Less than a month before WrestleMania 35 in East Rutherford, New Jersey, World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. WWE 3.45% stock ripped higher Thursday after the company got its highest Wall Street price target yet. Read More...

Ride-hailing company Uber is planning to kick off its initial public offering in April, putting it close on the heels of its smaller rival Lyft, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday. Read More...

Its projection for the second quarter, however, falls short of analysts' expectations. For the three months ended March 1, Adobe reported earnings of $1.71 per share, exceeding analysts’ estimates of $1.62 per share (based on FactSet poll of analysts).The computer software company’s revenue for the quarter came in at a record-high $2.6 billion, topping analysts’ expectations of $2.55 billion . President and CEO Shantanu Narayen mentioned strong momentum in Adobe’s Creative Cloud, Document Cloud and Experience Cloud businesses as significant contributors to Q1 results. However, Adobe’s guidance for the current quarter (ending June) fell below analysts’ forecasts.

Oracle shares whipsawed in after-hours trading Thursday, after the company exceeded expectations on both earnings and revenue. For the fiscal third quarter, the cloud computing company’s adjusted earnings increased +8% year-over-year to 87 cents per share, beating Wall Street's expectations of 84 cents per share.The company’s revenue rose +3% year-over-year to $9.61 billion in the quarter, surpassing analysts’ estimates of $9.59 billion. Following the report, Oracle stock price jumped initially during extended trading Thursday, but only to pull back later that day. CEO Safra Catz indicated that the company is expecting double-digit percentage range for full-year 2019 earnings-per-share growth. 

Normally, I look for signals on stocks or ETFs that are hitting the lower rail of upward sloped channels, but the Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE: XLU) got my attention yesterday as it is up near the upper rail of a trend channel.In the case of the XLU, it has been known to stay up close to the upper rail depending upon the risk appetite of investors. We see on the chart below how the channel formed in the second quarter before falling in December to form the lower rail.

After Thursday’s trading close, Broadcom announced better-than-expected fiscal first quarter earnings and its plan to give back $12 billion to shareholders. For the three months ending February 3, the semiconductor & infrastructure software company raked in earnings of $5.55 per share, higher than the Street estimates of $5.22 per share.The earnings-per-share were also greater than the year-ago quarter’s figure, by a solid +8.4%. The company’s net revenues for the quarter jumped +8.7% from the year-ago period to $5.789 billion, falling a bit short of the consensus expectation of $5.82 billion. Having experienced a free cash flow of more than $2 billion – a +39% year-over-year increase - Broadcom wants to pay out around $12 billion to stockholders through a combination of cash dividends and share buy backs and eliminations in fiscal 2019.

Roku shares have a quick rebound on Thursday, following Needham analyst Laura Martin’s upped her price target on the stock. While re-iterating her “buy” rating on the media streaming device maker’s stock, Martin raised the price target to $85 from $65.The analyst indicated several factors supporting her decisions, such as Roku’s user growth opportunities from upcoming streaming platforms of Walt Disney and Apple, advertising revenue to non-linear TV, and possibilities that the company might be acquired. Shares of Roku gained more than +3% on Thursday - partly offsetting their -14% decline the previous day following downgrades by analysts at Macquarie Research and Loop Capital on overvaluation concerns.

For US consumers applying for a new mortgage to buy a home or refinance one, the average size of said mortgage hit a record high of $354,500 last week. The rise hints that first-time buyers face a challenge in finding their home of choice heading into spring, which is typically the busiest time of the year for home sales, said the Mortgage Bankers Association “With more inventory in their price range compared to first-time buyers, move-up and higher-end buyers continue to have strong success finding a home,” Joel Kan, MBA’s associate vice president of economic and industry forecasting, said in a statement. The MBA’s seasonally adjusted index of loan applications to buy a home grew 4.3 percent to 250.8 in the week ended March 8.

Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia,  who has been asked to sign off on a government agreement that allowed CVS Health Corp. to buy Aetna, ordered a hearing for April 5.  He said that he wanted the hearing to discuss which witnesses, if any, should testify before he decides whether to approve the government’s deal with the companies.  The $69 billion transaction closed in November. The Justice Department approved the merger of CVS and Aetna in October on condition that Aetna sell its Medicare prescription drug plan business to WellCare Health Plans Inc. That deal has also closed.

The U.S. Federal Reserve could announce plans to stop shrinking its bond stockpile as early as next week and as late as June, Pacific Investment Management Co (Pimco), which oversees more than $1.66 trillion in assets, said on Thursday. Read more...

The recall was occasioned by a Honda Odyssey crash where the front airbag deployed and injured the driver’s arm. Previously, the recalled vehicles were repaired using specific Takata desiccated replacement inflators (PSDI-5D) or entire replacement airbag modules containing these inflators.But an investigation revealed that manufacturing issues at Takata’s Mexico facility introduced excessive moisture into the inflator during assembly, leading to the problem. Free repairs would begin with immediate effect with replacement parts being made by other suppliers. This recall is not the first of its kind as automakers in the U.S. have repaired more than 7.2 million defective Takata air bag inflators in 2018.  The companies have now ramped up efforts to track down parts in need of replacement. According to the company, the total number of recalled inflators is expected to be around 21 million in about 12.9 million Honda and Acura vehicles that have been subject to recall for replacing

It is estimated that Breakstone’s sales could garner a valuation of roughly $400 million. The dairy industry has been increasingly losing its relevance as customers are turning to non-dairy alternatives like oat, soy and almond milk.Last year, Kraft Heinz announced the sale of its Canadian natural cheese business to Italian dairy group Parmalat for C$1.62 billion ($1.23 billion). Falling shares of dairy products is another cause for companies to make such selling decisions.

Recently, the Commission has been tough regarding anti-trust laws specifically related to bug tech companies. Spotify reasoned that Apple has an ‘unfair advantage’ over its competitors as its control of its App Store limits customer choices and puts the pressure of fees on its rivals.Spotify has only approached the EU Commission after it failed to resolve the issue directly with Apple. Spotify’s CEO explained that since the recent introduction of new rules for the App Store, the company has been acting both as a player and referee to deliberately disadvantage other app developers. Due to these new rules, Spotify has to pay Apple a 30% tax on items purchased through Apple’s payment system.

OPEC on Thursday cut the forecast of global demand for its crude this year as rivals boost production, building a case to extend a supply-cutting deal with Russia and other allies beyond the first half of 2019. Read More...

Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) subsidiary Google has been making strides in consumer hardware, generating an estimated $3 billion in gross profit last year.In contrast, critics have mostly panned Google's laptop and tablet lineup, the Pixelbook and convertible Pixel Slate. Read More...

Facebook is facing a criminal probe into data-sharing deals it arranged with at least two other technology companies, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. Read More...

The Chinese firm provides end-to-end solutions to e-commerce business partners, and it was caught up in the fall by the Chinese market. In the last few months, Baozun has seen a new trend channel form and this one is upwardly sloped.Now we see the lower rail of the new channel is doing the same thing. Tickeron’s AI Trend Prediction tool generated a bullish signal on Baozun on March 12 and that signal predicts a move of at least 4% over the next month.

We also saw a bullish crossover from the indicators back in January as the stock was taking off. In addition to the bullish cross from the stochastics, the Tickeron AI Trend Prediction tool also generated a bullish signal on Broadcom on March 11.The signal showed a confidence level of 87% and past predictions have been accurate 65% of the time. Broadcom has really strong fundamentals.

Software firm Splunk Inc. (Nasdaq: SPLK) has rallied sharply after hitting a low in November.The company saw earnings grow by 41% in its most recent quarterly report while sales were up by 35%.

health regulators are now forging ahead with a plan designed to keep e-cigarettes out of the hands of teenagers by restricting sales of most flavoured products in convenience stores, gas stations, pharmacies and other retail locations. The new guidelines, first proposed by the Food and Drug Administration in November, are the latest government effort to reverse what health officials call an epidemic of underage vaping. Under proposed FDA guidelines released Wednesday, e-cigarette makers would need to restrict sales of most flavoured products to stores that verify the age of customers upon entry or include a separate, age-restricted area for vaping products.Companies would also be expected to use third-party, identity-verification technology for online sales. "The onus is now on the companies and the vaping industry to work with us to try and bring down these levels of youth use, which are simply intolerable," FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in an interview.