Hackers and scandals could not stop Facebook from registering solid earnings last year. Touching a record $6.9 billion in the last three months of 2018, Facebook’s profit surged +61% from the year-ago period.Facebook also managed to make net additions to its daily userbase in apparently more saturated markets, Europe and North America. Facebook’s fundamentals in 2018 seem like a ray of hope for the company, as the year was also an extremely challenging one for it.

Unilever reported lower-than-expected sales growth in the fourth quarter, owing to weakness in Latin American markets. The consumer goods company’s underlying sales increased +2.9% year-over-year in the quarter , compared to consensus estimate of +3.5%. Net profit in full-year  was 9.8 billion euros ($11.21 billion), compared to 6.5 billion euros in 2017.  

Shares of Microsoft stock fell as much as 4 percent Wednesday after the company issued its fiscal second-quarter earnings report with slightly lower revenue than expected. Read More...  

Waugh is a distributor of various food products, including fresh and frozen seafood. As a company focused on marketing and distributing food products, Sysco could potentially expand its regional reach by adding Waugh Foods to its portfolio.Waugh offers nearly 600 seafood products, like battered shrimp, catfish fillets, halibut steaks, and salmon burgers. Other recent acquisitions made by Sysco include Kent Frozen Foods in the U.K, Doerle Food Service in Louisiana and HFM in Hawaii among others.

Homebuilder PulteGroup (NYSE: PHM) is set to release earnings on January 29, and the stock hit two layers of support ahead of the earnings report.The parallel upper rail connects the highs from October, November, and early January. The three lows that form the lower rail could also be called a Three Rising Valleys formation. The Tickeron AI Prediction tool generated a bullish signal three days ago and the signal came with a 75% confidence level.

Cyber-security firm FireEye (Nasdaq: FEYE) is set to report earnings on February 6, and the stock will face some resistance in the days leading up to the earnings report. Analysts expect the company to report earnings of $0.05 per share, and that would make the fourth quarter the second consecutive profitable quarter for the firm.The return on equity is -40%, the profit margin is -36%, and the operating margin is at -27%. Turning our attention to the daily chart for FireEye we see that the stock hit its 50-day moving average on Friday and has moved lower in each of the last two days.

Upscale jewelry retailer Tiffany and Co. (NYSE: TIF) has rallied with the overall market over the last month and that has brought the stock up to a couple of potential resistance points.The trend line is right around the $91 level currently and it looks poised to halt any attempt to breakout above the 50-day. The daily stochastic readings are hovering near overbought territory currently and that hasn’t been a good sign for the stock over the last six months. The Tickeron A.I.

Apple's revenue in China came in at $13.17 billion during the December quarter, a drop of nearly $5 billion from a year ago, when Apple reported $17.96 billion in China revenue.Apple's revenue is typically highest during this quarter, the first of its fiscal year. Read More...

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has been meeting with lawmakers at a faster clip than his two predecessors, a push that appears to be earning him allies as he navigates tricky monetary policy waters and vocal White House criticism.READ MORE...

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq came under pressure from weakness in technology stocks ahead of Apple’s results on Tuesday, while a rebound in industrial stocks lifted the Dow.READ MORE...

WhatsApp is imposing stricter limits on how widely its users can share messages in a bid to crack down on the spread of false information. Following a six-month experiment in India, the messaging platform announced on Monday that it will restrict users globally to forwarding a message to only five chats at a time.READ MORE...

A newly discovered bug in Apple's FaceTime software lets Apple users listen in on the people they are calling, and even see through their front-facing camera, without them picking-up the call.READ MORE...

McDonald's  KFC  and Pret a Manger have joined with UK supermarkets to warn that crashing out of the European Union will result in "significant" disruptions to their supply chains.READ MORE...

Business software company SAP said on Tuesday it would undertake a company-wide restructuring as it presses ahead with its business transformation, stressing its ambition to more than triple its cloud business by 2023.Read More...

Disappointing results from construction machinery giant Caterpillar and a pessimistic revenue forecast from chipmaker Nvidia point to a broader impact to the global business community from China's economic slowdown, analysts said on Tuesday. Read More...

This year, pundits are focused on fintech – and whether it can continue its remarkable growth. Financial technology has been enjoying a steady upwards trajectory since 2017.2018 saw 20 fintechs reach vaunted unicorn – or $1 billion valuation – status, and the industry managed to maintain its positive path throughout the year.

Canadian cannabis producer Organigram Holdings says its net revenue hit C$12.4 million, up from C$2.4 million last year.The reason: the launch of recreational pot sales last fall. Organigram says its sales during the three-month period ended Nov. 30 marked a record quarterly high and amounted to more than what the company has historically sold to medical patients in an entire year. Organigram also reported net income from continuing operations of $29.5 million, up from a net loss of $1.2 million a year ago.

And with falling sales, shares of the company also dropped 32% in the last 12 months. A recent survey report by UBS suggests that millennials these days consider buying motorcycles for more practical purposes, like easing their transportation, and hence opt for lightweight and less expensive ones.Older customers purchase bikes for lifestyle reasons like ‘as a hobby’ or because ‘motorcycles are cool.’   As an average Harley rider is an early 50’s married man with an annual income of $90,000 or more, people of this age buy motorcycles out of a passion for the product or lifestyle.

According to the latest media release by the U.S Department of Defense, Boeing has been awarded with an almost $2.5 billion contract for the production of 19 P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft for the U.S Navy, Norway and the U.K. With 10 aircrafts, at almost $1.26 billion, the U.S. Navy purchase makes up 51% of the total contract value, while Norway’s five aircrafts at almost $695 million makes up 28%.The U.K’s initial operating capability is expected to be achieved in 2020, while Norway’s aircraft are scheduled to be delivered between 2022 and 2023. On January 25, Boeing delivered the first two KC-46 aerial re-fuelling tankers to the U.S. Air Force at McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas The program is expected to be a landmark move which is two years behind schedule and more than $3 billion over budget. Enabled to carry torpedoes, depth charges, Harpoon anti-ship missiles and other weapons, P-8 Poseidon is a modified version of the Boeing 737-800E

Welltower Inc., a Healthcare Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), recently acquired a 23-property medical office portfolio from the Milwaukee-based private equity firm, Hammes Partners, for $400 million. Spanning across a whopping 979,000 square feet, the portfolio is spread across 12 metro markets in Virginia, Washington, North Carolina, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Alabama, and Texas and consists of outpatient properties affiliated with healthcare systems and other providers. Consisting of ~3.3 million rentable square feet in major metropolitan markets across 16 states, the sale is expected to close by the first half of 2019.However, it is subject to customary closing conditions. Jones Lang Lasalle Inc. (JLL), global real estate services firm specializing in commercial property and investment management, handled the sale for Hammes Partners.