Brett Arsenault, the top-ranking cybersecurity executive at Microsoft, had fallen asleep on top of his cell phone when it shocked him awake with a buzz. A cyberattack, later dubbed NotPetya, had begun locking down computers and shutting down businesses in Ukraine.READ MORE...

Federal Reserve officials voted to hold interest rates steady Wednesday, as a lack of inflation pressure outweighed an economy that otherwise is growing strongly. The central bank held its benchmark rate in a target between 2.25% and 2.5%, meeting market expectations though perhaps disappointing President Donald Trump, who earlier this week urged the Fed to cut the rate by 1 percentage point.READ MORE...

Mondelez International reported first quarter earnings higher than what analysts’ anticipated. The confectionary company’s earnings of 63 cents a share surpassed analysts’ estimates of 61 cents a share (based on FactSet poll).  The maker of Oreo cookies and Cadbury chocolates reaffirmed its full-year prediction of net revenue growth in the range of 2% and 3%, and adjusted per-share earnings growth range of 3% to 5%.

Unadjusted earnings per share of $3.18 fell from the year-ago quarter’s $3.25. While revenue remained the same at $5.6 billion, expenses in the quarter increased +9% year-over-year to $3.1 billion. The company’s revenue from Blincyto, its first bi-specific antibody for the treatment of cancer, surged +41% year-over-year to $69 million.Sales of its highest selling drug, Enbrel, rose +4% to $1.15 billion. Research & Development (R&D) expenses increased +16% largely towards bolstering the company’s oncology programs, as indicated by Amgen. For the full-year 2019, Amgen projects a revenue range of $22 billion and $22.9 billion.

Worldwide same-store sales for the quarter increased +4% year-over-year (compared to analysts’ expectation of +2.7%).Among the restaurants owned by the company, Pizza Hut’s same-store sales broke even (compared to analysts’ expected +0.4%), Taco Bell’s grew +4% (compared to analysts’ expected +4.6%) and KFC’s increased +5% (compared to analysts’ expected +3%). CEO Greg Creed credited the quarter’s strengths largely to the KFC division and Taco Bell U.S.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Inc.’s earnings managed to narrowly edge past analysts’ estimates for the first quarter. For the quarter ending in March, the semiconductor company’s adjusted earnings came in at 6 cents per share, exceeding the Street consensus estimates by a penny. Even total revenue, which plunged nearly -23% from the year-ago quarter to $1.27 billion, narrowly beat analysts' expectations of $1.26 billion.AMD blamed the year-over-year revenue decline mainly on “lower graphics channel sales, partially offset by increased client processor and datacenter GPU sales.” Looking ahead, AMD expects revenue of $1.47 billion to $1.57 billion for the second quarter, in line with analysts’ forecast of $1.51 billion.

Estee Lauder Companies’ fiscal third quarter earnings surpassed expectations, on the back of strong revenue from Asia and several beauty brands. For the three months ending in March, the skincare and cosmetics company’s diluted earnings came in at $1.51 per share, which beat analysts’ estimates of $1.30 per share.Total group sales increased +11% year-over-year to $3.74 billion – also higher than analysts’ estimates. For the full-year 2019, Estee Lauder predicted that its adjusted earnings would range between $5.15 and $5.19 per share, up from its February projection of $4.92 and $5.00 range. CEO Fabrizio Freda highlighted the Asia/Pacific region, the skin care brands, the Estee Lauder, La Mer and Tom Ford Beauty brands, and travel retail and global online channels as the main contributors to growth for the quarter.

Across the world, travelers identify the Marriott International (NASDAQ: MAR) name as a mark of quality and distinction.That reputation only improved when Marriott acquired Starwood Hotels & Resorts three years ago to become a colossus in the hotel industry. Read More...

Oil prices fell on Wednesday after a report showed a rise in U.S. crude inventories, but global markets remained tense amid an intensifying political crisis in Venezuela, tightening U.S. sanctions on Iran, and ongoing OPEC supply cuts. Read More...

Apple and Samsung reported slowing smartphone sales in the first quarter of this year, but Chinese tech giant Huawei is bucking the trend in a big way. Read More...

The Materials Select Sector SPDR (NYSE: XLB) is up 13.23% so far in 2019, but that places it in seventh place among the 10 select sectors SPDR ETFs.The tech sector has experienced a gain of 27.2% so far this year and that is the top performance of the group. Even though it has lagged so far this year, the XLB could be ready to make up some ground on the other sectors.

The chip sector has been one of the top performing industries since the Christmas low, but it suffered a setback last week when Intel reported earnings.The guidance, if it is accurate, would mean a year over year revenue decline for the first time since 2015. Intel dropped 8.99% on April 26 and the VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF (NYSE: SMH) fell 1.22% on the same day.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a set of guidelines in early April aimed at “[providing] a framework for analyzing whether a digital asset has the characteristics of one particular type of security – an ‘investment contract.’” The move is the latest effort from the SEC to clarify and enforce the digital asset and initial coin offering landscape long characterized by legal gray areas and a wild west mentality – occasionally to the detriment of investors, who have fallen victim to fraud and other malfeasance. Prior legal rulings have found an investment contract to exist “when there is the investment of money in a common enterprise with a reasonable expectation of profits to be derived from the efforts of others.” Determining whether a digital asset falls into this category requires “[analyzing] the relevant transactions to determine if the federal securities laws apply” using a standard system for analysis called the Howey Test.This well-known methodology uses

Wells Fargo Securities’ Christopher Harvey no longer holds the distinction of Wall Street’s biggest bear. He’s now officially one of its biggest bulls. The firm’s head of equity strategy raised his S&P 500 year-end price target Tuesday to 3,088, a 16% jump above his prior forecast of 2,665.READ MORE...

Facebook-owned Instagram is going to test hiding “like” counts this week as a way to make “a less pressurized environment” on the app, Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri announced on Tuesday.READ MORE...

Amazon has been testing a new online service that matches truck drivers with shippers since last year, taking its first step into the lucrative online freight brokerage space, according to two people familiar with the service.READ MORE...

The S&P 500 reached an all-time high on Monday, but the session’s gains were kept in check as investors braced for a busy week including a flurry of corporate earnings reports, economic data and an announcement from the Federal Reserve.READ MORE..

President Donald Trump, in his most brazen attack yet on the Federal Reserve, called for the central bank on Tuesday to cut interest rates by 1 percentage point and to implement more money-printing quantitative easing.READ MORE...

Shopify’s first quarter earnings per share not only crushed analysts’ estimates, but also surged more than +100% from the year-ago period. The Canadian e-commerce company raked in 9 cents per share, compared with a loss of -5 cents estimated by analysts, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.The figure is more than double the year-ago quarter’s 4 cents. Revenue for the quarter came in at $320.5 million, beating estimates of $309.4 million.

Over nine years, corporate landlord WeWork has earned a reputation as the go-to shared office start-up with about 401,000 memberships spread out across 425 locations, and now the company has finally filed its IPO to head to the stock market.But WeWork's vision comes at a steep cost, as the company more doubled its losses to $1.9 billion last year, even though revenue doubled to $1.8 billion. To add to the worry, the biggest investor of WeWork, the Japanese technology conglomerate SoftBank with $2 billion put into the business, has opted not to buy a controlling stake in its business. To advance its services, the company has also bought Meetup, the service for bringing together aficionados of common interests like learning Dutch or knitting, in 2017.