Intel (INTC) is expected to deliver a year-over-year increase in earnings on higher revenues when it reports results for the quarter ended December 2018.This widely-known consensus outlook gives a good sense of the company's earnings picture, but how the actual results compare to these estimates is a powerful factor that could impact its near-term stock price. READ MORE...

Medical equipment and pharmaceutical supplier McKesson (NYSE: MCK) is set to report earnings on January 31.McKesson hasn’t been under $100 since early 2013, but the trend has been to the downside since the stock hit an all-time high of $236.52 back in May 2015. The company’s fundamentals are mixed with a decent return on equity, but slow earnings growth, sales growth, and a low profit margin.

Tesla's customer referral program will come to an end on Feb. 1, chief executive Elon Musk said in a tweet Thursday.Read More...

The European Commission said on Thursday that it had opened an in-depth investigation into the tax treatment of Nike Inc in the Netherlands, saying this may have given the U.S. sportswear maker an illegal and unfair advantage.Read More...

Expectations for a decreased oil supply, potential Chinese stimulus and political uncertainty are buoying hopes for gains in the commodities sector, according to Goldman Sachs.Read More...

As for Netflix, this increase won’t be small: prices across all three of its streaming plans are now 13% to 18% higher for new users as of Wednesday morning. Besides Netflix, Disney increased Disneyland ticket and pass prices by 7% to 10% last week.Earlier this month, AMC also boosted its monthly rates by 10% to 20% across some of the country’s most populous states. But aren’t they afraid of losing customers because of increased subscription rates? The answer is no. Reason being, when you're the world's leading premium streaming service provider, theme park operator or multiplex ticket taker, you'll stretch your pricing elasticity to explore your customers’ limits. Increased prices haven’t deterred Disney’s attendance levels through most of its gated parks.

The company lifted its EPS guidance from a range of $1.64-$1.67 to $1.72-$1.74, moving its potential year-over-year growth rate from low double digits to mid-to-high teens. LULU CEO, Calvin McDonald, said the company’s momentum has remained uninterrupted even during the holiday period, underscoring strong demand of its product offerings from customers across the world.The CFO, Patrick Guido, also remarked that the company is set to witness an upside to consensus with long-term targets due to a probable SG&A leverage next year on low-teens revenue growth. An update on LULU’s 2020 targets is expected to be available when the company reports its Q4 earnings in March.

According to Lynx Equity Strategies analysts KC Rajkumar and Jahanara Nissar, Apple is likely to cut back on its secretive, self- driving vehicle program. If the analysts are right, this move could significantly affect growth in an emerging vector outside Apple’s core devices, and may also indicate that stagnating iPhone sales could be responsible for the company’s cost cutting measures. Named as ‘Project Titan,’ the company’s self-driving electric vehicle program started in 2014 with more than 1,000 employees working on the project.The projects viability has been in limbo since, but the August 2018 rehiring of Tesla engineer Doug Fields rekindled speculation that Apple may have been serious about following through. Of concern for investors is the question of whether iPhone revenue concerns are driving the decision, or whether the the viability of the autonomous vehicle market is causing Apple to pull back. 

Shares of the American multinational investment bank and financial services company, Goldman Sachs, rose nearly 7.1% on Wednesday after the firm posted a fourth-quarter profit that convincingly exceeded analyst expectations. Strength in its investment banking and investing and lending divisions contributed most to the quarter's results.  The bank reported an EPS of $6.04 per share for the fourth quarter, far outstripping analysts’ estimate of $4.45 per share. Giving a much needed boost to a strengthening banking sector, the New York-based bank posted a net revenue of $8.08 billion, beating the analyst estimate of $7.55 billion.Total interest income for the quarter stood at $991 million, after an increase of ~16% from Q3 and 10% from the year-ago quarter. Driven by a 56% surge in advisory revenue to $1.20 billion, the bank reported revenue of $2.04 billion in its investment banking division compared to analysts’ estimate of $1.88 billion.

Chinese foreign direct investment into the U.S. plummeted for a second year in a row, according to new data.Read More...

Chinese internet firm Alibaba (Nasdaq: BABA) has been hit hard by the trade war and a slowing Chinese economy.The worst part is that the company has really strong fundamentals and hasn’t been able to break the downward trend. We see on the daily chart that the highs from June and December connect to form an upper rail to a downward sloped trend channel.

Internet retailer Wayfair (NYSE: W) has seen its stock trend lower since the beginning of October.The stock bounced back from that low and moved back above the $100 level before falling again in December. If you connect the highs from October and December, you get what appears to be the upper rail of a downward sloped trend channel.

The energy sector has led the way during this rally, but the consumer discretionary sector has the second biggest gain at 13.7% over the 13 trading days in question. While the rally has likely made investors more comfortable, they might not want to get too comfortable as some of the sector ETFs and index ETFs are starting to hit potential resistance points.One sector ETF that is hitting a possible resistance point is the Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR (NYSE: XLY).

Walmart says it will end its involvement with the network of commercial and Medicaid pharmacies run by CVS Health Corp.The reason was a disagreement on pricing. "At a time when everyone is working hard to find ways to reduce healthcare costs, Walmart's requested rates would ultimately result in higher costs for our clients and consumers," Derica Rice, president of CVS Caremark, said in a statement. CVS said it has requested Walmart to remain in its networks through April 30 and does not expect the split to have a material impact on its 2019 financial results.

UnitedHealth's Q4 earnings handily beat street expectations on its Q4 earning an adjusted $3.28 per share, eight cents better than analysts were expecting. The Indianapolis-based company's Optum segment helped with the results.United's insurance business was flat with operating earnings of $1.8 billion. Total revenue of $58.42 billion also topped the $57.94 billion expected on Wall Street. For the full year, UnitedHealth earned nearly $12 billion on $226 billion in revenue.

A ruling by the EU Intellectual Property Office went against McDonald's (MCD) today.Read More...

Spotify is set to enter the Indian market in the new year, after signing a major licensing deal with one the largest record labels io the subcontinent, T-Series, known for producing mostly Bollywood music soundtracks.Announced in March 2018, two of the largest local music services, Saavn and JioMusic, officially merged just last month to create JioSaavn that offers a 90-day extended trial of JioSaavn Pro to Jio subscribers.

Therefore, it's difficult to assess whether those efforts involve just one or two cell sites or sites that span a full city. T-Mobile’s launch timeline is relatively close with that of its rivals, like AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ), with the former already having launched mobile 5G service in 12 cities.Sprint and Verizon too have promised mobile 5G launches with smartphones in the coming months. T-Mobile's 5G plans are noteworthy because the operator is the only major wireless network provider that is planning to launch 5G services on 600MHz spectrum.

Natural gas prices spiked on Monday as the market realized that cold in the U.S may persist longer, increasing heating demand and putting pressure on gas stockpiles. Natural gas futures for February increased by more than 16 % on Monday to settle at $3.591/MMBtu.Hotter-than-usual late summer temperatures and an unanticipated cold fall increased demand for cooling and heating last year, causing natural gas stockpiles hit their lowest level in over a decade. But following the forecast of return of cold weather conditions, coupled with a prolonged cold period and natural gas inventories still hovering 15% below its five-year average, natural gas prices seem likely to move higher in the coming days.

Chipmaker Micron confirmed on Monday afternoon after the close that it was exercising its option to buy out Intel's  share of a joint venture the two companies had to produce flash memory.  Micron had said in mid-October that it planned to exercise its option to pay $1.5 billion to acquire Intel's 49% stake in IM Flash Technologies.READ MORE...