Buckingham analyst Matthew Harrigan cited heated competition in the video streaming space as a crucial factor behind the rating downgrade. Traditional, long-standing media/entertainment giants are looking to expand their digital presence, which could potentially intensify competition to current streaming leader Netflix.  Walt Disney will roll out its streaming platform (called Disney+), while AT&T (via WarnerMedia) is set to launch its own by the second half of the year.Comcast is planning to enter the streaming market in 2020 through NBC Universal. What’s more, Amazon Prime has apparently been upping the ante against rival Netflix.

As Microsoft turns to renewable sources of energy, the company recently announced the signing of a 15-year power purchase agreement for the energy produced by a 74-megawatt solar power facility in North Carolina, called the Wilkinson Solar Energy Center.The company boasts of its commitment to local communities that benefit economically from Microsoft’s energy projects. Tech giants are increasingly turning to renewable energy projects.

The result was nearly 40 canceled flights. The airline recently embarked on an interior remodeling project of its Boeing 737-800 called ‘Project Oasis’ that would add more seats, more power sockets and bigger overhead bins in order to increase revenue for each flight.AAL is also one of the many airlines who had recently adopted this strategy to enhance revenue. The remodeling was done by a third party vendor called Everett, a Washington-based Aviation Technical Services licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration.

In a recent regulatory filing, Tesla disclosed that it has entered into a syndication loan agreement with China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, Industrial Commercial Bank of China, and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank for loans as much as $520 million to build a Gigafactory factory in Shanghai.  The loan accrues interest at 90% of the one-year rate published by the People's Bank of China for RMB-denominated loans and LIBOR + 1.0% for U.S. dollar-denominated loans. In the same filing, Tesla has also amended its ABL credit pact to upsurge revolving commitments by $500 million to $2.425 billion, sanction up to $200 million in additional commitments, and extend the term of most of the total commitments to 2023. The credit line will be used exclusively to fund development of Tesla’s third gigawatt-scale facility, and it’s first outside the U.S., after the company announced in October that it had secured a 210-acre site in Shanghai for a factory that is intended to pro

Streaming giant Netflix has acquired rights to the 1967 multigenerational masterpiece novel ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ by the Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez.Rodrigo and his brother Gonzalo Garcia Barcha will act as executive producers on the project, which is set to be filmed predominantly in Colombia. A Spanish TV series is not unprecedented in Netflix’s viewership history.

Lockheed Martin, best known for the F-35 fighter, has been awarded a $945.9 million down payment on a $15 billion missile-defense agreement for Saudi -- called the Arabia Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) -- by the Pentagon. This move could potentially alleviate the long standing tensions between Saudi and the Western governments.It is also the first step in a larger deal struck last year between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia that will eventually benefit the Saudi kingdom with 44 THAAD launchers, missiles and affiliated equipment. Tensions between the Saudi and the U.S government had increased over the Saudi-linked killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi last October amidst criticism of Saudi’s role in an on-going civil war in Yemen.

Last year, Sony Music Entertainment entered into a $250 million deal with Michael Jackson’s estate for the rights to distribute the musician’s recordings over the course of seven years.For example, in the wake of the documentary series ‘Surviving R. Kelly’, the R&B singer’s songs generated more than 4 million streams in the U.S. accounting for a 116% increase in the rise of streams. But ‘Leaving Neverland’ could have a different impact.

At a time when the Fed is considering freezing rate hikes for the year, market watchers and fund managers think banks could be a great investment option.These include a strong economy and the prospect of higher inflation and a wider rate spread. READ MORE...

Lest we forget, former Starbucks Corporation (SBUX - Free Report)    CEO and now a presidential candidate Howard Schultz had cautioned of this transformation in December 2016.And that prediction, rather unfortunately, has come true for major brick-and-mortar retailers including restaurants. READ MORE...

Shares in mainland China crumbled on Friday after Chinese trade data missed expectations by a wide margin. All major Chinese indexes closed the day deep in negative territory. READ MORE...

An ongoing cryptocurrency bear market is not dampening interest for Fidelity’s new institutional cryptocurrency products. Fidelity Digital Assets, a new company created by the investing giant last year, has quietly rolled out its cryptocurrency custody and trade execution operations. READ MORE...

Saudi oil minister Khalid al-Falih said on Sunday that China and the U.S. would lead healthy global demand for oil this year but that it would be too early to change OPEC+ output policy at the group’s next meeting in April. Read More...

It started with a single sell rating on one stock.By the time China’s exchanges shut on Friday, equity investors were sitting on $345 billion of losses and the realization that Beijing is in no mood for another bubble. Read More...

Saudi Arabia currently exports about 7M barrels of crude oil each day, along with 2M barrels of natural gas liquids and petroleum products, but the U.S. is set to top that record this year, according to Rystad Energy, becoming the world's leading exporter of oil and liquids. Read More...

The pace of retail store closure announcements didn’t slow down much this week, following a brutal last week for malls and shopping centers across the U.S. Read More...

Jeremy Grantham, an investor credited with predicting the 2000 and 2008 downturns, told CNBC on Thursday that investors should get inured to lackluster returns in the stock market for the next two decades, after a century of handsome gains. READ MORE...

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren wants to "break up" growing tech monopolies owned by Amazon, Google and Facebook because they stifle innovation and hurt small businesses. The Massachusetts senator on Friday published "Here's How We Can Break Up Big Tech." Her plan would require regulators to break up several massive mergers including Facebook's ownership of Instagram, as well as Amazon's $13.7 billion deal two years ago to acquire grocer Whole Foods. "Today’s big tech companies have too much power  –  too much power over our economy, our society and our democracy," Warren said in the essay.

Trump administration officials have not made any new plans to send a team to China for meetings as there is much work left to be done to reach a deal, White House trade adviser Clete Willems said on Friday. "We're talking to them (Chinese officials) every day, but no one's got any trip plans," Willems told reporters on the sidelines of a Georgetown Law School event." The governments of the world's two largest economies have been locked in a tariff battle for months as Washington presses Beijing to address long-standing concerns over Chinese practices and policies around industrial subsidies, technology transfers, market access and intellectual property rights. Advances in talks drove the White House to indefinitely delay tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports that were set to start on March 2.

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP and two other drugmakers on Friday lost a bid to delay a landmark trial set for May in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit by Oklahoma’s attorney general accusing them of helping fuel an opioid abuse and overdose epidemic in the state. Read more...

Earlier this week, Anderson Economic Group released its 2019 benchmarked AndCan Index, which uses a new, improved methodology.The 2019 index shows that consumer demand for cannabis products has been increasing much faster than previously recognized. READ MORE...