conflict to tap a growing pool of engineers at costs they say are comparable to hiring from engineering expertise in India or Ukraine The chip maker offered stock options to more than 100 Palestinian engineers in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip when it hired them as contractors even though they are not permanent staff as a shortage of engineers in Israel makes their skills highly sought after by multinationals Mellanox says its Palestinian designers and coders outsourced through software firm ASAL Technologies will now be able to exercise those options after Nvidia s 6 8 billion takeover closes at the end of 2019 and stand to collectively earn as much as 3 5 million We re very proud they have equity the same as all other employees in the company Mellanox Chief Executive Eyal Waldman told Reuters in an interview Thirty forty thousand dollars for an employee in the West Bank or in Gaza is a lot of money Waldman added noting that unemployment there hovers at around 40 percent The median daily wage in the West Bank is 28 and just 11 in Gaza according to the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute ASAL CEO Murad Tahboub said 125 of his 350 employees work exclusively for Mellanox which makes products that connect databases servers and computers and they were given options in a bid to reduce job hopping among workers Mellanox saw value they saw loyalty in the relationship Tahboub said in his office in a bustling high tech centre in Rawabi the first Palestinian planned city in the West Bank The Israeli market provides an opportunity for the whole Palestinian high tech sector ASAL s other clients include Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT Intel NASDAQ INTC and Cisco NASDAQ CSCO Tahboub said his engineers designed 70 percent of Cortana the virtual assistant created by Microsoft High tech provides a unique opportunity for Palestinians whose universities produced around 3 000 engineers in 2018 Tahboub said Still Tahboub said Israeli restrictions particularly curbs on the movement of goods and people in and out of the West Bank and Gaza deter multinationals from investing in or outsourcing from the Palestinian territories Investors avoid risk Why should I invest in a startup in Palestine if I m not sure if the owner of that startup can travel to the U S Tahboub asked Those challenges are intimately felt in Gaza whose economy has suffered from years of Israeli and Egyptian blockades Economic cooperation between Israel and Gaza is mostly limited to merchants importing goods including cement and petrol Both Mellanox and ASAL agree tech can be a major boost for Gaza and they plan to increase their joint remote workforce in Gaza from 25 engineers currently Waldman hopes the two companies collaboration will help improve relations and reduce tensions between Israelis and Palestinians
The more positive friction there is between the two people the better it is for us for the environment for the Israelis for the Palestinians Waldman said I think we can have an impact | 6/17/2019 |
INTC | Ford opens new research center in Tel Aviv | Reuters U S automaker Ford Motor NYSE F Co said on Wednesday it opened a research center in Tel Aviv becoming one of several global automakers beefing up operations in Israel to take advantage of the country s vibrant technology sector The center will support Ford s automotive and mobility businesses by identifying technologies and start up companies in the fields of connectivity sensors automated systems research in vehicle monitoring and cyber security the company said Ford s announcement comes as technology and automobile companies seek access to Israeli expertise in automated driving boosting investment in the country U S chipmaker Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC German auto supplier Continental AG DE CONG Samsung Electronics KS 005930 Co Daimler AG DE DAIGn Ford Motor Co and General Motors Co NYSE GM are among companies that bought startups or set up their own development centers in Israel Ford said its new center will operate in close coordination with the company s machine learning unit SAIPS which the U S carmaker acquired about three years ago SAIPS Chief Executive Officer Udy Danino has been appointed as Israel technical director for the new center
Ford s global network of research centers include Aachen in Germany Nanjing in China and Dearborn in the United States | 6/12/2019 |
INTC | U S stocks higher at close of trade Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0 30 | Investing com U S stocks were higher after the close on Monday as gains in the Technology Consumer Services and Financials sectors led shares higher
At the close in NYSE the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0 30 to hit a new 1 month high while the S P 500 index added 0 47 and the NASDAQ Composite index added 1 05
The best performers of the session on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were Goldman Sachs Group Inc NYSE GS which rose 2 27 or 4 31 points to trade at 194 12 at the close Meanwhile Intel Corporation NASDAQ INTC added 1 67 or 0 77 points to end at 46 80 and Walmart Inc NYSE WMT was up 1 38 or 1 46 points to 107 52 in late trade
The worst performers of the session were United Technologies Corporation NYSE UTX which fell 3 13 or 4 14 points to trade at 128 01 at the close McDonald s Corporation NYSE MCD declined 2 03 or 4 18 points to end at 201 30 and Verizon Communications Inc NYSE VZ was down 1 90 or 1 09 points to 56 15
The top performers on the S P 500 were Macy s Inc NYSE M which rose 6 07 to 21 67 Analog Devices Inc NASDAQ ADI which was up 5 82 to settle at 106 55 and LyondellBasell Industries NV NYSE LYB which gained 5 59 to close at 83 65
The worst performers were Salesforce com Inc NYSE CRM which was down 5 26 to 152 79 in late trade Incyte Corporation NASDAQ INCY which lost 4 99 to settle at 76 80 and Cabot Oil Gas Corporation NYSE COG which was down 4 95 to 24 18 at the close
The top performers on the NASDAQ Composite were Provention Bio Inc NASDAQ PRVB which rose 217 01 to 13 79 Radio One Inc NASDAQ UONE which was up 50 26 to settle at 2 930 and Vuzix Corp Cmn Stk NASDAQ VUZI which gained 45 32 to close at 2 95
The worst performers were Insys Therapeutics Inc NASDAQ INSY which was down 51 45 to 0 64 in late trade iFresh Inc NASDAQ IFMK which lost 25 69 to settle at 0 94 and FuelCell Energy Inc NASDAQ FCEL which was down 24 84 to 0 436 at the close
Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the New York Stock Exchange by 1792 to 1193 and 95 ended unchanged on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange 1722 rose and 971 declined while 68 ended unchanged
Shares in Walmart Inc NYSE WMT rose to 52 week highs rising 1 38 or 1 46 to 107 52 Shares in Provention Bio Inc NASDAQ PRVB rose to all time highs gaining 217 01 or 9 44 to 13 79 Shares in Insys Therapeutics Inc NASDAQ INSY fell to all time lows falling 51 45 or 0 67 to 0 64 Shares in FuelCell Energy Inc NASDAQ FCEL fell to all time lows down 24 84 or 0 144 to 0 436
The CBOE Volatility Index which measures the implied volatility of S P 500 options was down 2 21 to 15 94
Gold Futures for August delivery was down 1 06 or 14 25 to 1331 85 a troy ounce Elsewhere in commodities trading Crude oil for delivery in July fell 1 06 or 0 57 to hit 53 42 a barrel while the August Brent oil contract fell 0 02 or 0 01 to trade at 62 38 a barrel
EUR USD was up 0 01 to 1 1314 while USD JPY rose 0 00 to 108 44
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0 26 at 96 738 | 6/10/2019 |
INTC | U S Supreme Court to hear Intel retirement fund dispute | By Andrew Chung WASHINGTON Reuters The U S Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear Intel NASDAQ INTC Corp s bid to avoid a lawsuit accusing it of violating federal law in making employee retirement plan investments that cost beneficiaries hundreds of millions of dollars The justices will take up Intel s appeal of a lower court ruling that revived the proposed class action lawsuit initiated by a former employee in 2015 after a judge earlier agreed with the technology company that the litigation was filed too late The lawsuit accused the company committees managing the retirement contribution and 401 k savings plans of breaching their fiduciary duty to the participants by placing an overly heavy emphasis on alternative investments such as hedge funds and private equity in contrast to peer retirement funds The lawsuit was brought by former Intel engineer Christopher Sulyma in San Jose California federal court
The dispute centers on the time period that retirement plan participants have to file suit for alleged violations of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act ERISA a federal law that requires plan managers to invest prudently | 6/10/2019 |
INTC | StockBeat AMD to Power Microsoft s Next Gen Console Shares Hit 13 Year High | Investing com Advanced Micro Devices rallied to a 13 year high Monday as investors cheered news that the chipmaker is set to be the main chip supplier for Microsoft s NASDAQ MSFT next generation console set to launch at the end of 2020
Microsoft announced that its new Xbox dubbed Project Scarlett for the time being would be powered by custom designed processor made by AMD
Advanced Micro Devices NASDAQ AMD surged nearly 5 and was just below session highs of 34 30 It s set for its highest close since May 2006
The announcement comes as Wall Street continued to praise AMD with Bank of America NYSE BAC lifting its price target on the chipmaker on expectations the upcoming console refresh would prove more profitable than the previous one
The bank said the news implies solid 2020 estimates for the semi custom and console businesses and the potential for better pricing and margins than prior 2013 console refresh
Bank of America Merrill Lynch reiterated its buy rating on AMD and raised its price target on stock to 40 from 35
Wells Fargo meanwhile said that while the news had been expected it should still be considered a positive as it reinforces AMD s positioning in the high end processor and graphics market for game consolers
AMD s ongoing momentum partly bolstered by rival Intel s NASDAQ INTC chip shortage woes has seen its share price jump 84 year to date assuming today s gains hold That s forced even some of naysayers on Wall Street to change their tunes on the stock The chipmaker has been scooping up new business at the lower end of market providing chips to manufacturers who haven t been able to source them from Intel
Morgan Stanley last week upgraded AMD stock to equal weight and conceded that its previously cautious outlook on Advanced Micro Devices stock had been the wrong call They re not alone The average 12 month target price on the stock among 34 AMD analysts polled by Investing com was 29 97 Monday afternoon | 6/10/2019 |
MSFT | India s Eros Now ties up with Microsoft s Azure platform | By Shilpa Jamkhandikar MUMBAI Reuters India s Eros Now N EROS said on Thursday it is tying up with Microsoft s O MSFT Azure cloud platform to host and stream its digital video offerings in a boost to the U S software giant s push to expand in the Indian market As part of the tie up Microsoft will build an online video platform for the Bollywood production house which will offer interactive voice search features in multiple Indian regional languages AI and intelligent cloud tools will be the next drivers of the media business and will impact everything from content creation to consumer experience Anant Maheshwari President of Microsoft India said in a press statement This is one of Microsoft s first forays into India s crowded digital video space so far dominated by market leader Amazon NASDAQ AMZN Web Services AWS that is used by players such as Walt Disney backed N DIS portal Hotstar and Indian movie and video streaming platform ALTBalaji among others Last year Microsoft tied up with ZEE5 a video on demand platform owned by Indian media company Zee Enterprises NS ZEE The deal also comes just weeks after Reliance Industries Ltd NS RELI led by Asia s richest man Mukesh Ambani announced it was tying up with Microsoft to build data centers in India that will be hosted on Microsoft s Azure cloud Eros in which Reliance owns a minority stake is betting big on its online streaming platform Two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that Eros which says it has 18 8 million subscribers worldwide is moving to the Azure platform from AWS Indians have begun streaming more online video and audio content after Reliance s telecom unit Jio began operations in late 2016 with cut price tariffs that have forced rivals to slash data prices The overall competitive landscape in India amongst cloud providers is heating up especially between AWS and Microsoft with Google NASDAQ GOOGL catching up too Naveen Mishra of tech researcher Gartner told Reuters India had the world s highest average monthly data usage per smartphone touching 9 8 gigabytes by the end of 2018 according to a June 2019 report by Swedish telecom gearmaker Ericsson ST ERICb
That surge in online content consumption has driven online video streaming websites like Hotstar and Eros Now to improve services user experience and use more cloud computing services | 9/19/2019 |
MSFT | Shares of Ping Identity jump 25 in U S market debut | Reuters Shares of Ping Identity Holding Corp N PING jumped 25 in their market debut on Thursday giving the identity software company a market value of about 1 46 billion Ping Identity s shares opened at 18 75 and rose to as much as 19 74 in early trade The company priced its initial public offering at 15 per share on Wednesday raising about 187 5 million at a valuation of about 1 16 billion If underwriters exercise their option of purchasing an additional 1 9 million shares gross proceeds from the offering can be as much as 215 6 million The company said it intends to use the IPO net proceeds to repay outstanding borrowing under its term loan facility https Ping Identity counts the likes of Microsoft Corp O MSFT among its rivals in user identity management that helps verify which employees can access what technology at a company Such services are becoming increasingly necessary as corporate employees need to securely connect to many applications in the cloud to get their work done Ping Identity owned by buyout firm Vista Equity Partners had posted revenue of 201 6 million in 2018 up about 17 from a year earlier It reported a net loss of 13 4 million for 2018 compared with a profit of 19 million in 2017 Vista Equity bought Denver based Ping Identity for 600 million in 2016 An IPO would be a rare example of Vista Equity cashing out on an investment through a stock market flotation as it tends to sell its portfolio companies outright to large public companies or other private equity firms
Goldman Sachs NYSE GS BofA Securities RBC Capital Markets and Citigroup NYSE C are the IPO s lead underwriters | 9/19/2019 |
MSFT | Microsoft nudges S P 500 toward record high | By Noel Randewich
Reuters Microsoft and healthcare companies lifted Wall Street on Thursday a day after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates as expected and left the door open for further monetary easing
Microsoft O MSFT rose 1 9 after unveiling a 40 billion stock buyback plan and its increase contributed more than any other company to the S P 500 s gain
The S P 500 was less than 1 below its record high close from July as markets also became more optimistic about talks between U S and Chinese deputy trade negotiators aimed at laying the groundwork for high level negotiations in early October
A recent easing in trade tensions has helped the three main indexes recover from losses from August
There has been slightly more constructiveness lately but if there is any sort of agreement it will be a very light mini deal because the U S and China are still very far apart on the main issues warned Ben Phillips Chief Investment Officer at EventShares
The S P 500 healthcare index SPXHC climbed 0 7 after U S House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a proposal on drug pricing policy
The plan is a big negative for drugmakers and the stock reaction has already been priced in to some degree said Thomas Martin senior portfolio manager at GLOBALT Investments
Of 11 sector indexes healthcare is the worst performer in 2019 with a gain of 6
On Wednesday the Fed announced a quarter percentage point cut in interest rates for the second time this year and said future reductions would be largely data dependent
Traders see a nearly 50 chance for another 25 basis point rate cut in October according to CME Group s FedWatch tool
The market just continues to believe the Fed is going to be accommodative said Robert Pavlik chief investment strategist and senior portfolio manager at SlateStone Wealth LLC in New York
The Fed injected another 75 billion into the U S banking system on Wednesday restoring a measure of order after the central bank s benchmark interest rate rose above its targeted range for the first time since the financial crisis
At 2 56 p m ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI was down 0 04 at 27 137 17 points while the S P 500 SPX gained 0 14 to 3 010 94
The Nasdaq Composite IXIC added 0 19 to 8 193 29
With the S P 500 approaching a record high the benchmark index is trading at about 17 times expected earnings up from about 15 at the end of last year according to Refinitiv s Datastream
Corporate earnings continue to expand albeit at a slower pace and we expect that to continue into 2020 said Bill Northey senior investment director for U S Bank Wealth Management We view valuations as high but not extreme at this point It s not something that s causing us to wring our hands
Shares of retailer Target Corp N TGT rose 0 8 after it announced a 5 billion share buyback plan
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1 64 to 1 ratio on Nasdaq a 1 09 to 1 ratio favored advancers
The S P 500 posted 25 new 52 week highs and 1 new lows the Nasdaq Composite recorded 63 new highs and 32 new lows | 9/19/2019 |
MSFT | Wall Street ends mixed as Microsoft Apple offset | Reuters Wall Street ended mixed on Thursday with a dip in Apple Inc O AAPL shares offsetting a gain in Microsoft Corp O MSFT shares a day after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates as expected and left the door open for further monetary easing
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI fell 52 9 points or 0 19 to 27 094 18 the S P 500 SPX gained 0 03 points or 0 00 to 3 006 76 and the Nasdaq Composite IXIC added 5 49 points or 0 07 to 8 182 88 | 9/19/2019 |
MSFT | Wall Street ends mixed as Microsoft Apple offset | Reuters Wall Street ended mixed on Thursday with a dip in Apple Inc O AAPL shares offsetting a gain in Microsoft Corp O MSFT shares a day after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates as expected and left the door open for further monetary easing
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJI fell 52 9 points or 0 19 to 27 094 18 the S P 500 SPX gained 0 03 points or 0 00 to 3 006 76 and the Nasdaq Composite IXIC added 5 49 points or 0 07 to 8 182 88 | 9/19/2019 |
MSFT | Microsoft nominates GSK CEO Walmsley to board | Reuters Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT said on Thursday it has nominated GlaxoSmithKline Plc Chief Executive Officer Emma Walmsley to its board of directors
The software company said former chairman of the board of management at BMW AG Helmut Panke will not seek a re election to the board after his current term expires
Charles Noski former vice chairman of AT T Inc and Bank of America Corp NYSE BAC is also leaving the board
The company s annual shareholder meeting is due on Dec 4
Shares of the company were up 1 84 in after market trading after rising to a record high during the regular trading hours after it announced a 40 billion share buyback plan | 9/19/2019 |
INTC | Ford denies it is in the self driving slow lane | By Steven Scheer TEL AVIV Reuters Ford Motor NYSE F Co may be taking a cautious approach to its autonomous driving program but its chairman rejected claims that the U S automaker was falling behind its peers I don t agree Bill Ford said at an auto tech conference in Tel Aviv on Tuesday when asked about losing market share Our self driving system Argo is incredibly competitive On the technology side we are right up there with the very best in terms of time of development but we want to take great care before we let people in these vehicles In Israel for the first time to launch an innovation center Ford said the timing for marketing self driving cars was unclear given that safety issues need to be resolved We are dealing with people s lives We have to be absolutely sure these are ready for prime time in all conditions he told the EcoMotion conference The carmaker is working with several Israeli self driving technology firms like Intel NASDAQ INTC unit Mobileye F 0ME Ford told Reuters that ultimately self driving cars will come down to trust by customers It s unknown when the perception gets good enough that it is going to be ready for mass consumer adoption and that s the part I want to make sure we are incredibly comfortable with before we launch it Ford said After Ford bought Argo AI a Pittsburgh based self driving startup in 2017 the company has taken aim at providing autonomous vehicle services to multiple partners who in turn would offer them to their customers under their own brand names
But with spiraling development costs for autonomous cars in recent years the company and other carmakers have sought alliances and outside investors | 6/11/2019 |
INTC | Stocks Apple Broadcom Barnes Noble Rise Premarket Beyond Meat Falls | Investing com Stocks in focus in premarket trading on Tuesday
Apple NASDAQ AAPL stock rose 1 2 by 8 15 AM ET 12 15 GMT after Bloomberg reported that its primary manufacturing partner in Taiwan has enough capacity to make all U S bound iPhones outside of China should U S China trade tensions get out of hand
Tesla NASDAQ TSLA stock gained 2 3 ahead of the electric car maker s annual shareholder meeting at 5 30 PM ET 21 30 GMT
Intel NASDAQ INTC stock inched up 0 9 after news that it is buying startup Barefoot Networks in a bid to compete with Broadcom NASDAQ AVGO in Ethernet technology
Advanced Micro Devices NASDAQ AMD stock jumped 2 adding to Monday s surge to a 13 year high after Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT announced that its next generation of Xbox will run on AMD chips rather than Nvidia s NASDAQ NVDA
Broadcom NASDAQ AVGO stock jumped 3 5 after news that the chipmaker has entered into a two year supply deal with Apple to provide radio frequency front end component and modules for various Apple products
Beyond Meat NASDAQ BYND stock slumped 10 4 after JP Morgan downgraded the stock to neutral from overweight as the stock is beyond our price target of 120 CNBC reported
Barnes Noble NYSE BKS stock rose 3 5 after the Wall Street Journal reported that book distributor Readerlink is working to outbid Elliot Management s deal to acquire the company for 475 million in cash | 6/11/2019 |
INTC | Factbox Global tech companies shun Huawei after U S ban | Reuters Global technology companies are cutting ties with China s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd after the U S government put the world s largest telecom equipment maker on a trade blacklist citing national security concerns The United States has effectively banned its companies from doing business with Huawei exacerbating an ongoing Sino U S trade war The ban applies to goods that have 25 or more of U S originated technology or materials and may affect non American firms Huawei is allowed to buy U S goods until Aug 19 to maintain existing telecoms networks and provide software updates to its smartphones Following are companies that have suspended business with the Chinese firm ALPHABET INC Google NASDAQ GOOGL on May 19 suspended the transfer of hardware software and technical services to Huawei except what it has made publicly available via open source licensing U S CHIPMAKERS Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC Qualcomm NASDAQ QCOM Inc Xilinx Inc NASDAQ XLNX and Broadcom NASDAQ AVGO Inc told their employees they will not supply critical software or components to Huawei until further notice Bloomberg reported on May 19 LUMENTUM HOLDINGS INC The optical components maker said on May 20 it discontinued all shipments to Huawei adding it intends to fully comply with U S imposed license requirements Huawei represented 18 of the company s total revenue in the latest quarter QORVO INC The radio frequency chipmaker said on May 21 it expects first quarter revenue to take a 50 million hit due to a halt in shipments to Huawei The Chinese firm represents 15 of Qorvo s total revenue in the year ended March 30 ANALOG DEVICES INC Chief Executive Officer Vincent Roche on May 22 said his company will not be shipping anything to Huawei for the foreseeable future INPHI CORP The optical communications chipmaker on May 22 lowered its second quarter earnings forecast based on its understanding of the U S government blacklisting of Huawei which accounted for 14 of Inphi s sales in 2018 ARM The British chip designer owned by Japan s SoftBank Group Corp said on May 22 it has halted relations with Huawei to comply with the U S ban PANASONIC CORP The Japanese electronics giant said on May 23 it had stopped shipments of certain components to Huawei It will still sell some components to Huawei a point it made clear on its China website NEOPHOTONICS CORP The optical components maker said on May 23 it wrote down certain inventories as a result of the U S ban on Huawei while fully complying with the restrictions by ceasing shipments of products SYNOPSYS INC The electronic products and software maker said on May 23 the company was restricting trade with Huawei and this will impact its revenue MICRON TECHNOLOGY INC Chief Financial Officer David Zinsner said on May 23 the chipmaker which earned 13 of its revenue in the first and second quarter from Huawei was restricted from exporting additional product to the Chinese company MICROSOFT CORP The software maker has stopped accepting new orders from Huawei as it moves to comply with the U S ban a South China Morning Post report on May 24 said The two areas of business between Huawei and Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT Windows operating systems for laptops and other content related services have been suspended IQE Plc U K based maker of semiconductor wafers used in chips said on May 24 that the U S ban of Huawei could lead to delay in orders and the need for adjustment of supplier managed inventory levels mainly in its wireless business unit IQE supplies wafers to multiple chip companies some of whom supply to Huawei MAXLINEAR INC The maker of radio frequency chips said it had discontinued all shipments to Huawei and its affiliates and cannot predict as to when it will be able to resume shipments SKYWORKS SOLUTIONS INC The semiconductor maker on June 4 said it ceased all shipments to Huawei and its affiliates and cannot predict as to when it will be able to resume shipments The company also lowered its third quarter profit and revenue forecasts EMCORE CORP The maker of optics components lowered its revenue forecast range for the third quarter by 1 million on June 10 citing negative impact to its chip business from the Huawei related U S export restrictions
CREE INC The LED and chip manufacturer said it does not expect to ship any additional products in the fourth quarter for the Huawei build out and cannot predict when it will be able to resume shipments It also lowered its fourth quarter revenue and profit forecasts citing the Huawei ban and softer than expected demand for its LED products as global trade uncertainties persist | 6/11/2019 |
INTC | Exclusive Some big tech firms cut employees access to Huawei muddying 5G rollout | By Paresh Dave and Chris Prentice
NEWPORT BEACH Calif NEW YORK Reuters Some of the world s biggest tech companies have told their employees to stop talking about technology and technical standards with counterparts at Huawei Technologies Co Ltd in response to the recent U S blacklisting of the Chinese tech firm according to people familiar with the matter
Chipmakers Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC and Qualcomm NASDAQ QCOM Inc mobile research firm InterDigital Wireless Inc and South Korean carrier LG Uplus have restricted employees from informal conversations with Huawei the world s largest telecommunications equipment maker the sources said
Such discussions are a routine part of international meetings where engineers gather to set technical standards for communications technologies including the next generation of mobile networks known as 5G
The U S Department of Commerce has not banned contact between companies and Huawei On May 16 the agency put Huawei on a blacklist barring it from doing business with U S companies without government approval then a few days later it authorized U S companies to interact with Huawei in standards bodies through August as necessary for the development of 5G standards The Commerce Department reiterated that position on Friday in response to a question from Reuters
Nevertheless at least a handful of major U S and overseas tech companies are telling their employees to limit some forms of direct interaction the people said as they seek to avoid any potential issues with the U S government
Intel and Qualcomm said they have provided compliance instructions to employees but declined to comment on them further
A spokesman for InterDigital said it has provided guidance to engineers to ensure the company is in compliance with U S regulations
An official with LG Uplus said the company is voluntarily refraining from interacting with Huawei workers other than meeting for network equipment installation or maintenance issues
LG Uplus issued a statement to Reuters that there was no formal policy within the firm about limiting conversations with Huawei
Huawei did not provide comment
5G SLOWDOWN
The new restrictions could slow the rollout of 5G which is expected to power everything from high speed video transmissions to self driving cars according to several industry experts
At a 5G standards meeting last week in Newport Beach California participants privately expressed alarm to Reuters that the long standing cooperation among engineers that is needed for phones and networks to connect globally could fall victim to what one participant described as a tech war between the United States and China
A representative of a European company that has instituted rules against interaction with Huawei described people involved in 5G development as shaken This could push everyone to their own corners and we need cooperation to get to 5G It should be a global market the person said
To be sure several workers at smaller telecoms firms said they had not been told to avoid discussions with Huawei at standards meetings and many vendors continue to support existing deals with Huawei It is unclear how much further communications with Huawei have been curtailed in the tech industry if at all
There s been a lot of misunderstanding from what I m seeing and hearing from clients and colleagues as far as what the Commerce Department restrictions actually entail said Doug Jacobson a Washington based export controls lawyer
He said that companies prohibiting their employees contacting Huawei was excessive because the restrictions don t preclude communication only the transfer of technology
Huawei whose equipment the United States has alleged could be used by China to spy has emerged as a central figure in the trade war between the world s two largest economies Huawei has repeatedly denied it is controlled by the Chinese government military or intelligence services
China U S and European companies have split before on standards for Wi Fi cell networks and other technologies and the tit for tat over tariffs between Beijing and Washington has increased fears of another bifurcation
Huawei is a top player at various global organizations that set technical specifications As one of the world s biggest manufacturers of devices like smartphones and the vital parts of networks such as routers and switches Huawei will need to be at the standards setting table to ensure a seamless customer experience when 5G networks become prevalent engineers and experts said
NO MORE INFORMAL CHATS
Engineers and system architects representing their employers at meetings of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project 3GPP a global consortium of industry associations that aims to set 5G specifications by March 2020 often take formal general discussions into smaller less documented sessions as they try to find agreement with rivals
But at 3GPP s meeting last week in California one of the group s three chairmen Balazs Bertenyi of Nokia HE NOKIA told attendees that more of those so called offline conversations than usual would be documented by the standards body with notes and other publicly available records
It was the practical implication of the new U S Commerce Department rules given industry wide caution despite the exemption for 5G talks he said
Companies want to limit informal exchanges in which their engineers feel more comfortable discussing proprietary technology with rivals to persuade them why their research or innovations are more sound the sources said
A separate standards body the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers IEEE put restrictions on Huawei engineers ability to participate in peer reviews for its publications drawing criticism from some in China s industry and elsewhere
The organization which declined to comment beyond generic statements on its website then backtracked days later after saying it had received the all clear from the U S Commerce Department with respect to the peer review issue It did not respond to requests for comment on this story
Huawei isn t just some company They by many accounts are the leader in 5G technology Excluding them is very hard to work around so it does stand to disrupt the entire project said Jorge Contreras a law professor at the University of Utah and an IEEE member
If the idea is to create a non Chinese 5G I m not sure that s possible Even if it is would it be as good | 6/11/2019 |
INTC | LG Electronics regulators oppose Qualcomm s effort to put antitrust ruling on hold | By Stephen Nellis Reuters Smartphone maker LG Electronics Inc on Tuesday opposed Qualcomm NASDAQ QCOM Inc s efforts to put a sweeping U S antitrust decision against the chip supplier on hold as it pursues an appeal The Korean company said that it is negotiating chip supply and patent license agreements with Qualcomm and could be forced into signing another unfair deal unless a federal judge s protections remain in place The filing in federal court in San Jose California came shortly after the U S Federal Trade Commission also opposed Qualcomm s efforts saying that it was in the public interest to let the antitrust ruling stand because an appeal could take years Both filings stem from a May 21 decision by U S District Judge Lucy Koh that would drastically alter the business model of Qualcomm which supplies modem chips to connect phones to mobile data networks but makes most of its profit through licensing patents Among other things Koh s decision would require Qualcomm to license its patents to rival chip makers instead of phone makers which could potentially slice its patent royalties from several dollars per phone to pennies Qualcomm on May 28 asked Koh to set aside her decision while it pursues an appeal The company said that Koh s decision would entail radically restructuring its business relationships in ways that would be impossible to reverse if it wins an appeal It also argued that Koh s ruling raised serious legal questions because among other things Koh blocked market evidence showing that Apple Inc NASDAQ AAPL dropped Qualcomm in favor of rival chip supplier Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC In a court filing on Tuesday JongSang Lee LG Electronics general counsel said that the phone maker relies on Qualcomm for modem chips and is in the midst of negotiating a new agreement including over 5G chips for the newest generation of mobile networks in Korea Lee wrote that Qualcomm has continued to pressure LG Electronics to sign a patent license in order to keep its access to Qualcomm chips which it relies on for its phones LG Electronics agreement with Qualcomm runs out on June 30 and the phone maker may have no option but to conclude license and chipset supply agreements once again on Qualcomm s terms since LGE must rely on Qualcomm s modem chips Lee wrote Koh s decision prohibits Qualcomm s long standing no license no chip position which Qualcomm has continuously raised during its license negotiations with LGE Lee wrote Without this order LGE will continue to face Qualcomm s anticompetitive stance during currently ongoing negotiations The FTC similarly argued that Koh s ruling should stay in place while Qualcomm appeals saying that a prompt enforcement of the Court s order is in the public interest The appellate process could easily extend through the initial rollout of 5G technology and a stay would allow Qualcomm time to use anticompetitive practices to entrench its monopoly power in modem chip markets during this critical period the FTC wrote in its filing The App Association a group that represents more than 5 000 app developers and device makers and is backed by sponsor Apple also said it planned to oppose Qualcomm s request saying it would hurt smaller device makers Allowing Qualcomm to continue abusing its patents and its wireless chipset monopoly any longer will irreparably harm opportunities for small businesses in the app and internet of things marketplace and would encourage further abusive behavior in patent licensing widely said App Association President Morgan Reed In April Apple signed a six year patent license agreement with Qualcomm and a multi year chip supply deal As part of the deal Apple dropped all litigation against Qualcomm and the company did not return a comment request asking if it would also oppose Qualcomm s efforts to pause the antitrust ruling
Qualcomm has signaled its intention to file an appeal but has not yet filed one or fully revealed its legal arguments Tuesday s filing by the FTC only concerns whether the ruling s provisions will be put on hold temporarily as any appeal plays out | 6/11/2019 |
MSFT | Retailers Around the World That Accept Crypto From Pizza to Travel | Earlier on when Bitcoin BTC arrived on the scene most cryptocurrency enthusiasts held on to their coins as there were only so many places they could be spent Nowadays the list of marketplaces and retailers accepting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is significantly larger providing crypto enthusiasts with more options for making real world purchases
After all with recognizable organizations like Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT and Wikipedia now accepting Bitcoin as payment conversations about Bitcoin and the power of cryptocurrencies are becoming more prominent | 9/22/2019 |
MSFT | New esports network VENN aims to bring gaming as a lens into pop culture | By Amy Tennery
Reuters A new 24 7 esports gaming network called VENN that aims to blend pop culture and gaming was announced on Tuesday after generating 17 million in seed round funding
Co founders Ariel Horn and Ben Kusin told Reuters that the venture will launch sometime in mid 2020 and is angling to be a universal network with programs like first run esports events reality shows documentaries and game shows
You have this 150 billion a year industry that has no TV network said Kusin former Global Director of New Media at Vivendi PA VIV Games We are a universal network that means we will be distributed and consumed anywhere our audience is consuming gaming content
Popular esports streaming services like Twitch which is owned by Amazon NASDAQ AMZN and Mixer which is owned by Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT are among the platforms VENN is aiming to be distributed on according to Horn along with YouTube Roku Hulu and Apple NASDAQ AAPL TV
A representative for the company said it is not announcing any streaming agreements yet
Investors include Kevin Lin the co founder of Twitch and Mike Morhaime and Marc Merrill the co founders of Blizzard Entertainment and Riot Games respectively among others in the gaming sports and business industries
Esports has gained rapid popularity worldwide drawing top dollar investments with global revenue from professional video game competitions expected to hit 1 1 billion in 2019
We can see that gaming is having a moment said Horn We can tell there s this incredible groundswell around gaming and awareness is at an all time high | 9/17/2019 |
MSFT | Microsoft approves 40 billion share repurchase program | Reuters Microsoft Corp O MSFT said on Wednesday its board had approved a new share repurchase program of up to 40 billion and raised its quarterly dividend
The company s shares rose 1 3 to 140 35 in after market trading
Microsoft which said it would hold its annual shareholders meeting on Dec 4 also declared a quarterly dividend of 51 cents per share 11 higher than the preceding quarter
The repurchase program which has no expiration date may be terminated at any time
The Redmond Washington based company returned 7 7 billion to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2019 | 9/18/2019 |
MSFT | Stocks Wall Street Rebounds to End Flat After Rate Cut | Investing com Stocks recovered most of their losses by the end of trading Wednesday erasing an afternoon selloff after the Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate for the second time in two meetings
The S P 500 ended the day basically flat holding above 3 000 for a second day in a row and for the fifth day in the last six trading sessions The index had been off as many as 28 points after the Fed rate announcement
The Dow Jones Industrial Average once down 211 points closed with a small gain up 0 13 The Nasdaq Composite finished down 0 11 a big improvement from a decline of nearly 100 points after the Fed decision The Nasdaq 100 index dominated by big tech stocks was flat
The Fed cut its key federal funds rate to a band of 1 75 to 2 from 2 to 2 25 It was the Fed s second rate cut this year Two members of the Federal Open Market Committee voted against any cut another wanted to go further Futures market trading suggests another rate cut is coming this year but at least five members of the committee aren t sure another cut is needed
President Donald Trump tweeted that the Fed had failed and not gone far enough in cutting interest rates as a combination of trade disputes and slowing international growth are weighing on the U S economy especially U S businesses which have been cautious in capital spending
But Fed Chairman Jerome Powell defended the Fed s decision saying the Fed will change rates if necessary but not before While there was some softening in the economy he said in his news conference We don t see a recession we re not forecasting a recession
He received some major good news on Wednesday U S building permits and housing starts hit a 12 year high Reuters said the report was evidence that lower mortgage rates were boosting housing markets
Homebuilding shares were higher on the news The iShares U S Home Construction ETF NYSE ITB was up 0 64 The ETF s biggest holdings include DR Horton NYSE DHI Lennar NYSE LEN NVR NYSE NVR and PulteGroup NYSE PHM
Energy materials real estate and technology stocks struggled Financial and utilities shares were higher
FedEx NYSE FDX fell more than 13 the biggest loser among the Dow Jones Transportation stocks The Transportation average fell 1 2
Late Tuesday FedEx cut earnings guidance for the current fiscal year citing the ongoing trade disputes with China and loss of revenue from Amazon com s NASDAQ AMZN decision to dump FedEx as its primary package shipper
Nordstrom NYSE JWN Applied Materials NASDAQ AMAT and JPMorgan Chase NYSE JPM were among the top overall market performers
JPMorgan Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT Goldman Sachs NYSE GS and Apple NASDAQ AAPL led the Dow
After the close Microsoft boosted its quarterly dividend by 11 to 51 cents from 46 cents and announced a new 40 billion share buyback plan
Crude oil prices were lower with West Texas Intermediate crude down 1 23 or more than 2 to 58 11 a barrel Brent crude the global benchmark was off 95 cents to 63 60 an ounce Gold moved below 1 500 in after hours trading after settling at 1 506 an ounce down 7 40
Chipmaker KLA Tencor NASDAQ KLAC banking companies Comerica NYSE CMA and SVB Financial Group NASDAQ SIVB and home builder Lennar were among the S P 500 leaders on the day
FedEx Alexion Pharmaceuticals NASDAQ ALXN oil and gas producer Noble Energy NYSE NBL and dental equipment company Dentsply Sirona NASDAQ XRAY were among the weakest S P performers | 9/18/2019 |
MSFT | U S stocks mixed at close of trade Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0 13 | Investing com U S stocks were mixed after the close on Wednesday as gains in the Utilities Technology and Financials sectors led shares higher while losses in the Telecoms Oil Gas and Industrials sectors led shares lower
At the close in NYSE the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0 13 while the S P 500 index climbed 0 03 and the NASDAQ Composite index fell 0 11
The best performers of the session on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were JPMorgan Chase Co NYSE JPM which rose 1 00 or 1 19 points to trade at 119 76 at the close Meanwhile Apple Inc NASDAQ AAPL added 0 94 or 2 07 points to end at 222 77 and Microsoft Corporation NASDAQ MSFT was up 0 82 or 1 13 points to 138 52 in late trade
The worst performers of the session were Dow Inc NYSE DOW which fell 1 02 or 0 49 points to trade at 47 51 at the close Caterpillar Inc NYSE CAT declined 0 83 or 1 10 points to end at 131 07 and UnitedHealth Group Incorporated NYSE UNH was down 0 82 or 1 91 points to 230 61
The top performers on the S P 500 were KLA Tencor Corporation NASDAQ KLAC which rose 3 53 to 157 98 Comerica Inc NYSE CMA which was up 2 20 to settle at 66 92 and SVB Financial Group NASDAQ SIVB which gained 2 07 to close at 217 85
The worst performers were FedEx Corporation NYSE FDX which was down 12 92 to 150 91 in late trade Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc NASDAQ ALXN which lost 4 50 to settle at 102 98 and Noble Energy Inc NYSE NBL which was down 3 39 to 24 24 at the close
The top performers on the NASDAQ Composite were SPI Energy Co Ltd NASDAQ SPI which rose 66 37 to 3 76 Guardion Health Sciences Inc NASDAQ GHSI which was up 36 14 to settle at 0 6400 and Huttig Building NASDAQ HBP which gained 32 63 to close at 2 520
The worst performers were Silver Run Acquisition Corporation II NASDAQ AMR which was down 30 13 to 0 08 in late trade Wins Finance Holdings Inc NASDAQ WINS which lost 25 00 to settle at 15 00 and Zynerba Pharmaceuticals Inc NASDAQ ZYNE which was down 21 77 to 8 84 at the close
Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the New York Stock Exchange by 1643 to 1289 and 97 ended unchanged on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange 1609 fell and 1048 advanced while 94 ended unchanged
Shares in KLA Tencor Corporation NASDAQ KLAC rose to all time highs rising 3 53 or 5 38 to 157 98
The CBOE Volatility Index which measures the implied volatility of S P 500 options was down 3 39 to 13 95
Gold Futures for December delivery was down 0 79 or 11 90 to 1501 50 a troy ounce Elsewhere in commodities trading Crude oil for delivery in November fell 1 54 or 0 91 to hit 58 19 a barrel while the November Brent oil contract rose 0 08 or 0 05 to trade at 63 68 a barrel
EUR USD was up 0 04 to 1 1033 while USD JPY fell 0 01 to 108 42
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0 31 at 98 127 | 9/18/2019 |
MSFT | Stocks U S Futures Point to Lower Opening Bell After Fed Rate Cut | Investing com U S futures fell on Thursday after the Federal Reserve damped hopes for any further monetary easing on top of Wednesday s rate cut the second in as many months
The Fed cut rates by 25 basis points at its policy meeting on Wednesday largely in line with expectations Fed Chief Jerome Powell indicated during a press conference that the central bank didn t expect a slowdown in the economy anytime soon but that if the economy does turn down then a more extensive sequence of rate cuts could be appropriate
Meanwhile trade talks were in focus as a report in the South China Morning Post encouraged hopes of at least an interim agreement on freezing the U S China trade dispute when the two sides resume face to face talks after a two month hiatus The meetings are meant to lay the groundwork before high level talks in early October
Nasdaq 100 Futures fell 32 points or 0 4 by 6 49 AM ET 10 49 GMT while Dow Jones 30 Futures lost 66 points or 0 2 and S P 500 Futures were down 7 points or 0 3
AT T NYSE T gained 0 7 in premarket trade after The Wall Street Journal reported that the company is exploring a spinoff of DirectTV as its own company or in combination with Dish
Microsoft Corporation NASDAQ MSFT was up 1 3 after increasing its quarterly dividend by 5 cents bringing it to 0 51 per share The company also announced a new stock buyback worth up to 40 billion
Elsewhere United States Steel Corporation NYSE X slumped 10 4 after giving weak third quarter guidance Overstock com NASDAQ OSTK declined 9 after news that founder Patrick Byrne unloaded his entire stake in the company
In commodities crude oil futures jumped 2 1 to 59 26 a barrel after a tweet from Iran s foreign minister sparked fears of military conflict Gold futures were down 0 8 to 1 503 75 a troy ounce while the U S dollar index which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies dipped 0 2 to 97 903 | 9/19/2019 |
MSFT | Oracle VMware agree to deal on cloud technology technical support | By Stephen Nellis
SAN FRANCISCO Reuters Oracle Corp NYSE ORCL and VMware Inc on Monday announced a deal designed to resolve years of tension over how Oracle handles technical support for VMware users and make it easier for them to move to Oracle s cloud computing service
Oracle is competing against Amazon com Inc NASDAQ AMZN and Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT to offer cloud services where businesses use Oracle s data centers to handle their computing needs In recent years cloud providers have worked to woo large businesses that still run their own data centers to move some or all of that work to the cloud
VMware has emerged as a key player because many cloud holdouts use it to power their own data centers To win over those customers cloud providers need technical compatibility with VMware Amazon Microsoft and Alphabet NASDAQ GOOGL Inc s Google have all announced partnerships with VMware in recent years
Oracle which announced the deal at its annual user conference in San Francisco OpenWorld has designed a system to allow joint customers to move VMware based computing work to its cloud without reworking the code said Clay Magouyrk senior vice president of engineering Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
We ve focused on giving customers maximal control he told Reuters We had to do some very fundamental engineering
The two companies said that Oracle would offer technical support to customers who run its applications on top of VMware Many companies will not run business critical systems like financial software with the option for support
Oracle and VMware have clashed in the past over the issue
VMware s core tool splits up one physical computer server into multiple smaller virtual machines to ensure that all of a company s computers are put to full use Oracle offered a competing product and was unclear on whether it would provide support when for example its financial software was used with VMware
Oracle said on Monday it would now provide support for those situations
Customers don t want to deploy two products unless it s supported by both vendors This was a stumbling block for the past two decades said Sanjay Poonen chief operating officer for customer operations at VMware said in an interview
Our relationship with Oracle is significantly better than it was 20 years ago It s a new day | 9/16/2019 |
INTC | Exclusive Some big tech firms cut employees access to Huawei muddying 5G rollout | By Paresh Dave and Chris Prentice NEWPORT BEACH Calif NEW YORK Reuters Some of the world s biggest tech companies have told their employees to stop talking about technology and technical standards with counterparts at Huawei Technologies Co Ltd in response to the recent U S blacklisting of the Chinese tech firm according to people familiar with the matter Chipmakers Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC and Qualcomm NASDAQ QCOM Inc mobile research firm InterDigital Wireless Inc and South Korean carrier LG Uplus have restricted employees from informal conversations with Huawei the world s largest telecommunications equipment maker the sources said Such discussions are a routine part of international meetings where engineers gather to set technical standards for communications technologies including the next generation of mobile networks known as 5G The U S Department of Commerce has not banned contact between companies and Huawei On May 16 the agency put Huawei on a blacklist barring it from doing business with U S companies without government approval then a few days later it authorized U S companies to interact with Huawei in standards bodies through August as necessary for the development of 5G standards The Commerce Department reiterated that position on Friday in response to a question from Reuters Nevertheless at least a handful of major U S and overseas tech companies are telling their employees to limit some forms of direct interaction the people said as they seek to avoid any potential issues with the U S government Intel and Qualcomm said they have provided compliance instructions to employees but declined to comment on them further A spokesman for InterDigital said it has provided guidance to engineers to ensure the company is in compliance with U S regulations An official with LG Uplus said the company is voluntarily refraining from interacting with Huawei workers other than meeting for network equipment installation or maintenance issues Huawei did not provide comment 5G SLOWDOWN The new restrictions could slow the rollout of 5G which is expected to power everything from high speed video transmissions to self driving cars according to several industry experts At a 5G standards meeting last week in Newport Beach California participants privately expressed alarm to Reuters that the long standing cooperation among engineers that is needed for phones and networks to connect globally could fall victim to what one participant described as a tech war between the U S and China A representative of a European company that has instituted rules against interaction with Huawei described people involved in 5G development as shaken This could push everyone to their own corners and we need cooperation to get to 5G It should be a global market the person said To be sure several workers at smaller telecoms firms said they had not been told to avoid discussions with Huawei at standards meetings and many vendors continue to support existing deals with Huawei It is unclear how much further communications with Huawei have been curtailed in the tech industry if at all There s been a lot of misunderstanding from what I m seeing and hearing from clients and colleagues as far as what the Commerce Department restrictions actually entail said Doug Jacobson a Washington based export controls lawyer He said that companies prohibiting their employees contacting Huawei was excessive because the restrictions don t preclude communication only the transfer of technology Huawei whose equipment the U S has alleged could be used by China to spy has emerged as a central figure in the trade war between the world s two largest economies Huawei has repeatedly denied it is controlled by the Chinese government military or intelligence services China U S and European companies have split before on standards for Wi Fi cell networks and other technologies and the tit for tat over tariffs between Beijing and Washington has increased fears of another bifurcation Huawei is a top player at various global organizations that set technical specifications As one of the world s biggest manufacturers of devices like smartphones and the vital parts of networks such as routers and switches Huawei will need to be at the standards setting table to ensure a seamless customer experience when 5G networks become prevalent engineers and experts said NO MORE INFORMAL CHATS Engineers and system architects representing their employers at meetings of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project 3GPP a global consortium of industry associations that aims to set 5G specifications by March 2020 often take formal general discussions into smaller less documented sessions as they try to find agreement with rivals But at 3GPP s meeting last week in California one of the group s three chairmen Balazs Bertenyi of Nokia HE NOKIA told attendees that more of those so called offline conversations than usual would be documented by the standards body with notes and other publicly available records It was the practical implication of the new U S Commerce Department rules given industry wide caution despite the exemption for 5G talks he said Companies want to limit informal exchanges in which their engineers feel more comfortable discussing proprietary technology with rivals to persuade them why their research or innovations are more sound the sources said A separate standards body the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers IEEE put restrictions on Huawei engineers ability to participate in peer reviews for its publications drawing criticism from some in China s industry and elsewhere The organization which declined to comment beyond generic statements on its website then backtracked days later after saying it had received the all clear from the U S Commerce Department with respect to the peer review issue It did not respond to requests for comment on this story Huawei isn t just some company They by many accounts are the leader in 5G technology Excluding them is very hard to work around so it does stand to disrupt the entire project said Jorge Contreras a law professor at the University of Utah and an IEEE member
If the idea is to create a non Chinese 5G I m not sure that s possible Even if it is would it be as good | 6/9/2019 |
MSFT | Top 5 Things to Know in the Market on Thursday | Investing com Central banks around the world make different responses to the Federal Reserve s rate cut U S stocks are set for a lower opening and some fresh saber rattling pushes oil prices back up Here s what you need to know in financial markets on Thursday 19th September
1 Manic monetary Thursday
The global monetary policy easing cycle continued overnight as Indonesia and Hong Kong both cut official interest rates although the more important Bank of Japan left its key rate unchanged and hinted it may ease at its next meeting in October
In Europe the Swiss franc strengthened against both the dollar and the euro after the Swiss National Bank left its key rate unchanged but tweaked the way it will calculate the penalty rate on excess bank reserves going forward a measure it said would reduce the side effects of negative interest rates on banks The Norwegian central bank pulled off what it said it is likely to be its last interest rate hike for the foreseeable future
The Bank of England and South African Reserve Bank are still to announce their monetary policy decisions
The decisions came as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development cut its forecast for global growth this year to 2 9 the lowest in a decade
2 Stocks set to open lower
U S stock markets are set to open lower reversing a late rally at the end of Wednesday s trading that left markets little changed on the day after the Federal Reserve s policy decisions and press conference
By 6 AM ET Dow Futures were down 51 points or 0 2 while the S P 500 Futures contract was also down 0 2 and the Nasdaq 100 Futures contract was down 0 3
Chairman Jerome Powell indicated at his press conference that the Fed didn t expect any significant weakening in the U S economy in the near term That thesis will be tested at 8 30 AM ET when the Philadelphia Fed releases its regular business survey There will also be the weekly initial jobless claims at the same time
3 Fed to soothe money market again
The Federal Reserve is set to hold an overnight repo to ease conditions in the U S money market for a third day running
As it did on Wednesday the Fed will offer a maximum of 75 billion to banks in overnight funds Banks had asked for 80 billion at Wednesday s auction meaning that there was another scramble at the margin for overnight funds on the open market which drove the Fed funds rate up to over 2 30 above the Fed s old target range of 2 2 25
There s still no consensus as to the long term significance of this liquidity squeeze If as many argue the causes are largely technical and short term overnight rates should logically return to their targeted level within days If they don t then the Fed may come under pressure to start buying assets again
4 Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT bumps up dividend buybacks
Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT shares are set to hog the spotlight after the company raised its dividend and expanded the volume of its stock buyback program after the closing bell on Wednesday
The board raised its quarterly dividend by 11 to 51c although that still leaves an implicit annual dividend yield of only 1 5 below the 1 9 average for the S P 500
Additionally the company increased its open ended stock buyback program by another 40 billion or just under 4 of its market capitalization
5 Oil rises again on the tweets of war Iraq report
Oil prices rose again as tweets by Iran s foreign minister revived fears of military conflict in the Gulf only hours after Saudi Arabia and the U S had appeared to play down the near term risk of war
Iran s Javad Zarif told CNN that the Iranian response to any military strike on it by either the U S or Saudi Arabia would be all out war
Iran s Javad Zarif told CNN that the Iranian response to any military strike on it by either the U S or Saudi Arabia would be all out war
The market was also unnerved by reports that Saudi Arabia had asked to buy millions of barrels of crude from Iraq in order to ensure the kingdom meets its commitments to its own customers That was seen as undermining Saudi officials claims that they will rapidly restore output to the level it was at before the attacks on key energy installations at the weekend
By 6 AM WTI crude futures were up 1 7 at 59 02 a barrel while Brent futures were up 2 3 at 65 11 a barrel | 9/19/2019 |
MSFT | Stocks Microsoft Beyond Meat Tesla Rise Premarket Darden Falls | Investing com Stocks in focus in premarket trading on Thursday
United States Steel Corporation NYSE X stock slumped 12 2 in premarket trade by 8 20 AM ET 12 20 GMT after giving weak third quarter guidance due to an unexpected drop in steel prices and weak market conditions in Europe
Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT stock gained 1 2 after after increasing its quarterly dividend by 5 cents bringing it to 0 51 per share The company also announced a new stock buyback worth up to 40 billion
Beyond Meat NASDAQ BYND stock was up 1 8 after the company was rated overweight in new coverage at Barclays LON BARC The analysts said the plant based burger company was in a position to capture a significant share of the market
Tesla NASDAQ TSLA stock inched up 0 4 after its Model 3 became the first Tesla to earn the top safety rating from the Insurance Institute For Highway Safety
Darden Restaurants NYSE DRI stock slipped 2 5 after the parent company of chain Olive Garden reported mixed earnings with revenue coming in below forecasts as comparable restaurant sales rose less than expected
AT T NYSE T stock rose 0 7 after The Wall Street Journal reported that the company is exploring a spinoff of DirecTV either as a standalone or in combination with Dish The news comes only days after activist investor Elliott Management announced a 3 2 billion stake in AT T | 9/19/2019 |
INTC | U S stocks lower at close of trade Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0 87 | Investing com U S stocks were lower after the close on Wednesday as losses in the Utilities Healthcare and Consumer Services sectors led shares lower
At the close in NYSE the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0 87 to hit a new 3 months low while the S P 500 index fell 0 69 and the NASDAQ Composite index lost 0 79
The best performers of the session on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were Intel Corporation NASDAQ INTC which rose 1 51 or 0 66 points to trade at 44 23 at the close Meanwhile Dow Inc NYSE DOW added 0 31 or 0 15 points to end at 48 71 and UnitedHealth Group Incorporated NYSE UNH was up 0 14 or 0 34 points to 242 40 in late trade
The worst performers of the session were Johnson Johnson NYSE JNJ which fell 4 19 or 5 74 points to trade at 131 33 at the close Nike Inc NYSE NKE declined 2 87 or 2 33 points to end at 78 87 and Boeing Co NYSE BA was down 1 71 or 6 08 points to 348 80
The top performers on the S P 500 were Chesapeake Energy Corporation NYSE CHK which rose 10 31 to 2 140 Range Resources Corp NYSE RRC which was up 4 21 to settle at 8 16 and Helmerich and Payne Inc NYSE HP which gained 3 57 to close at 51 00
The worst performers were Capri Holdings Ltd NYSE CPRI which was down 9 85 to 35 06 in late trade L Brands Inc NYSE LB which lost 7 06 to settle at 22 64 and PVH Corp NYSE PVH which was down 6 28 to 99 25 at the close
The top performers on the NASDAQ Composite were Eltek Ltd NASDAQ ELTK which rose 326 83 to 7 000 Obalon Therapeutics Inc NASDAQ OBLN which was up 58 26 to settle at 1 13 and Soliton Inc NASDAQ SOLY which gained 42 62 to close at 20 2800
The worst performers were TuanChe NASDAQ TC which was down 20 00 to 4 24 in late trade Bridgeline Digital Inc NASDAQ BLIN which lost 18 05 to settle at 3 2700 and Hudson Technologies Inc NASDAQ HDSN which was down 16 42 to 1 680 at the close
Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the New York Stock Exchange by 2031 to 962 and 94 ended unchanged on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange 1809 fell and 842 advanced while 87 ended unchanged
Shares in Capri Holdings Ltd NYSE CPRI fell to 52 week lows losing 9 85 or 3 83 to 35 06 Shares in Eltek Ltd NASDAQ ELTK rose to 5 year highs up 326 83 or 5 360 to 7 000 Shares in TuanChe NASDAQ TC fell to all time lows falling 20 00 or 1 06 to 4 24 Shares in Soliton Inc NASDAQ SOLY rose to all time highs gaining 42 62 or 6 0600 to 20 2800
The CBOE Volatility Index which measures the implied volatility of S P 500 options was up 2 29 to 17 90
Gold Futures for June delivery was up 0 15 or 1 95 to 1279 05 a troy ounce Elsewhere in commodities trading Crude oil for delivery in July fell 0 14 or 0 08 to hit 59 06 a barrel while the August Brent oil contract unchanged 0 00 or 0 00 to trade at 68 11 a barrel
EUR USD was up 0 04 to 1 1133 while USD JPY fell 0 02 to 109 56
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0 23 at 98 065 | 5/29/2019 |
INTC | China Targets FedEx in Warning to U S | Bloomberg China targeted FedEx Corp NYSE FDX in its escalating trade war with the U S giving a hint of which foreign companies it may blacklist as unreliable
With Chinese officials due to announce their position on trade talks with the U S on Sunday the investigation into FedEx s wrongful delivery of packages was framed as a warning by Beijing after the Trump administration imposed a ban on business with telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co
The latest salvo signals there s no detente in sight in the struggle between the world s two biggest economies at a time when trade talks have broken down Chinese retaliatory tariffs on U S imports kicked in Saturday in Beijing affecting more than 2 400 goods that face levies of as much as 25 compared with 10 previously
FedEx apologized this week for delivery errors on Huawei packages following reports that parcels were returned to senders and China s biggest tech company said it s reviewing its relationship with the U S delivery service Two packages containing documents being shipped to the company in China from Japan were diverted to the U S without authorization Reuters reported
China opened a probe because FedEx violated Chinese laws and regulations and harmed customers by misdirecting packages the state run Xinhua News Agency said Saturday
A Warning
Now that China has established a list of unreliable entities the investigation into FedEx will be a warning to other foreign companies and individuals that violate Chinese laws and regulations China Central Television said in a commentary
China said Friday it will draw up a list of unreliable entities that harm the interests of Chinese companies That opens the door to targeting a broad swathe of the global tech industry from U S giants like Alphabet NASDAQ GOOGL Inc s Google Qualcomm NASDAQ QCOM Inc and Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC to non American suppliers that have cut off Huawei such as Toshiba and Arm
Xinhua used two hashtags in Weibo posts on the FedEx probe ChinaUSTrade and RetaliateAgainstUSTradeBullying
China will publish a white paper on its position on trade talks with the U S on Sunday in Beijing The document will be released at 10 a m on Sunday and Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen will take questions according to an official statement
Markets Rattled
Trade tensions are spilling ever wider raising concern about the impact on the global economy Bloomberg reported on Friday that China has a plan to restrict exports of rare earths to the U S if it needs to On another front President Donald Trump said he plans to impose a 5 U S tariff on all Mexican goods over illegal immigration
With markets roiled by the threats and rhetoric on trade the S P 500 had its worst month of May in seven years Investors are now looking to a meeting between U S President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the end of the month at the Group of 20 Summit in Osaka for a possible rapprochement and easing of trade tensions
Trump may ask Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to meet with Chinese officials while in Japan next week amid an escalating trade dispute between the two countries White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said | 6/1/2019 |
INTC | FedEx Drops After Being Caught Up in China U S Spat | Bloomberg FedEx Corp NYSE FDX dropped in pre market New York trading as investors assessed the impact of a Chinese probe that puts the delivery company in the middle of an escalating trade conflict with the U S
China said Saturday that it s investigating FedEx for wrongful deliveries a move framed by the state news agency as a warning by Beijing after the Trump administration declared a ban on business with telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co
FedEx shares traded as low as 148 45 in pre market activity 3 8 below their close on Friday and changed hands at 149 13 as of 5 55 a m in New York The stock last closed below that level in June 2016
China said it s drawing up a list of unreliable entities that harm the interests of local companies That opens the door to targeting a broad swath of the global tech industry from U S giants like Alphabet NASDAQ GOOGL Inc s Google Qualcomm NASDAQ QCOM Inc and Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC to non American suppliers that have cut off Huawei such as Toshiba Corp and SoftBank Group s ARM Holdings LON ARM
A Chinese official said on Sunday that the government is firmly against the U S s long arm jurisdiction on Huawei while downplaying concerns that the planned list of unreliable entities will be used to target foreign companies as a retaliation tool in the trade war
FedEx which had already felt the impact of China s slowing economy due to trade tensions apologized for errors involving Huawei packages following reports that parcels were returned to senders China s biggest tech company said it s reviewing its relationship with the U S delivery service Two packages containing documents being shipped to the company in China from Japan were diverted to the U S without authorization Reuters reported
China opened a probe because FedEx violated Chinese laws and regulations and harmed customers by misdirecting packages Xinhua said Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen said Sunday that there s no grounds to blame China for starting the investigation into FedEx China Central Television said in a commentary the probe will be a warning to other foreign companies and individuals that violate Chinese laws and regulations
FedEx said it values its business in China and its relationship with Chinese clients including Huawei FedEx will fully cooperate with any regulatory investigation into how we serve our customers the company said in a statement Saturday
With markets roiled by the threats and rhetoric on trade the S P 500 had its worst month of May in seven years Investors are now looking to a meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the end of the month at the Group of 20 Summit in Osaka for a possible rapprochement and easing of trade tensions
Corrects share move in second deck headline | 6/3/2019 |
INTC | Stocks Wall Street Rallies on Hopes for Lower Rates Easing Trade Tensions | Investing com Stocks soared to their highest levels in the last four weeks in part because of perceived bad news about the economy that could lead to lower interest rates and hopes that Mexico and the United States can strike a deal over border security
The result was that the S P 500 closed up 1 the Nasdaq Composite jumped 1 66 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1 led by Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT Apple NASDAQ AAPL and Intel NASDAQ INTC
Microsoft up 2 8 finished with a market capitalization of about 1 trillion tops among U S stocks Today was Microsoft s second close with a 1 trillion market cap this year The first was in April when the S P 500 Nasdaq and Nasdaq 100 all hit record highs
The major averages finished with the biggest one week gains since November with the S P 500 up 4 5 the Nasdaq up 4 and the Dow up 4 8 The S P 500 ended the week down 2 6 from its April peak The Nasdaq is still off 5 22 from its April high The Dow is still off 3 48 from its October 2018 all time high
The rally pushed along by heavy computerized trading was fueled by bad news May nonfarm payrolls grew by only 75 000 while the national unemployment rate held at 3 6 same as in April Growth in payrolls has slowed slowly but surely since last summer with economists suggesting the cause is the fading effects of the Trump tax bills
The weak report increased speculation the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates to help the economy Investing com s Fed Rate Monitor Tool suggests an 80 chance of lower rates by September The Fed s key rate is 2 25 to 2 5 Interest rates moved lower The 10 year Treasury yield fell to 2 084 the lowest level since November 2016 ahd the dollar fell against major currencies
There was good news too in the possibility of some sort of deal so the Trump administration won t impose new tariffs on goods shipped to the US from Mexico
Oil prices also moved higher by more than 2 in part because Saudi Arabia was pushing for production cuts among OPEC members and their allies for the rest of the year Crude oil WTI futures finished up 2 66 to 53 99 barrel Brent the global benchmark was up 2 63 to 63 29 a barrel
The rally was big and especially broad among tech stocks Microsoft Apple Amazon com NASDAQ AMZN Facebook NASDAQ FB and Google parent Alphabet NASDAQ GOOGL were responsible for about 55 of the Nasdaq 100 s 1 94 gain
The week ahead doesn t have a lot of market moving events on schedule The biggest earnings report is Broadcom NASDAQ AVGO due after Thursday s close and the May report on retail sales due before Friday s open
That said the ongoing battles over trade and tariffs will be front and center next week and could well induce more volatility | 6/7/2019 |
INTC | U S stocks lower at close of trade Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0 87 | Investing com U S stocks were lower after the close on Wednesday as losses in the Utilities Healthcare and Consumer Services sectors led shares lower
At the close in NYSE the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0 87 to hit a new 3 months low while the S P 500 index lost 0 69 and the NASDAQ Composite index fell 0 79
The best performers of the session on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were Intel Corporation NASDAQ INTC which rose 1 51 or 0 66 points to trade at 44 23 at the close Meanwhile Dow Inc NYSE DOW added 0 31 or 0 15 points to end at 48 71 and UnitedHealth Group Incorporated NYSE UNH was up 0 14 or 0 34 points to 242 40 in late trade
The worst performers of the session were Johnson Johnson NYSE JNJ which fell 4 19 or 5 74 points to trade at 131 33 at the close Nike Inc NYSE NKE declined 2 87 or 2 33 points to end at 78 87 and Boeing Co NYSE BA was down 1 71 or 6 08 points to 348 80
The top performers on the S P 500 were Chesapeake Energy Corporation NYSE CHK which rose 10 31 to 2 140 Range Resources Corp NYSE RRC which was up 4 21 to settle at 8 16 and Helmerich and Payne Inc NYSE HP which gained 3 57 to close at 51 00
The worst performers were Capri Holdings Ltd NYSE CPRI which was down 9 85 to 35 06 in late trade L Brands Inc NYSE LB which lost 7 06 to settle at 22 64 and PVH Corp NYSE PVH which was down 6 28 to 99 25 at the close
The top performers on the NASDAQ Composite were Eltek Ltd NASDAQ ELTK which rose 326 83 to 7 000 Obalon Therapeutics Inc NASDAQ OBLN which was up 58 26 to settle at 1 13 and Soliton Inc NASDAQ SOLY which gained 42 62 to close at 20 2800
The worst performers were TuanChe NASDAQ TC which was down 20 00 to 4 24 in late trade Bridgeline Digital Inc NASDAQ BLIN which lost 18 05 to settle at 3 2700 and Hudson Technologies Inc NASDAQ HDSN which was down 16 42 to 1 680 at the close
Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the New York Stock Exchange by 2031 to 962 and 94 ended unchanged on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange 1809 fell and 842 advanced while 87 ended unchanged
Shares in Capri Holdings Ltd NYSE CPRI fell to 52 week lows falling 9 85 or 3 83 to 35 06 Shares in Eltek Ltd NASDAQ ELTK rose to 5 year highs up 326 83 or 5 360 to 7 000 Shares in TuanChe NASDAQ TC fell to all time lows falling 20 00 or 1 06 to 4 24 Shares in Soliton Inc NASDAQ SOLY rose to all time highs up 42 62 or 6 0600 to 20 2800
The CBOE Volatility Index which measures the implied volatility of S P 500 options was up 2 29 to 17 90
Gold Futures for June delivery was up 0 15 or 1 95 to 1279 05 a troy ounce Elsewhere in commodities trading Crude oil for delivery in July fell 0 14 or 0 08 to hit 59 06 a barrel while the August Brent oil contract unchanged 0 00 or 0 00 to trade at 68 11 a barrel
EUR USD was up 0 04 to 1 1133 while USD JPY fell 0 02 to 109 56
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0 23 at 98 065 | 5/29/2019 |
INTC | Wall St propped up by gains in technology shares | By Amy Caren Daniel Reuters U S stocks rose slightly on Tuesday propped up by a rise in technology stocks but the likelihood of a protracted trade war between the United States and China kept investors on edge Trump on Monday said he was not yet ready to make a deal with China but he expected one in the future The back and forth on tariffs between the two sides has sparked worries that the trade war would lead to a global economic slowdown There is not a lot of news and not a lot of hope on U S China trade at the moment but it s also not getting worse so that is what is helping the markets said Rob Haworth senior investment strategist at U S Bank Wealth Management in Seattle The uncertainty has pushed investors toward safe haven assets which resulted in benchmark U S Treasury yields dropping to its lowest level since October 2017 The rate sensitive banking sector dropped 0 26 while the broader financial sector fell 0 09 and weighed on the S P 500 index What you re seeing is kind of an over sold bounce we ll see over the course of the day if that holds said Michael Antonelli market strategist at Robert W Baird in Milwaukee The benchmark S P 500 index as of Friday s close was about 4 away from its record high hit on May 1 while the blue chip Dow Jones Industrial index posted its fifth straight week of decline The technology sector which is among the worst performing S P sectors this month rose 0 66 helped by a 6 1 jump in Total System Services Inc NYSE TSS Global Payments Inc said it would buy the payment technology company for about 21 5 billion in stock Its shares declined 1 7 Markets were also helped by gains in marquee stocks including Facebook Inc NASDAQ FB Amazon com NASDAQ AMZN Netflix NASDAQ NFLX and Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT which rose over 1 each At 12 14 p m ET the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 31 07 points or 0 12 at 25 616 76 The S P 500 was up 5 40 points or 0 19 at 2 831 46 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 37 34 points or 0 49 at 7 674 35 Among other stocks Activision Blizzard Inc NASDAQ ATVI rose 3 6 after Goldman Sachs NYSE GS upgraded its shares to buy and said the videogame publisher would benefit from its recent releases Advanced Micro Devices NASDAQ AMD jumped 10 5 and also helped lift the tech sector after the chipmaker launched new computing and graphics products on Sunday Rival Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC fell 2 0 FedEx Corp NYSE FDX slipped 0 8 after Huawei Technologies Co Ltd said it is reviewing its relationship with the U S package delivery company after it diverted two parcels destined for Huawei addresses in Asia to the United States Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1 08 to 1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1 05 to 1 ratio on the Nasdaq
The S P index recorded 17 new 52 week highs and 10 new lows while the Nasdaq recorded 44 new highs and 83 new lows | 5/28/2019 |
INTC | Stocks S P Slips as Trump Sparks Fears of Prolonged Trade War | Investing com U S stocks closed lower Tuesday on rising fears of a prolonged U S China trade war after President Donald Trump said the U S was not ready to make a trade deal
The S P 500 fell 0 84 The Nasdaq Composite lost 0 39 and the Dow slumped 0 93
I think they probably wish they made the deal that they had on the table before they tried to renegotiate it Trump said Monday at a joint press conference in Tokyo alongside Japanese leader Shinzo Abe They would like to make a deal We re not ready to make a deal
The latest update on trade comes in the wake of escalating U S China tensions after Trump hiked tariffs on 200 billion of Chinese goods from 10 to 25
Beijing hit back by raising tariffs on 60 billion worth of American products
The increasing investor jitters over U S China trade put U S Treasury yields on the back foot as they fell to their lowest level since September 2017 forcing banking stocks lower
JPMorgan NYSE JPM Bank of America NYSE BAC and Goldman Sachs NYSE GS closed lower keeping the broader financials in the red
Falling energy stocks also contributed to the slump despite a rise in oil prices on expectations for reduced domestic supplies after flooding dented crude flow distributions from the main U S storage hub in Cushing Okla
In tech chipmakers which are particularly vulnerable to the ongoing U S China trade war remained under pressure though Advanced Micro Devices NASDAQ AMD proved an exception to the overall decline
AMD rallied 9 8 after announcing the launch of several 7nm products across all markets within the next six months
Rival chipmaker Intel NASDAQ INTC fell nearly 2 5 on the news as Cowen analyst Matthew Ramsey said that with AMD set to launch 7nm Ryzen 3 PC and Rome server CPUs in mid 2019 Intel will no longer be able to rely on its n node silicon advantage and will instead lean on its incumbency and breadth of silicon as its 10nm chips are not expected out until late 2019 in PCs and 2020 in servers
In other company news Fiat Chrysler NYSE FCAU accelerated 7 after proposing a merger with Renault PA RENA in a bid to form the world s third largest automaker Ford Motor NYSE F and General Motors NYSE GM both fell
In economic news U S consumer confidence overshot economists expectations rising to a six month high on the back of ongoing strength in the labor market
Top S P 500 Gainers and Losers Today
Advanced Micro Devices Total System Services NYSE TSS and Activision Blizzard NASDAQ ATVI were among the top S P 500 gainers for the session
Kraft Heinz NASDAQ KHC Mylan NASDAQ MYL and Perrigo Company NYSE PRGO were among the worst S P 500 performers of the session | 5/28/2019 |
INTC | U S stocks lower at close of trade Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0 93 | Investing com U S stocks were lower after the close on Tuesday as losses in the Consumer Goods Utilities and Healthcare sectors led shares lower
At the close in NYSE the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0 93 while the S P 500 index declined 0 84 and the NASDAQ Composite index fell 0 39
The best performers of the session on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were Visa Inc Class A NYSE V which rose 0 66 or 1 07 points to trade at 163 71 at the close Meanwhile Boeing Co NYSE BA fell 0 01 or 0 02 points to end at 354 88 and Pfizer Inc NYSE PFE was down 0 12 or 0 05 points to 41 90 in late trade
The worst performers of the session were UnitedHealth Group Incorporated NYSE UNH which fell 2 25 or 5 57 points to trade at 242 06 at the close Intel Corporation NASDAQ INTC declined 2 24 or 1 00 points to end at 43 57 and Procter Gamble Company NYSE PG was down 2 09 or 2 23 points to 104 46
The top performers on the S P 500 were Advanced Micro Devices Inc NASDAQ AMD which rose 9 80 to 29 03 Total System Services Inc NYSE TSS which was up 4 75 to settle at 118 84 and Activision Blizzard Inc NASDAQ ATVI which gained 2 86 to close at 43 50
The worst performers were Kraft Heinz Co NASDAQ KHC which was down 6 59 to 29 06 in late trade Pacific Gas Electric Co NYSE PCG which lost 5 84 to settle at 17 73 and Perrigo Company PLC NYSE PRGO which was down 5 70 to 44 65 at the close
The top performers on the NASDAQ Composite were Soliton Inc NASDAQ SOLY which rose 148 17 to 14 2200 Exela Technologies Inc NASDAQ XELA which was up 43 11 to settle at 2 39 and Yintech Investment Holdings Ltd NASDAQ YIN which gained 27 51 to close at 6 35
The worst performers were Kezar Life Sciences Inc NASDAQ KZR which was down 41 39 to 9 90 in late trade GWG Holdings Inc NASDAQ GWGH which lost 21 32 to settle at 11 00 and AGM Group Holdings Inc Class A NASDAQ AGMH which was down 17 69 to 14 05 at the close
Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the New York Stock Exchange by 2020 to 970 and 106 ended unchanged on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange 1687 fell and 976 advanced while 88 ended unchanged
Shares in Kraft Heinz Co NASDAQ KHC fell to 5 year lows down 6 59 or 2 05 to 29 06 Shares in Total System Services Inc NYSE TSS rose to all time highs gaining 4 75 or 5 39 to 118 84 Shares in Kezar Life Sciences Inc NASDAQ KZR fell to all time lows losing 41 39 or 6 99 to 9 90
The CBOE Volatility Index which measures the implied volatility of S P 500 options was up 10 41 to 17 50
Gold Futures for June delivery was down 0 39 or 4 95 to 1278 65 a troy ounce Elsewhere in commodities trading Crude oil for delivery in July rose 0 72 or 0 42 to hit 59 05 a barrel while the August Brent oil contract rose 0 06 or 0 04 to trade at 68 68 a barrel
EUR USD was up 0 02 to 1 1162 while USD JPY rose 0 01 to 109 38
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0 39 at 97 855 | 5/28/2019 |
INTC | U S stocks lower at close of trade Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0 93 | Investing com U S stocks were lower after the close on Tuesday as losses in the Consumer Goods Utilities and Healthcare sectors led shares lower
At the close in NYSE the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0 93 while the S P 500 index lost 0 84 and the NASDAQ Composite index declined 0 39
The best performers of the session on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were Visa Inc Class A NYSE V which rose 0 66 or 1 07 points to trade at 163 71 at the close Meanwhile Boeing Co NYSE BA fell 0 01 or 0 02 points to end at 354 88 and Pfizer Inc NYSE PFE was down 0 12 or 0 05 points to 41 90 in late trade
The worst performers of the session were UnitedHealth Group Incorporated NYSE UNH which fell 2 25 or 5 57 points to trade at 242 06 at the close Intel Corporation NASDAQ INTC declined 2 24 or 1 00 points to end at 43 57 and Procter Gamble Company NYSE PG was down 2 09 or 2 23 points to 104 46
The top performers on the S P 500 were Advanced Micro Devices Inc NASDAQ AMD which rose 9 80 to 29 03 Total System Services Inc NYSE TSS which was up 4 75 to settle at 118 84 and Activision Blizzard Inc NASDAQ ATVI which gained 2 86 to close at 43 50
The worst performers were Kraft Heinz Co NASDAQ KHC which was down 6 59 to 29 06 in late trade Pacific Gas Electric Co NYSE PCG which lost 5 84 to settle at 17 73 and Perrigo Company PLC NYSE PRGO which was down 5 70 to 44 65 at the close
The top performers on the NASDAQ Composite were Soliton Inc NASDAQ SOLY which rose 148 17 to 14 2200 Exela Technologies Inc NASDAQ XELA which was up 43 11 to settle at 2 39 and Yintech Investment Holdings Ltd NASDAQ YIN which gained 27 51 to close at 6 35
The worst performers were Kezar Life Sciences Inc NASDAQ KZR which was down 41 39 to 9 90 in late trade GWG Holdings Inc NASDAQ GWGH which lost 21 32 to settle at 11 00 and AGM Group Holdings Inc Class A NASDAQ AGMH which was down 17 69 to 14 05 at the close
Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the New York Stock Exchange by 2020 to 970 and 106 ended unchanged on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange 1687 fell and 976 advanced while 88 ended unchanged
Shares in Kraft Heinz Co NASDAQ KHC fell to 5 year lows losing 6 59 or 2 05 to 29 06 Shares in Total System Services Inc NYSE TSS rose to all time highs rising 4 75 or 5 39 to 118 84 Shares in Kezar Life Sciences Inc NASDAQ KZR fell to all time lows losing 41 39 or 6 99 to 9 90
The CBOE Volatility Index which measures the implied volatility of S P 500 options was up 10 41 to 17 50
Gold Futures for June delivery was down 0 39 or 4 95 to 1278 65 a troy ounce Elsewhere in commodities trading Crude oil for delivery in July rose 0 72 or 0 42 to hit 59 05 a barrel while the August Brent oil contract rose 0 06 or 0 04 to trade at 68 68 a barrel
EUR USD was up 0 02 to 1 1162 while USD JPY rose 0 01 to 109 38
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0 39 at 97 855 | 5/28/2019 |
INTC | Huawei holds on to No 2 smartphone spot in first quarter report | Reuters Chinese telecom company Huawei held on to its spot as the world s second biggest smartphone vendor in the first quarter before being blacklisted by the United States research and advisory firm Gartner said Gartner also said Huawei continued to reduce the gap with Samsung KS 005930 but warned that growth could be limited in the near term The United States on May 15 blocked Huawei from buying U S goods saying the company was involved in activities contrary to national security The Trump administration softened its stance last week by granting Huawei a license to buy U S goods until Aug 19 Gartner said Samsung retained its top spot in worldwide smartphone sales achieving a 19 2 market share in the first quarter of 2019 Huawei achieved the highest year over year growth among the world s top five Samsung Huawei Apple NASDAQ AAPL and Chinese smartphone makers OPPO and Vivo Huawei sold 58 4 million smartphone units in the quarter with growth across all regions the report showed Total global sales of smartphones to end users fell 2 7 in the quarter with 373 million units sold Huawei did particularly well in two of its biggest markets Europe and Greater China where its smartphone sales grew by 69 and 33 respectively Huawei has a 29 5 market share of Greater China s smartphone market But the impact of the U S action against Huawei is likely to spook buyers PriceSpy a product comparison site that attracts an average of 14 million visitors per month said last week that Huawei handsets were drawing fewer clicks from online shoppers Unavailability of Google NASDAQ GOOGL apps and services on Huawei smartphones if implemented will upset Huawei s international smartphone business which is almost half of its worldwide phone business Anshul Gupta senior research director at Gartner said Not the least it brings apprehension among buyers limiting Huawei s growth in the near term he added Companies that have either shunned Huawei completely or restricted buying from the company include Google Softbank s ARM Analog Devices NASDAQ ADI U S chipmakers Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC Qualcomm NASDAQ QCOM Inc Xilinx Inc NASDAQ XLNX Broadcom NASDAQ AVGO Inc Japanese electronics maker Panasonic Corp and BT Group s EE
This story corrects headline and lead to make clear ban came in to force after the first quarter | 5/28/2019 |
INTC | Qualcomm asks U S judge to put anti trust ruling on hold while chipmaker appeals | By Stephen Nellis Reuters Qualcomm NASDAQ QCOM Inc on Tuesday asked a federal judge not to enforce her decision that it illegally squeezed out rivals in the smartphone chips market as it plans to file an appeal that could take more than a year to wind through the courts In a filing in federal court in San Jose California Qualcomm said that it believes it can succeed in appealing the May 21 decision by U S District Judge Lucy Koh in an antitrust case brought by the U S Federal Trade Commission in January 2017 The company has not yet filed that appeal Tuesday s filing only concerns whether the ruling s provisions will be put on hold temporarily as it plays out Qualcomm argued that Koh s ruling raised serious legal questions because among other things she excluded evidence after a March 2018 cutoff date including the fact that Apple Inc NASDAQ AAPL dropped Qualcomm in favor of rival chip supplier Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC showing that Qualcomm did not have a stranglehold on the market Qualcomm also said that the FTC s theory in the lawsuit that Qualcomm s patent licensing practices amounted to a tax on smart phone makers generating profits that Qualcomm then put to work undercutting its rivals was unprecedented in antitrust law Qualcomm said Koh s ruling would force it to rework its license deals and even offer deals to rival chip suppliers scrambling its business in a way that would be impossible to unwind if it wins on appeal Qualcomm shares shot up 23 in April when it resolved a legal conflict with Apple but then declined 15 after Koh s ruling After radically restructuring its business relationships Qualcomm will not be able to return to its pre injunction business in an orderly fashion the company said Nor will it be able to unwind licensing agreements it has renegotiated in the shadow of an order that is later overturned FTC officials did not immediately return a request for comment Hours before the filing FTC Commissioner Christine Wilson who was appointed by President Donald Trump wrote a commentary in the Wall Street Journal calling Koh s ruling alarming and calling for it to be revisited Speaking for myself and not for the FTC or any other commissioner I encourage higher courts to reconsider the wisdom of the judge s conclusions Wilson wrote In the interim I write to make clear to businesses fellow antitrust enforcers abroad and law students my opinion that this ruling is both bad law and bad policy San Diego based Qualcomm makes cellphone processors and modem chips but generates most of its profit by licensing its technology to mobile phone makers Koh ruled that Qualcomm s patent licensing practices had strangled competition and directed the company to renegotiate licensing agreements with customers at fair prices without threatening to cut off supplies She also ruled that Qualcomm must offer to license its patents on fair terms to rival chipmakers such as MediaTek Inc Qualcomm currently licenses its patents to device makers Shifting to licensing to other chip suppliers could reduce Qualcomm s royalties from as much as 20 per phone to just a few dollars per device The judge also said Qualcomm could not enter exclusivity agreements that block rivals from selling chips to smartphone makers such as Apple and Samsung Electronics KS 005930 Co Ltd Koh required Qualcomm to be monitored for seven years to ensure it complied with her remedies If Koh reject s Qualcomm s request to put the ruling on hold during the appeals process Qualcomm will then ask the U S Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to do the same The company s appeal on the legal merits of the ruling will proceed even if it loses its request to put its provisions on hold as the process plays out Qualcomm had argued during a 10 day non jury trial before Koh in January that it became dominant in the market for smartphone chips through technological leadership not freezing out rivals | 5/28/2019 |
INTC | MediaTek aims to take on Qualcomm with new 5G chip | By Stephen Nellis Reuters Taiwan based chip supplier MediaTek Inc on Wednesday released a new 5G chip for fast high end smartphones that aims to take on much larger rival Qualcomm NASDAQ QCOM Inc MediaTek is best know for making chips that go into smart speaker devices such as Amazon com NASDAQ AMZN Inc s Echo units and for making the chips inside the more basic Android phones Qualcomm s older chips also find their way into some of those low priced phones but the San Diego company is better known for supplying high powered chips to more expensive Android phones such as Google s Pixel With a new chip unveiled at the Computex trade show in Taiwan MediaTek is targeting the more powerful phones currently supplied by Qualcomm The chip will contain MediaTek s 5G modem which connects phones to the next generation of wireless data networks rolling out this year and next MediaTek s new chip combines that modem with the latest processor core technology from Softbank Group Corp owned Arm Holdings By building in high powered processors as well as computing cores for things like artificial intelligence MediaTek is seeking to challenge Qualcomm s market dominance However Qualcomm has a head start In February it announced its second generation 5G chip for smartphones Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and Samsung Electronics KS 005930 Co Ltd are also developing 5G chips supplying their own phones Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC which had been supplying modems for Apple NASDAQ AAPL Inc s iPhone said it would exit the 5G modem business after Apple inked a chip supply deal with Qualcomm in April Qualcomm s chip also handles the two variants of 5G networks so called sub 6 and millimeter wave bands That means that phones using its chip will work on any carrier s 5G networks MediaTek s chip by contrast currently handles only sub 6 variants of 5G networks That helps keep its costs down MediaTek officials said But it also means it will not work on all 5G networks from carriers such as Verizon Communications Inc NYSE VZ and AT T Inc NYSE T that use millimeter wave technology
Russ Mestechkin MediaTek s senior director of sales and business development for the U S and Latin America told Reuters the company was confident its chip could compete in the market for phones designed to work on networks that only use sub 6 technology such as those from Sprint Corp and T Mobile US Inc in the United States and many Chinese networks | 5/29/2019 |
MSFT | SAP chief says German headquarters an advantage amid U S China trade war | By Stephen Nellis
SAN FRANCISCO Reuters German business software company SAP SE DE SAPG has an edge over its U S rivals because it faces potentially fewer restrictions on doing business with China Chief Executive Bill McDermott said in an interview
SAP which makes financial management and human resources software for large businesses is targeting large state owned enterprises in China as customers despite the ongoing trade war between the United States and China McDermott told Reuters
Some of SAP s U S based rivals such as Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT have been barred from doing business with Chinese firms such as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd Other American firms such as Cisco Systems Inc NASDAQ CSCO say Chinese state owned firms will no longer allow them to bid on contracts because of trade tensions
The fact that Germany has excellent relations at the public and the private sector level in China it s no question it s a help to us McDermott said in an interview in San Francisco on Sept 6
SAP with a market capitalization of 131 3 billion euros 145 billion does not disclose its revenues from China But the company does face trade war risks because if enough of a software product s content comes from the United States export restrictions can apply
SAP spent more than 10 billion last year acquiring two American software firms Callidus Software and Qualtrics But McDermott the first American chief of the German firm said SAP has made no changes to where it makes its software in response to trade tensions
If you have more than 25 of U S driven innovation in the software we comply with the same rules as a U S company he said There are many solutions that we have where that isn t the case We haven t foundationally changed our development process in anticipation of a no deal between China and the U S yet
UNEVEN MARGIN GROWTH
After a spate of acquisitions in recent years SAP has gone into cost cutting mode implementing layoffs earlier this year and committing to a goal of boosting operating margins by 500 basis points over the next five years
McDermott told Reuters that the progress could be uneven because it will take time for job cuts made this year to take effect
You get the bigger leverage when you get into year two and beyond he said
Activist hedge fund investor Elliot Management Corp also took a stake in SAP earlier this year which analysts believe has put pressure on the company to announce a share repurchase program at a capital markets day in November
McDermott said SAP has not yet determined how large or even whether a share repurchase will be announced because the company s leaders are still gathering information to present to its supervisory board which includes worker representatives and must approve major decisions
We haven t made a decision on quantity or whether it s zero or it s something in a range because we haven t even presented yet he said We are taking a very diligent look at it | 9/9/2019 |
MSFT | Investing in climate adaptation can spur trillions in benefits report | By Valerie Volcovici
WASHINGTON Reuters Investing 1 8 trillion between 2020 and 2030 in projects to help communities adapt to the worsening impacts of climate change could yield 7 1 trillion in economic benefits according to a report released on Tuesday by a high level international commission
The report was written by the Global Commission on Adaptation a group of political and business leaders led by former U N Secretary General Ban Ki moon Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT founder Bill Gates and World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva which was tasked with raising the visibility of climate adaptation on the global agenda ahead of the upcoming UN Climate Action Summit in New York on Sept 23
The commission urges governments to invest more in climate adaptation because it is not happening at the pace and scale required to address the worsening impacts of climate change and said the return on investments in building up climate resilience can range from 2 1 to 10 1
Adaptation is not only the right thing to do it is also the smart thing to do to boost economic growth and create a climate resilient world Ban said in a statement
The report highlights five areas where investment is needed most urgently early warning systems climate resilient infrastructure and water resources dryland agriculture and mangrove protection
Gates who chairs the international development focused Gates Foundation with his wife Melinda said millions of smallholder farmers and their families in developing countries are among the most vulnerable to extreme changes in temperature and rainfall which lowers their crop yields
With greater support for innovation we can unlock new opportunities and spur change across the global ecosystem he said
The report said that climate adaptation delivers a triple dividend by avoiding future losses spurring innovation and delivering social and environmental benefits | 9/10/2019 |
MSFT | Stocks U S Futures Tick Lower After Bleak Data | Investing com U S futures were lower on Tuesday as data from Asia confirmed that the global economy is continuing to slow down
Nasdaq 100 futures fell 19 points or 0 3 by 6 42 AM ET 10 42 GMT while Dow futures lost 37 points or 0 1 and S P 500 futures were down 4 points or 0 2
Data overnight showed that Chinese producer prices fell at its fastest rate in three years in August while orders to machine tool makers in Japan fell to their lowest level since 2009
U S China trade tensions have yet to be resolved making it more likely the U S economy will enter a recession analysts at Deutsche Bank DE DBKGn said
Recent data suggest that trade tensions may already be moving the economy close to a tipping point the analysts wrote It is now our view that at this point only a meaningful de escalation or reversal of trade tensions is likely to be enough to short circuit this downtrend
There was also gloomy news closer to home as the NFIB index of confidence at small businesses fell to its lowest in five months
Technology stocks were lower in premarket trade with Netflix NASDAQ NFLX inching down 0 1 Facebook NASDAQ FB falling 0 5 and Microsoft Corporation NASDAQ MSFT down 0 7
Facebook and Google NASDAQ GOOGL were in focus on news that the tech companies face four separate antitrust investigations in an effort to look into whether or not the bigger technology firms should be broken up Across the Atlantic the European Union confirmed that it had reappointed Margrete Vestager who has led imposed some punitive fines on U S tech giants over the last five years for another terms as antitrust commissioner
Elsewhere UBS Group NYSE UBS jumped 2 4 while Seadrill NYSE SDRL gained 8 4
In commodities crude oil rose 0 6 to 58 19 a barrel Gold futures were down 0 6 to 1 501 85 a troy ounce while the U S dollar index which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies was up 0 1 to 98 403 | 9/10/2019 |
MSFT | EU antitrust chief Vestager gets another five year term with more powers | By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS Reuters Europe s antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager will retain her job for another five years but with more powers to go after Facebook NASDAQ FB Apple NASDAQ AAPL and Amazon NASDAQ AMZN and their massive hoovering up of consumer data
Incoming European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen on Tuesday named Vestager as European competition commissioner tasked with making Europe fit for the digital age for the 2019 2024 period giving her an unprecedented second term in an influential position
Appointed to her post in 2014 the former Danish economics minister quickly set her sights on U S tech giants eventually handing out more than 8 billion euros in fines to Alphabet NASDAQ GOOGL unit Google for throttling rivals
She also launched a crackdown on tax avoidance by multinationals and ordered i Phone maker Apple to pay some 13 billion euros in back taxes to Ireland related to an illegal sweetheart tax deal Similar orders also went out to Starbucks NASDAQ SBUX Amazon McDonald s and others
That earned her the ire of U S President Donald Trump who called her Europe s tax lady
Vestager said she did not intend to rest on her laurels
It s a big task And the other thing is also that the next five years of the competition portfolio will be different from the last five years she told Reuters TV
Ongoing cases which Vestager is looking into include Facebook s use of data to its proposed Libra cryptocurrency and Amazon s use of merchant data to make copycat products to Apple s apps fees
The tech industry should beware said James Aitken partner at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
Vestager will be particularly well placed to take forward the proposals made by the panel of digital experts published in April this year to strengthen scrutiny of digital markets and companies he said
The telecoms industry could see a tougher line toward mergers said a trader
She has blocked a number of telco deals and just when they really need consolidation to get better economics and to reverse the trend of declining ROIs over the last decade this is really bad news for the industry the trader said
Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT forced to change its business practices and penalized close to 2 billion euros after a 10 year battle with EU antitrust enforcers welcomed Vestager s reappointment
We congratulate Executive Vice President designate Vestager on her nomination to oversee a Europe Fit for Digital Age the company said
Vestager together with other candidates for other posts will be grilled by the European Parliament and the entire Commission must secure EU lawmakers approval before taking office in November | 9/10/2019 |
MSFT | NewsBreak Stocks Trim Early Losses Apple Flat Ahead of Product Event | Investing com Stocks were climbing out of an early hole Tuesday afternoon led by gains in industrial and energy stocks
The Dow Jones Industrial Average once down as many as 118 points briefly moved into the positive but was basically flat The S P 500 was off 0 25 after falling as many as 21 points The Nasdaq Composite was off 0 25 after falling as many as 86 points
Interest rates were higher with the 10 Year Treasury yield at 1 685 up from 1 622 on Monday Oil prices were down slightly
Tech stocks were mostly lower although Apple NASDAQ AAPL was up slightly ahead of its event to unveil new iPhone models and other new products Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT and Adobe Systems NASDAQ ADBE were off more than 1 | 9/10/2019 |
MSFT | Stocks Higher Rates Tech Weakness Limit Wall Street Gains | Investing com Stocks struggled for most of the day until a late round of buying offset rising interest rates and weakness in big tech stocks
The S P 500 turned a small loss into a 1 point gain or 0 03 The Dow Jones industrials rose 0 3 or 74 points
Meanwhile the Nasdaq Composite fell 0 04 The Nasdaq 100 index dropped 0 23 in part because of Apple s announcement of pricing for its new TV streaming and game services Netflix NASDAQ NFLX Amazon com NASDAQ AMZN Roku NASDAQ ROKU and Walt Disney NYSE DIS which isn t a part of the Nasdaq 100 index were all lower
Apple NASDAQ AAPL moved up about 1 2 adding 9 7 points to the Nasdaq 100 s performance on the day and 17 points to the Dow sixth most among the 30 stocks in the index Boeing NYSE BA up 3 added 72 6 points by itself
Chemical maker Dow Inc NYSE DOW Boeing and Caterpillar NYSE CAT were the biggest Dow gainers McDonald s NYSE MCD Visa NYSE V and Disney were the weakest Dow stocks on the day
Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT Facebook NASDAQ FB Amazon and Starbucks NASDAQ SBUX were all lower and contributed 23 points of losses to the Nasdaq 100 which closed down 17 7 points
Starbucks fell on reports of an SEC dispute with some of its accounting practices Expanded disclosures will be included in its next earnings report
Interest rates moved higher with the 10 Year Treasury yield reaching 1 718 up from Monday s 1 622 The 2 Year yield ended at 1 682 up from 1 575 on Monday The gains for both weighed on markets for most of the day although investors bid bank stocks higher
Oil prices dropped after President Donald Trump said he d fired John Bolton as National Security Advisor Bolton known for favoring direct intervention in Iran and other hot spots insisted he quit Investors sold oil on the assumption that Bolton s departure reduces the potential of new U S military action in the Middle East
West Texas Intermediate crude was down 45 cents to 57 40 a barrel after four straight days of gains Brent crude the global benchmark was off 21 cents to 62 38
Real estate consumer staples and technology shares were among the market s weakest sectors Industrial energy materials and telecom stocks were leaders
Biopharmaceutical company Nektar Therapeutics NASDAQ NKTR money manager State Street NYSE STT and engineering firm Quanta Services NYSE PWR were among the top S P 500 performers
MarketAxess Holdings NASDAQ MKTX operator of an electronic trading platform Chipotle Mexican Grill NYSE CMG and CME Group NASDAQ CME operators of some of the largest U S futures exchanges were among the weakest S P 500 performers | 9/10/2019 |
MSFT | Stocks Market Surges on Apple Tech and Boeing Gains | Investing com Stocks enjoyed a solid rally Wednesday as Apple NASDAQ AAPL and many chip stocks along with Boeing NYSE BA attracted investor interest
The rally brought the major averages close to reaching new highs a prospect that may be achieved if the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates at its meeting next week
The S P 500 was up 0 72 and ended with its first close above 3 000 since July 30 The Dow Jones industrials rose 0 85
The Nasdaq Composite jumped 1 06 The Nasdaq 100 index added 0 93
It was the Dow s sixth straight gain The S P 500 and Nasdaq had their best performances since Thursday
The S P 500 and Dow are just under 1 from their all time highs set in July The Nasdaq is still about 2 below its peak
Apple up 3 2 rallied on the heels of a well received product announcement session in California The session introduced new iPhone models and pricing information on its Apple NASDAQ AAPL TV and Arcade game services The gain added 47 points to the Dow s 228 point gain
Perhaps as important Apple s market capitalization hit 1 01 trillion topping the trillion dollar level for the first time since late 2018 The shares are up nearly 5 this week 13 for the quarter and 41 8 on the year Of course Apple fell more than 30 in last fall s slump
Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT up slightly on the day has a market cap of 1 04 trillion
Boeing NYSE BA jumped 3 6 despite continued uncertainty over when its 737 Max airliner will go back into service and worries about problems with its new 777X The gain was responsible for about 91 points of the Dow s rise
The rally also saw gains for such beaten down stocks as Alcoa NYSE AA Tesla NASDAQ TSLA Macy s NYSE M and U S Steel NYSE X
The demand for U S stocks helped push the U S dollar higher against major currencies Crude oil prices moved lower because a rising dollar makes oil more expensive for non U S buyers
Also helping the dollar s move were higher U S interest rates The 10 Year Treasury yield was at 1 744 up from 1 702 on Tuesday President Donald Trump called on the Fed to cut its key federal funds rate to 0
Gold futures however moved above 1 500 an ounce
Telecommunications healthcare technology and utility stocks were the top sectors Real estate was the sector showing a loss but consumer discretionary and energy stocks saw only small gains
Telecom company CenturyLink NYSE CTL scientific instruments company Illumina NASDAQ ILMN retailer Gap NYSE GPS and over the counter pharmaceutical maker Perrigo NYSE PRGO were among the top S P 500 performers on the day
Oil services giant Baker Hughes NYSE BHGE software maker Take Two Interactive Software NASDAQ TTWO Internet infrastructure company VeriSign NASDAQ VRSN and DaVita HealthCare Partners NYSE DVA which provides kidney dialysis services were among the largest S P 500 laggards | 9/11/2019 |
INTC | Stocks U S Futures Slump as China Warns on Rare Earth Exports | Investing com U S futures slumped on Wednesday as news of possible Chinese retaliation in its trade dispute with the U S intensified fears of a global economic slowdown
China s state run media said Beijing is considering limiting the export of rare earths chemical elements that are used in a range of high tech products China is by far the largest supplier of those elements to global markets
Dow futures fell 153 points or 0 6 by 6 44 AM ET 10 44 GMT while tech heavy Nasdaq 100 futures lost 59 points or 0 8 and S P 500 futures was down 16 points or 0 6
Fears of a global slowdown over the last few days have intensified and were further stoked overnight by the announcement that the world s largest steelmaker ArcelorMittal would cut production further
Demand for safe haven assets has risen accordingly with the yield on the U S 10 Year Treasury falling to its lowest level since September 2017 Bond yields move inversely to prices
Macro issues aside retail stocks are expected to be in focus throughout Wednesday with earnings results from Dick s Sporting Goods NYSE DKS Abercrombie Fitch NYSE ANF and Canada Goose NYSE GOOS
Tesla NASDAQ TSLA fell 1 1 in premarket trading after a French metal supplier filed a lawsuit over an alleged overdue payment while Intel NASDAQ INTC slipped 0 8 and social media company Snap NYSE SNAP declined 4 8
Boeing NYSE BA dipped 1 2 amid fears it will be a casualty of any further escalation in the trade war with China Trade group IATA said it s unlikely the grounded 737 MAX will be cleared to fly again before late August in line with expectations of at least some of the airlines that use the aircraft
On the economic front the Richmond Fed manufacturing survey for May is at 10 00 AM ET 14 00 GMT with the Dallas Fed services data following
In commodities crude oil slumped 1 9 to 57 98 a barrel while gold futures rose 0 5 to 1 283 15 a troy ounce The U S dollar index which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies edged up less than 0 1 to 97 882 | 5/29/2019 |
MSFT | Tech companies won t wait for U S to act on social media laws Microsoft s president says | By Sheila Dang and Stephen Nellis NEW YORK and SAN FRANCISCO Reuters Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith said on Friday that technology companies are likely to change how they moderate online platforms in response to new laws from foreign governments regardless of whether U S lawmakers act to change a U S law that has allowed social media platforms to flourish Smith said that Section 230 of the U S Communications Decency Act which says that tech companies cannot be sued for what users of their online platforms say was a needed law in the late 1990s when it first passed but that technology companies are now more mature and should have a new level of responsibility for what is said on their sites He also said that other countries such as New Zealand were passing laws in the wake of events like the mass murder in Christchurch earlier this year which was broadcast live on social media platforms The laws around the world are going to change and because technology is so global American companies will adopt a new approach even if the United States Congress does nothing Smith said during an interview with Reuters Editor in Chief Stephen J Adler in New York Smith spoke to Reuters as part of a tour to promote his recently released book Tools and Weapons In the interview Smith also said Microsoft has turned down government requests for facial recognition software in cases where it fears misuse and will never sell the technology for surveillance We won t sell facial recognition services for the purposes of mass surveillance anywhere in the world Microsoft has called for stronger regulation of facial recognition technology which has been used in China to track ethnic minorities Smith stopped short for calling for an outright ban on the technology saying that Microsoft believes it has valid uses and has argued that governments should move faster to regulate it
It s hard to innovate if you can t use something and it s hard to learn if you can t innovate Smith said | 9/13/2019 |
MSFT | Microsoft s LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles | By Jonathan Stempel Reuters A federal appeals court on Monday rejected LinkedIn s effort to stop a San Francisco company from using information that users of the professional networking website have deemed public The 9th U S Circuit Court of Appeals let stand an August 2017 preliminary injunction that required LinkedIn a Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT unit with more than 645 million members to give hiQ Labs Inc access to publicly available member profiles The 3 0 decision by the San Francisco appeals court sets back Silicon Valley s battle against data scraping or extracting information from social media accounts or websites which critics say can equate to theft or violate users privacy Circuit Judge Marsha Berzon said hiQ which makes software to help employers determine whether employees will stay or quit showed it faced irreparable harm absent an injunction because it might go out of business without access She also said giving companies such as LinkedIn free rein over who can use public user data risked creating information monopolies that harm the public interest LinkedIn has no protected property interest in the data contributed by its users as the users retain ownership over their profiles Berzon wrote And as to the publicly available profiles the users quite evidently intend them to be accessed by others including prospective employers In a statement LinkedIn said it was disappointed with the decision and evaluating its options and will fight to protect our members and the information they entrust to it Lawyers for hiQ did not immediately respond to requests for comment The case was returned to U S District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco who issued the injunction Craigslist the classified ad website had supported LinkedIn s appeal warning that the injunction could have a dangerous impact by making it easier for bad actors to find targets for unwanted email text or phone based marketing Berzon said however hiQ had raised serious questions about LinkedIn s conduct including whether it could invoke a federal law targeting computer fraud and abuse to block free riders from accessing user data Of course LinkedIn could satisfy its free rider concern by eliminating the public access option albeit at a cost to the preferences of many users and possibly to its own bottom line she wrote Gregory Garre a former U S solicitor general under President George W Bush representing craigslist did not immediately respond to requests for comment Donald Verrilli a solicitor general under President Barack Obama represented LinkedIn Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe was one of hiQ s lawyers
The case is hiQ Labs Inc v LinkedIn Corp NYSE LNKD 9th U S Circuit Court of Appeals No 17 16783 | 9/9/2019 |
INTC | Stocks Tesla Chipmakers Fall Premarket Best Buy L Brands Up | Investing com Stocks in focus in premarket trading on Thursday
Tesla NASDAQ TSLA stock slumped 4 9 by 8 15 AM ET 12 15 GMT after analysts at Loup Ventures and Morgan Stanley NYSE MS warned that the electric car company is likely to miss its 2019 delivery target due to U S China trade war tensions Bloomberg reported
Boeing NYSE BA stock was down 1 8 as the Federal Aviation Authority warned that the 737 MAX may stay grounded well beyond October The FAA is meeting with international regulators today to discuss the issue
Best Buy NYSE BBY stock rose 2 4 after it reported higher than expected earnings for the first quarter and its mixed full year guidance factored in the impact of tariffs
L Brands NYSE LB stock gained 10 8 after the parent company of Victoria s Secret and Bath Body Works raised its guidance for the fiscal year on the back of first quarter results that beat estimates
Deutsche Bank NYSE DB ADRs fell 1 6 to an all time low as chief executive Christian Sewing failed to convince shareholders of an imminent turnaround in the bank s performance at their annual meeting Sewing appeared to promise more heavy cuts at Deutsche s unprofitable corporate and investment bank
Chipotle Mexican Grill NYSE CMG stock fell 2 after BMO Capital downgraded the restaurant chain to underperform from market perform
Chipmakers Intel NASDAQ INTC Broadcom NASDAQ AVGO and Nvidia NASDAQ NVDA are down as much as 2 extending losses into Thursday after leading the market lower on Wednesday | 5/23/2019 |
INTC | Veteran German auto boss joins board of U S self driving software startup | By Tina Bellon NEW YORK Reuters A company working to make open source self driving software reliable enough to be used in commercially available vehicles said it had hired a former German car boss as it seeks to expand its reach Palo Alto California based Apex AI has added Karl Thomas Neumann an industry veteran who in the past served as the chief executive of Continental AG DE CONG and led Volkswagen DE VOWG p AG s China business to its board Karl Thomas is a great fit for us as we re trying to learn off what worked in the past and reach out to more industry players Apex AI co founder Jan Becker told Reuters in an interview this week The U S firm is expanding to Europe opening an office in Munich Germany in July Founded by Becker and Dejan Pangercic two longtime self driving car engineers formerly at automotive technology supplier Bosch Corp Apex AI plans to make a safer and more reliable version of the so called Robot Operating System or ROS That software is used by scores of labs and companies in their self driving car and robotics efforts including Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT and Amazon com Inc NASDAQ AMZN The software is open source meaning that anyone can adopt it and use it free of charge but it has so far mainly been deployed in research settings Apex AI aims to create a robust failproof version of the software that can be deployed by carmakers in later stage commercial applications to guarantee safety critical driving functions It hopes to finish the software by the end of the year and submit it to German inspection firm T V for approval in early 2020 Once certified the software could then be deployed by carmakers worldwide Becker said The company wants to license the software and charge for support services with the exact pricing model currently under discussion Neumann said Apex AI to date has raised 15 5 million in venture capital funding including from the venture arms of Airbus SA and Toyota Motor Corp Becker said the company was well funded into 2020 | 5/23/2019 |
INTC | Veteran German auto boss joins board of U S self driving software startup | By Tina Bellon NEW YORK Reuters A company working to make open source self driving software reliable enough to be used in commercially available vehicles said it had hired a former German car boss as it seeks to expand its reach Palo Alto California based Apex AI has added Karl Thomas Neumann an industry veteran who in the past served as the chief executive of Continental AG DE CONG and led Volkswagen DE VOWG p AG s China business to its board Karl Thomas is a great fit for us as we re trying to learn off what worked in the past and reach out to more industry players Apex AI co founder Jan Becker told Reuters in an interview this week The U S firm is expanding to Europe opening an office in Munich Germany in July Founded by Becker and Dejan Pangercic two longtime self driving car engineers formerly at automotive technology supplier Bosch Corp Apex AI plans to make a safer and more reliable version of the so called Robot Operating System or ROS That software is used by scores of labs and companies in their self driving car and robotics efforts including Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC Microsoft Corp NASDAQ MSFT and Amazon com Inc NASDAQ AMZN The software is open source meaning that anyone can adopt it and use it free of charge but it has so far mainly been deployed in research settings Apex AI aims to create a robust failproof version of the software that can be deployed by carmakers in later stage commercial applications to guarantee safety critical driving functions It hopes to finish the software by the end of the year and submit it to German inspection firm T V for approval in early 2020 Once certified the software could then be deployed by carmakers worldwide Becker said The company wants to license the software and charge for support services with the exact pricing model currently under discussion Neumann said Apex AI to date has raised 15 5 million in venture capital funding including from the venture arms of Airbus SA and Toyota Motor Corp Becker said the company was well funded into 2020 | 5/23/2019 |
INTC | Trump Says Huawei Could Become Part of Trade Deal With China | Bloomberg President Donald Trump said Thursday that China s Huawei Technologies Co which was put on a blacklist earlier this month could be part of a trade pact with the country
It s possible that Huawei even would be included in some kind of a trade deal Trump told reporters at the White House without providing details Huawei is something very dangerous
The Trump administration is seeking to choke off Beijing s access to key technologies by limiting the sale of vital U S components to the Chinese telecommunications equipment maker over security concerns
The U S had held off on blacklisting Huawei out of concern the move could disrupt trade negotiations with China and only took action after the last round of trade talks hit an impasse according to people familiar with the matter The decision to curtail the Shenzhen based company s access to American suppliers unfolded quickly once trade talks broke down the people said
The Commerce Department action last week requires American suppliers of Huawei a crown jewel of Chinese manufacturing to seek U S government permission to do business with the company
The decision touched off a massive disruption in technology supply chains hitting some of the biggest component makers Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC Qualcomm NASDAQ QCOM Inc and Broadcom NASDAQ AVGO Inc told their employees they won t provide products to Huawei until further notice
Trade talks between Beijing and Washington deadlocked this month as Trump accused China of backing out of a deal that was taking shape with U S officials saying China reneged on an agreement to enshrine a wide range of reforms in law
Trump increased levies on 200 billion in Chinese imports to 25 from 10 prompting retaliation from Beijing The U S has said it s prepared to hit China with new tariffs even as Trump said he ll meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at next month s G 20 summit an encounter that could prove pivotal | 5/23/2019 |
INTC | U S judge says Qualcomm violated antitrust law appeal planned shares plunge | By Sayanti Chakraborty and Jan Wolfe Reuters Qualcomm NASDAQ QCOM Inc illegally suppressed competition in the market for smartphone chips by threatening to cut off supplies and extracting excessive licensing fees a U S judge ruled a decision that could force the company to overhaul its business practices The decision issued late Tuesday night by U S District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose California caused Qualcomm shares to plunge 12 5 percent on Wednesday Qualcomm s licensing practices have strangled competition in parts of the chip market for years harming rivals smartphone makers and consumers Koh wrote in a 233 page decision She ordered the San Diego based company to renegotiate licensing agreements at reasonable prices without threatening to cut off supplies and ordered that it be monitored for seven years to ensure its compliance Qualcomm said it will immediately ask Koh to put her decision on hold and also seek a quick appeal to the federal appeals court in California We strongly disagree with the judge s conclusions her interpretation of the facts and her application of the law general counsel Don Rosenberg said in a statement Koh s decision followed a 10 day non jury trial in January and is a victory for the U S Federal Trade Commission which has accused Qualcomm in 2017 of violating antitrust law The decision followed Qualcomm s April 16 settlement of a long running legal battle with Apple Inc NASDAQ AAPL where Apple agreed once again to use Qualcomm chips in its iPhones displacing Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC It is unclear whether the sanctions will be challenged by the U S Department of Justice which has taken a different view of the case than the FTC and emerged as an ally to Qualcomm On May 2 the Justice Department argued Koh should hold a hearing before placing sanctions on Qualcomm Placing stringent conditions on the company would reduce competition and innovation in markets for 5G technology the agency said The courts are not required to defer to the Justice Department s recommendations But the possibility certainly exists for Qualcomm to prevail upon appeal given the government s somewhat schizophrenic approach to the case Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon wrote The Justice Department was not immediately available for comment on Wednesday UNDERMINING RIVALS Koh said Qualcomm engaged in extensive anticompetitive conduct targeting more than one dozen original equipment manufacturers including Apple BlackBerry Huawei Lenovo LG Motorola NYSE MSI Samsung KS 005930 and Sony often by cutting off or threatening to cut off chip supplies or withholding technical support She also said Qualcomm s monopoly power in modem chips enabled the company to sustain unreasonably high royalty rates not justified by its contributions to the marketplace With practices that result in exclusivity and eliminate opportunities to compete for OEM business Qualcomm undermines rivals in every facet she wrote She also found Qualcomm knew its licensing practices harmed competition yet continued anyway despite government investigations in China Japan Korea Taiwan the European Union and the United States This evidence of Qualcomm s intent confirms the court s conclusion that Qualcomm s practices cause anticompetitive harm because no monopolist monopolizes unconscious of what he is doing she wrote Koh also said testimony from some Qualcomm witnesses lacked credibility faulting Chief Executive Steve Mollenkopf and others for giving long fast and practiced narratives and saying company emails and notes contradicted his testimony Koh said Qualcomm cannot bundle patent licensing deals with its hardware a practice regulators called no license no chips That ruling could give chip customers more leverage in negotiations over patent terms and result in lower royalty rates for Qualcomm Koh also said Qualcomm must license its patents to rival chipmakers like MediaTek Inc Qualcomm argued during the trial that it achieved market dominance through technological leadership The company began its licensing business in the 1980s and 1990s decades before it began selling chips and has charged broadly similar patent rates since then Qualcomm also argued that the FTC failed to show harm to competition arguing that the chip industry is thriving and prices are declining The company s next move will likely be to request Koh s ruling is put on hold while the company seeks expedited review by the 9th U S Circuit Court of Appeals Qualcomm makes cellphone processors and modem chips but generates most profits by licensing its technology to mobile phone makers Qualcomm s customers and competitors will finally be able to negotiate licenses without the threat of having Qualcomm cut off their chip supply FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra said in statement Rasgon the Bernstein analyst said Koh had indicated at trial she was leaning against Qualcomm but some investors had hoped her views would be softened by the Apple settlement
Apparently not Rasgon wrote | 5/22/2019 |
INTC | U S stocks lower at close of trade Dow Jones Industrial Average down 1 11 | Investing com U S stocks were lower after the close on Thursday as losses in the Oil Gas Basic Materials and Technology sectors led shares lower
At the close in NYSE the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 1 11 while the S P 500 index declined 1 19 and the NASDAQ Composite index declined 1 58
The best performers of the session on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were Home Depot Inc NYSE HD which rose 1 64 or 3 09 points to trade at 192 00 at the close Meanwhile Intel Corporation NASDAQ INTC added 1 20 or 0 53 points to end at 44 53 and Johnson Johnson NYSE JNJ was up 0 74 or 1 03 points to 139 79 in late trade
The worst performers of the session were United Technologies Corporation NYSE UTX which fell 3 66 or 4 96 points to trade at 130 45 at the close Dow Inc NYSE DOW declined 2 99 or 1 50 points to end at 48 71 and International Business Machines NYSE IBM was down 2 90 or 3 96 points to 132 39
The top performers on the S P 500 were L Brands Inc NYSE LB which rose 12 84 to 24 26 Medtronic PLC NYSE MDT which was up 3 24 to settle at 91 64 and Target Corporation NYSE TGT which gained 2 37 to close at 79 40
The worst performers were NetApp Inc NASDAQ NTAP which was down 8 11 to 61 66 in late trade Hess Corporation NYSE HES which lost 7 93 to settle at 59 01 and Devon Energy Corporation NYSE DVN which was down 7 30 to 27 17 at the close
The top performers on the NASDAQ Composite were Urban Tea Inc NASDAQ MYT which rose 30 77 to 2 3800 Trans World Entertainment Corp NASDAQ TWMC which was up 21 36 to settle at 0 401 and ContraVir Pharmaceuticals Inc NASDAQ CTRV which gained 16 96 to close at 0 1310
The worst performers were Obalon Therapeutics Inc NASDAQ OBLN which was down 47 69 to 0 68 in late trade Organovo Holdings Inc NASDAQ ONVO which lost 39 46 to settle at 0 545 and Proteon Therapeutics Inc NASDAQ PRTO which was down 33 27 to 0 42 at the close
Falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the New York Stock Exchange by 2321 to 659 and 94 ended unchanged on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange 2117 fell and 539 advanced while 94 ended unchanged
Shares in Organovo Holdings Inc NASDAQ ONVO fell to all time lows falling 39 46 or 0 355 to 0 545
The CBOE Volatility Index which measures the implied volatility of S P 500 options was up 14 71 to 16 92
Gold Futures for June delivery was up 0 69 or 8 75 to 1282 95 a troy ounce Elsewhere in commodities trading Crude oil for delivery in July fell 5 29 or 3 25 to hit 58 17 a barrel while the July Brent oil contract unchanged 0 00 or 0 00 to trade at 67 94 a barrel
EUR USD was up 0 05 to 1 1185 while USD JPY rose 0 00 to 109 59
The US Dollar Index Futures was down 0 15 at 97 730 | 5/23/2019 |
MSFT | TomTom Microsoft integrating our navigation in connected vehicles platform | AMSTERDAM Reuters TomTom the Dutch mapping and navigation company said on Friday Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT is integrating TomTom s navigation technology into its Connected Vehicle Platform
In February the two companies announced a wider collaboration making TomTom the preferred supplier for maps data across Microsoft properties including its Azure cloud computing service No financial terms of Friday s deal were disclosed | 9/6/2019 |
MSFT | U S states launch antitrust probes of tech companies focus on Facebook Google | By Diane Bartz Reuters Two groups of U S state attorneys general on Friday announced separate antitrust probes of large tech companies such as Alphabet s Google O GOOGL and Facebook O FB The first probe led by New York and including seven other states and the District of Columbia focuses on Facebook The second announced by Texas and likely to include up to 40 other states did not specify the targets among large tech companies but was expected to center on Google Once lauded as engines of economic growth the companies in social media Internet search e commerce and other digital technologies have increasingly been on the defensive over lapses such as privacy breaches and their outsized market influence Politicians including President Donald Trump consumers other firms and regulators have criticized that power I m launching an investigation into Facebook to determine whether their actions endangered consumer data reduced the quality of consumers choices or increased the price of advertising New York Attorney General Letitia James tweeted The largest social media platform in the world must follow the law she said The Facebook probe will include New York Colorado Florida Iowa Nebraska North Carolina Ohio Tennessee and the District of Columbia Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton s office said it was leading an investigation of large tech companies but did not name them That probe likely to include more than 40 state attorneys general is expected to focus on Google sources familiar with the matter told Reuters A second source previously said that the Google investigation would look at the intersection of privacy and antitrust Google s parent Alphabet said on Friday the Department of Justice in late August requested information and documents related to prior antitrust probes of the company The company added in a securities filing that it expects similar investigative demands from state attorneys general and that it is cooperating with regulators On the federal level the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission are probing Facebook Google Apple O AAPL and Amazon O AMZN also for potential violations of antitrust law Trump has called for closer scrutiny of social media firms and Google accusing them of suppressing conservative voices online without presenting any evidence Facebook s shares were down nearly 2 in afternoon trading Google Apple and Amazon stocks were virtually unchanged Will Castleberry Facebook s vice president for state and local policy said after the New York announcement that the company would work constructively with state attorneys general People have multiple choices for every one of the services we provide We understand that if we stop innovating people can easily leave our platform This underscores the competition we face not only in the United States but around the globe Castleberry said CRITICISMS OVER PRIVACY MARKET CONTROL The tech companies have come under fire repeatedly in recent years Facebook for example has been slow to clamp down on hate speech and it recently paid a 5 billion settlement for sharing 87 million users data with the now defunct British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica The consultancy s clients included Trump s 2016 election campaign The social media platform which owns one time rivals Instagram and WhatsApp and has more than 1 5 billion daily users has been criticized for allowing misleading posts and so called fake news on its service Google has faced accusations that its web search service which has become so dominant that it is now a verb leads consumers to its own products at the cost of competitors We look forward to working with the attorneys general to answer questions about our business and the dynamic technology sector Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said in an email Amazon the world s biggest online retailer has been accused of unfair tactics with third party sellers on its website who must pay for advertising to compete against first party and private label sales by Amazon itself Apple has come under fire from app developers over practices like making only iPhone apps available through its official App Store The music streaming app Spotify N SPOT has alleged that App Store policies make it difficult to compete against Apple Music for paid subscribers Amazon and Apple had no immediate comment State attorneys general often act jointly to influence policy including when the federal government lacks the resources or is disinclined to act The attorneys general of 20 states and the District of Columbia teamed up with the U S Department of Justice in 1998 to sue Microsoft Corp O MSFT for trying to extend its monopoly in personal computer operating systems to internet browsing software That case later settled
More recently 43 states and Puerto Rico sued Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd O TEVA and 19 other drugmakers in May accusing them of scheming to inflate prices and reduce competition for more than 100 generic drugs | 9/6/2019 |
MSFT | Democrat O Rourke presses U S social media companies to combat disinformation | By Elizabeth Culliford Reuters Democratic presidential candidate Beto O Rourke s campaign on Friday called on Facebook NASDAQ FB Twitter and Alphabet s Google NASDAQ GOOGL to do more to fight disinformation ahead of the November 2020 election The campaign made its plea in letters to the companies after a false claim spread on social media this week that the gunman responsible for an Aug 31 mass shooting in Odessa Texas had a sticker supporting O Rourke s candidacy on his truck In its letter to Twitter the O Rourke campaign pointed to an account with the handle suemo54 and name Sue Moore which posted the claim on Sunday It has been retweeted more than 11 000 times since then O Rourke s campaign manager Jen O Malley Dillon said in the letters that the campaign thought a network of bots on Twitter and Facebook amplified the false claim This isn t our job to clean up it s theirs she wrote on Twitter calling for increased transparency into misinformation on the sites and for Twitter to start labeling false content of public importance Our democracy depends on these platforms managing the crisis of disinformation We re aware they ve all made efforts to improve We are saying these efforts have been insufficient O Malley Dillon wrote Twitter declined to comment on the matter Twitter users trying to access the suemo54 account on Friday were shown a warning that it was temporarily restricted due to unusual activity The tweet could still be viewed however The nonpartisan FactCheck org website on Friday debunked the claim It cited Sergeant Oscar Villarreal a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety as saying there was no sticker on the gunman s car and that he was not aware of the gunman s political preferences The Texas Department of Public Safety did not immediately respond to a request for comment O Rourke has taken an increasingly vocal stance on the campaign trail against gun violence in the wake of recent mass shootings including one that killed 22 people on Aug 3 in El Paso Texas which he used to represent in Congress A Facebook spokesman said the company had taken action through its fact checking program by limiting the distribution of a post spreading the sticker claim that had been shared 42 000 times It also added the FactCheck org piece as a related article below the post The O Rourke campaign s letter to Google pointed out that terms like Odessa and the shooter s name were trending queries related to its candidate on the search engine after the misinformation was published A Google spokeswoman told Reuters that its search function is not a recommendation system and so a trending query in Google Trends does not mean that the site is recommending a topic to users
The letters come just days after federal law enforcement met with Facebook Twitter Google and Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT at Facebook s headquarters in Menlo Park California to discuss collaboration over election security strategies | 9/6/2019 |
MSFT | Explainer Big tech probes could break up firms result in huge fines or neither | WASHINGTON Reuters The potential penalties for several wide ranging investigations into whether Facebook NASDAQ FB Google NASDAQ GOOGL and other big U S tech companies used their market power unfairly include everything from breaking up the companies to large fines and forcing them to create more competition Two groups of U S state attorneys general on Friday announced separate antitrust probes of large tech companies such as Alphabet s Google and Facebook The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission are investigating the two firms and could potentially probe Apple NASDAQ AAPL and Amazon NASDAQ AMZN Here are three possible outcomes to investigations of the companies by U S regulators and state attorneys general BREAK THEM UP Senator Elizabeth Warren has vowed to break up Amazon Google and Facebook if elected U S president to promote competition in the technology sector While some Democratic lawmakers and even a few Republicans favor breaking up the companies the appetite for such a dramatic action is not widespread in Washington Tech companies are some of the biggest political donors Google spent 21 million to lobby in 2018 while Amazon spent 14 2 million and Facebook spent 12 62 million Warren and other lawmakers argue big tech companies smother small businesses and start ups that are a threat Facebook critic and co founder Chris Hughes says the social media company has too much power over speech and that it is willing to sacrifice security and civility for clicks But antitrust law makes such a proposal tough to execute because the government would have to take the company to court and win It is rare to break up a company but not unheard of with Standard Oil and AT T NYSE T being the two biggest examples The most famous case in recent memory is the government s effort to break up Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT The Justice Department won a preliminary victory in 2000 but was reversed on appeal The case settled with Microsoft intact MAKE THEM PAY HUGE FINES In its recent settlement with the Federal Trade Commission for privacy abuses Facebook agreed to pay a 5 billion fine after it was found to have inappropriately shared user data Facebook which also owns Instagram and Whatsapp said it would do more to protect user privacy but the overall deal was criticized by regulators and lawmakers for not doing enough to rein in Facebook s market power or make company executives accountable The three Republican FTC commissioners who voted in favor of the settlement called it a complete home run that exceeded any possible award if the case had gone to court They also said they did not have the power to impose greater restrictions on how Facebook collects uses and shares data While any future fines from the FTC Justice Department or state attorneys general could be attention grabbing in size the companies are the world s most valuable by stock market valuation and can easily pay large fines They each generate in excess of 50 billion in sales each year FORCE THEM TO AID COMPETITORS Democratic lawmakers in Washington have on several occasions suggested one way to address big tech s market power on social media would be to make it easier for consumers to move data like photographs and contacts from one application to another potentially opening up a path for new tech entrants to compete with companies like Facebook The idea which is already part of European law has the support of Representative David Cicilline a Democrat who leads the House Judiciary Committee s antitrust subcommittee and Senator Mark Warner Cicilline has said giving consumers the power to move their data would spur the growth of social media alternatives that could offer features such as greater privacy or less advertising But the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out that on its own data portability cannot magically improve competition the ability to take your data to another service is not helpful if there are no viable competitors They also noted in a September 2018 report that a data portability project between Facebook Microsoft Twitter and Google won t meaningfully help competition unless they allow users to move their data beyond a small cabal of incumbent services Right now they don t Facebook said last week in a white paper it supports the principle of data portability but did not outline specific future actions Tech industry lobbyists at the Internet Association support the concept and Facebook published research in support of the topic last week | 9/9/2019 |
MSFT | Elliott Management calls for AT T shake up as Trump piles on | By Svea Herbst Bayliss and Supantha Mukherjee
Reuters Activist investor Elliott Management Corp on Monday unveiled a 3 2 billion stake in AT T Inc N T and urged the sprawling U S telecommunications and media conglomerate to end its acquisition spree and focus on improving its business
The move makes AT T which has a market capitalization of 270 billion one of the three largest companies after Apple NASDAQ AAPL and Microsoft NASDAQ MSFT to be targeted by activist shareholders who prod management to make changes by selling off units buying back shares or adding board members U S President Donald Trump a frequent critic of U S cable news channel CNN which is owned by AT T called Elliott s announcement great news
The New York based hedge fund one of the world s most successful activists wrote to Dallas headquartered AT T on Monday morning sending a four part proposal that it said could help lift its stock price by at least 60 by the end of 2021
The plan ranges from divesting certain businesses eliminating 5 billion in costs reviewing how it allocates capital and urging CEO Randall Stephenson who has led the company since the financial crisis to stop making acquisitions
AT T has been an outlier in terms of its M A strategy Most companies today no longer seek to assemble conglomerates the letter said
Elliott also may push for new directors with operating skills and domain expertise to join the company s 13 member board and it noted that investors have previously raised concerns that Stephenson holds both the CEO and chairman titles
News of Elliott s stake helped push AT T s stock price up more than 4 to a high of 37 78 its peak for the year though by midday on Monday the gain was 2 7 AT T said it would engage with Elliott and review the firm s views
For Elliott which invests some 38 billion in assets and has been working on the investment for over a year AT T marks one of its biggest corporate targets to date
There are some similarities with last year s campaign against Sempra Energy N SRE when Elliott also highlighted a conglomerate strategy that it said had failed and cost shareholders considerable cash
But there are differences as well with some analysts saying that Elliott had learned lessons on how to approach its targets after the Sempra campaign where it asked for six board seats and settled for two that both sides agreed to
At AT T Elliott struck a conciliatory tone at the start of its letter calling the company one of the world s most important companies before critiquing its strategy leadership and sluggish share price It stopped short of asking for a specific number of seats and naming the people who might fill them
People familiar with the situation suggested negotiations between the hedge fund and company may occur quickly and be resolved relatively soon as other shareholders are also concerned by the company s lack of stock market gains
CRITICISM OF BIG DEALS
Elliott took aim at AT T s 85 billion acquisition of media company TimeWarner Inc last year and the 49 billion purchase of satellite television provider DirecTV in 2015
Despite nearly 600 days passing between signing and closing and more than a year passing since AT T has yet to articulate a clear strategic rationale for why AT T needs to own Time Warner Elliott said in a letter to the company s board of directors
The TimeWarner acquisition gave it control of HBO and CNN and took more than two years to close as it was heavily scrutinized by antitrust authorities and even questioned by Trump
Elliott did not offer details on any missteps it saw in the deal but said it remained cautious about the benefits of the combination that also brought the TBS and TNT networks as well as the Warner Bros film studio producer of the Batman and Harry Potter films under AT T
The deal was seen as a turning point for a media industry that has been upended by companies like Netflix Inc O NFLX and Alphabet Inc s O GOOGL Google which produce content and sell it online directly to consumers without a cable subscription
The hedge fund listed businesses including home security DirecTV regional sports networks CME Sky Mexico its Latin American pay TV business Vrio Puerto Rican operations and other units as possible sale candidates
It said AT T should also appoint third party advisers to evaluate its operations and organizational structure with a focus on eliminating inefficiency and creating a faster moving organization
AT T has missed revenue expectations five times in the past eight quarters according to Refinitiv data
Elliott said a strategic review will help AT T to pay down debt rapidly through divestment and increase its financial profile | 9/9/2019 |
INTC | Stocks Futures Flat as U S Mulls Widening China Blacklist | Investing com U S futures were flat early Wednesday as investors paused on news that more Chinese companies could be blacklisted from purchasing American technology an escalation that outweighed comments from the Chinese ambassador to the U S saying trade negotiations are still on the table
The U S government may blacklist up to five Chinese surveillance companies from purchasing U S software goods or components according to reports that come just a few days after a similar curb on Huawei caused a sell off of technology stocks One of the companies named Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology SZ 002415 fell as much as 10 in the Chinese trading session in response to the news
Dow futures fell 5 points or 0 602 by 6 41 AM ET 10 41 GMT while tech heavy Nasdaq 100 futures slipped 13 points or 0 2 and S P 500 futures was down 1 point or 0 1
Qualcomm NASDAQ QCOM slumped 9 after a federal judge ruled the company had suppressed cellphone chip competition while Intel NASDAQ INTC was down 0 3 and Tesla NASDAQ TSLA fell 1 9 still suffering from a Morgan Stanley NYSE MS note that laid out a bear case for the stock falling over 90 from its current level
Retail companies will be in focus after a batch of disappointing earnings on Tuesday Nordstrom NYSE JWN tumbled 10 2 in after hours trading on Tuesday after its sales figures failed to meet expectations
Lowe s NYSE LOW slumped 10 in premarket trade after cutting its outlook for the year on the back of a disappointing first quarter Target NYSE TGT is also expected to report before the open
On the economic front the Federal Reserve will release its meeting minutes from May 1 when it left interest rates unchanged
In commodities crude oil fell 0 9 to 62 56 a barrel Gold futures inched up 0 04 to 1 273 75 a troy ounce while the U S dollar index which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies was down 0 1 to 97 825 | 5/22/2019 |
INTC | Blockchain Is Really Democratizing a Lot of Things Interview With Marta Piekarska Director of Hyperledger s Ecosystem | This interview has been edited and condensed
Hyperledger an open source project was created in 2016 by the Linux Foundation in order to support the development of blockchain based distributed ledgers All the members of Hyperledger including such major actors as Intel NASDAQ INTC Accenture NYSE ACN JPMorgan Chase NYSE JPM Hitachi Fujitsu Alibaba NYSE BABA Cloud Citigroup NYSE C Deutsche Telekom DE DTEGn and many others find their interest in blockchain technology and discuss it with Marta Piekarska who is in charge of the project s ecosystem | 5/21/2019 |
INTC | Stocks S P Closes Higher as U S Temporarily Eases Huawei Restrictions | Investing com U S stocks bounced back on Tuesday from a slump a day earlier led by tech stocks after the U S temporarily eased some of the restrictions on China s Huawei
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0 77 the S P 500 added 0 85 while the Nasdaq Composite rose 1 08
The U S Commerce Department on Monday granted a 90 day license for U S mobile phone companies and internet broadband providers to work with Huawei to keep existing networks online and protect users from security risks
Following the move chip stocks which were particularly vulnerable to the U S ban on Huawei rallied 2 with Intel NASDAQ INTC and Qualcomm NASDAQ QCOM clawing back some recent losses Intel rose 2 1 Qualcomm added 1 5
Alphabet NASDAQ GOOGL also ended the day 0 85 higher after reversing its decision from a day earlier to stop providing Huawei with software updates
Beyond trade investors also digested mixed quarterly earnings
Kohl s NYSE KSS reported a miss on the top and bottom lines and also reported comparable store sales that fell short of expectations sending its shares more than 12 lower
JC Penney NYSE JCP meanwhile reported a wider than expected loss and drop in same store sales while revenue also missed expectations Its shares slumped more than 7
After hours Nordstrom NYSE JWN said it missed revenue and earnings estimates for the first quarter and cut its guidance for the year Shares fell more than 8
But auto parts retailer AutoZone NYSE AZO boosted the broader retail sector rising more than 5 after topping expectations on both the top and bottom lines
The SPDR S P Retail ETF NYSE XRT ended the day 1 higher
Energy stocks meanwhile also paved the way for gains in the broader market despite a modest fall in U S oil prices as concerns that a prolonged trade war between the U S and China could hurt global oil demand offset ongoing U S Iran tensions and expectations for OPEC to stick with production cuts
In other company news Tesla NASDAQ TSLA closed off 0 1 after shares had fallen to as low as 196 04 Morgan Stanley cutting its worst case forecast on the electric car maker s share price to just 10 citing concerns about the company s hefty debt levels and potential weaker demand from China
Tesla also announced it was slashing the sticker price for its Model S and Model X vehicles for the third time in about three months the news site Electrek reported
On the economic front U S existing home sales fell for a second straight month in April as the supply of lower priced housing continued to weigh
Top S P 500 Gainers and Losers Today
AutoZone NYSE AZO DISH Network NASDAQ DISH and Xilinx NASDAQ XLNX were among the top S P 500 gainers for the session
Kohl s NYSE KSS Lamb Weston NYSE LW and Varian Medical Systems NYSE VAR were among the worst S P 500 performers of the session | 5/21/2019 |
INTC | U S stocks higher at close of trade Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0 77 | Investing com U S stocks were higher after the close on Tuesday as gains in the Basic Materials Technology and Industrials sectors led shares higher
At the close in NYSE the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0 77 while the S P 500 index added 0 85 and the NASDAQ Composite index climbed 1 08
The best performers of the session on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were Intel Corporation NASDAQ INTC which rose 2 07 or 0 90 points to trade at 44 46 at the close Meanwhile Caterpillar Inc NYSE CAT added 2 06 or 2 52 points to end at 124 95 and Apple Inc NASDAQ AAPL was up 1 92 or 3 51 points to 186 60 in late trade
The worst performers of the session were Procter Gamble Company NYSE PG which fell 0 89 or 0 96 points to trade at 106 37 at the close Coca Cola Company NYSE KO declined 0 51 or 0 25 points to end at 48 60 and The Travelers Companies Inc NYSE TRV was down 0 47 or 0 70 points to 147 47
The top performers on the S P 500 were AutoZone Inc NYSE AZO which rose 5 57 to 1032 25 DISH Network Corporation NASDAQ DISH which was up 5 29 to settle at 35 00 and Xilinx Inc NASDAQ XLNX which gained 4 63 to close at 105 71
The worst performers were Kohls Corp NYSE KSS which was down 12 34 to 55 15 in late trade Varian Medical Systems Inc NYSE VAR which lost 1 97 to settle at 127 94 and JB Hunt Transport Services Inc NASDAQ JBHT which was down 1 77 to 95 75 at the close
The top performers on the NASDAQ Composite were JMU Ltd NASDAQ JMU which rose 59 84 to 1 950 NanoVibronix Inc NASDAQ NAOV which was up 61 87 to settle at 4 50 and Westwater Resources Inc NASDAQ WWR which gained 29 92 to close at 4 9500
The worst performers were BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc NASDAQ BCRX which was down 52 91 to 3 480 in late trade China Bat Group Inc NASDAQ GLG which lost 46 21 to settle at 0 7100 and Novelion Therapeutics Inc NASDAQ NVLN which was down 26 03 to 0 873 at the close
Rising stocks outnumbered declining ones on the New York Stock Exchange by 2292 to 677 and 111 ended unchanged on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange 1841 rose and 816 declined while 82 ended unchanged
Shares in Kohls Corp NYSE KSS fell to 52 week lows falling 12 34 or 7 76 to 55 15 Shares in BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc NASDAQ BCRX fell to 52 week lows losing 52 91 or 3 910 to 3 480 Shares in China Bat Group Inc NASDAQ GLG fell to 52 week lows losing 46 21 or 0 6100 to 0 7100
The CBOE Volatility Index which measures the implied volatility of S P 500 options was down 8 34 to 14 95
Gold Futures for June delivery was down 0 22 or 2 80 to 1274 50 a troy ounce Elsewhere in commodities trading Crude oil for delivery in July fell 0 36 or 0 23 to hit 62 98 a barrel while the July Brent oil contract fell 0 06 or 0 04 to trade at 71 99 a barrel
EUR USD was up 0 08 to 1 1166 while USD JPY rose 0 00 to 110 50
The US Dollar Index Futures was up 0 11 at 97 868 | 5/21/2019 |
INTC | Trump says he will nominate Barbara Barrett to be Air Force secretary | WASHINGTON Reuters U S President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he will nominate Barbara Barrett a former chair of the Aerospace Corporation to be secretary of the Air Force
I am pleased to announce my nomination of Barbara Barrett of Arizona and former Chairman of the Aerospace Corporation to be the next Secretary of the Air Force Trump said on Twitter
She will be an outstanding Secretary he added
Heather Wilson resigned as Air Force Secretary in March to return to academia and become president of the University of Texas at El Paso
The Aerospace Corporation is a national nonprofit company that operates a federally funded research and development center and has approximately 4 000 employees according to its website
Barrett was U S Ambassador to Finland in 2008 09 during the presidency of George W Bush
Barrett unsuccessfully ran for Arizona governor in 1994 as the first Republican woman to seek that office She also was deputy administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration and vice chair of the U S Civil Aeronautics Board She is married to Craig Barrett retired chief executive of Intel Corp NASDAQ INTC | 5/21/2019 |
INTC | UK chip designer ARM to suspend business with Huawei BBC | LONDON Reuters Major British based chip designer ARM is suspending business with China s Huawei to comply with U S regulations the BBC reported on Wednesday citing internal company documents ARM instructed employees to halt all active contracts support entitlements and any pending engagements with Huawei and its subsidiaries the BBC said No one from ARM one of the world s biggest chip designers alongside Intel NASDAQ INTC was immediately available for comment ARM owned by Japanese investor Softbank said in an internal company memo that its designs contained technology of U S origin the BBC reported ARM staff were informed of the decision on May 16 after the United States added Huawei to a list of companies with which U S firms could not do business ARM has offices in California Washington Texas and Massachusetts ARM told staff they were no longer allowed to provide support delivery technology whether software code or other updates engage in technical discussions or otherwise discuss technical matters with Huawei according to the memo seen by the BBC | 5/22/2019 |
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