Wells Fargo & Co. is paying $575M to settle state-level claims about sales practices and resolves investigations into their practices stemming from 2002 to 2017. The practices include opening fake accounts, charging improper mortgage rate-lock extension fees and forcing insurance policies on auto-lending customers. “Wells Fargo customers entrusted their bank with their livelihood, their dreams and their savings for the future,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement.“Instead of safeguarding its customers, Wells Fargo exploited them, signing them up for products - from bank accounts to insurance - that they never wanted.” The bank said in a statement that it had already set aside $400 million for the settlement and would take a $175 million provision in its fourth-quarter results.

The deal includes rig design and a construction management contract, along with a five-year drilling contract with Chevron USA for one of its two ultra-deepwater drill-ships under construction in Singapore.The drilling contract has an estimated backlog of $830 million, excluding mobilization and reimbursables. Should the contract be terminated for convenience by the customer, Transocean will be compensated for its incremental 20,000 psi subsea investment in the rig.

Referred by many as the no-frills airline, SAVE gave its investors a pleasant surprise in 2018 after its shares hit more than three-year high in early December, and now the company is worth around $3.8 billion after the year's gains. The company revealed that it grew its profit during the fourth quarter and has given a positive forecast looking ahead.According to government data, Spirit was remarkably on time in 2018, with nearly 81% of its flights reached on time -- a stark turnaround from previous years and also outpacing close rivals American Airlines Group Inc. (AAL) and United Continental Holdings Inc. (UAL).

Meal-kit delivery company Blue Apron is hoping to boost profitability, through its tie-up with health company Weight Watchers International Inc. Blue Apron is collaborating with Weight Watchers (WW) to offer a list of rotating recipes for delivery to the homes of WW members.In an interview Wednesday with the Wall Street Journal, Blue Apron CEO Brad Dickerson indicated that a partnership with WW will help his company stabilize its customer base without having to spend too much on advertising/promotions.  Last week, Blue Apron declined below $1 for the first time.

Netfix's executives are getting big raises after a banner year. CEO Reed Hastings will get as much as $31.5 million in salary and stock options next year, the company disclosed Friday.READ MORE...

Instagram users found a surprising update when they went to check out some holiday photos Thursday morning: They now need to scroll or tap through their feed horizontally. Shortly after the release, Instagram's Head of Product Adam Mosseri tweeted that it was meant to be "a very small test but we went broader than we anticipated."Many Instagram users reported that their feeds went back to the original vertical scrolling.

Under fire for stirring up distrust and violence, the social network has vowed to police its users.READ MORE...

But 2018 is shaping up to end with a very different story for Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google's parent, Alphabet.READ MORE...

Netflix launched an interactive feature the allows viewers to choose how a story develops. The streaming giant used an extended 90-minute episode of the British TV series "Black Mirror" to unveil the new technology on Friday.Viewers get to click on either "Yes" or "No" for the choices available. This would be Netflix’s first major attempt at interactive storytelling – something that the company is probably hoping to bolster user engagement with, amidst the apparently heated competition in the online video streaming industry.

The electric car maker's  stock jumped +3% on the news, during pre-market trading on Friday. Ellison is currently the executive chairman and chief technology officer of Oracle Corp.  Wilson-Thompson is the global head of human resources at Dow component Wallgreens Boots Alliance WBA. Tesla indicated it was looking for independent directors who could would “complement the current board's experience"."In Larry and Kathleen, we have added a preeminent entrepreneur and a human resources leader, both of whom have a passion for sustainable energy", Tesla said. Earlier this year, a settlement between Elon Musk and the Securities and Exchange Commission allowed Musk to remain CEO of the company but required him to step down as chairman of the board.

Briggs & Stratton has been ordered to pay more than $28.8 million in damages in a patent ruling in favour of Exmark Manufacturing Company Inc., a Nebraska-based subsidiary of The Toro Co. Exmark first filed a lawsuit against Briggs in May 2010, alleging that some mower decks produced by the latter’s subsidiary Briggs & Stratton Power Products Group LLC had infringed upon Exmark’s mower deck patent.The court ordered Briggs to pay $14.4 million in compensatory damages, an additional $14.4 million in enhanced damages, plus "re-judgment interest, post-judgment interest and costs to be determined," according to a Briggs filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The cost/impact of the damages would most probably not appear in Brigg’s financial report for the quarter ending December 30, according to Briggs.

Chesapeake Energy shares skyrocketed 26.6% on Thursday, the most in two years, after board member Archie Dunham announced the purchase additional shares of the company. According to the filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Director bought 2.1 million shares of the company worth $4 million on December 21, 2018.With this purchase he nearly doubled his position in the company to more than 1% in this month. “Since I’m in for long term, when I get the opportunity to buy when the whole market drops like it did over the last 10 days, I decided I would be foolish not to take advantage of it,” the Director said to Bloomberg in a telephonic interview. Registering its highest gain since April 2016, the company end the day at $2.19 per share after rising nearly 27%. Amidst a transition phase, in terms of shifting focus from gas to oil production, shares of the company tumbled by ~25% since November end after being hit by the oil rout.

JC Penny, the struggling American department store chain, saw its shares dip below $1 for the first time since it started trading in 1929. The company has not been profitable since 2010, and has bonds rated as junk owing to its $4 billion debt, a sinking cash pile and with no sign of a turnaround.With more than a 68% decline in the share prices of the company from a year ago, its market cap dropped to roughly $310 million. Faced by the inventory glut and supply chain struggles, the company offered steep discounts on clothing to clear its massive inventory.

China and the United States have made plans for face-to-face consultations over trade in January, the Chinese commerce ministry said on Thursday, as the world's two biggest economies advanced efforts to resolve a months-long trade war.READ MORE...

Apple will begin assembling its top-end iPhones in India through the local unit of Foxconn as early as 2019, the first time the Taiwanese contract manufacturer will have made the product in the country, according to a source familiar with the matter.READ MORE...

S&P 500 Index futures contracts expiring in March fell -1.9%.The underlying S&P 500 index had gained +5% Wednesday. Dow Jones Industrial Average contracts were also down -1.5% while those on the Nasdaq 100 were down -1.8% on Thursday, even as their respective benchmarks moved up the day before.

JP Morgan Chase & Co. has settled Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that it improperly handled securities that represent foreign company shares.The company will pay $135M. The bank improperly provided American depository receipts to brokers when neither the brokers nor their clients held shares in foreign companies that were required to support such transactions, the SEC said in a Wednesday statement. The SEC said on Wednesday that the JPMorgan settlement was the eighth enforcement action against a company from the regulator’s probe into "abusive ADR pre-release practices.

While investors were pulling out of mutual funds, they were putting money into ETFs to the tune of $25.2B. Despite yesterday's record gain, stocks have been on a downward spiral on fears of a slowing global economy and President Donald Trump’s criticism of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.The S&P 500 index lost 5.4 percent in the week ended Dec. 19.

Home prices in 20 US cities rose at a slower pace in October - a seventh straight month and the longest streak in nearly five years, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller report. The 20-city index of property values increased five percent from a year earlier, after rising 5.2 percent in the prior month. Bloomberg says all 20 cities in the index showed year-over-year gains, led by a 12.8 percent increase in Las Vegas and almost 8 percent increases in both San Francisco and Phoenix.The weakest gains were in Washington, which rose 2.9 percent on year, Chicago, which climbed 3.3 percent, and New York, up 3.1 percent  

Japan is apparently ready to tackle volatility in its currency. On Wednesday, Japan’s vice finance minister for international affairs Masatsugu Asakawa indicated that rising volatility in the Japanese currency yen is a concern, and that the government is willing to take necessary steps to curb excessive volatility in the currency's market value. "Volatility is rising.Each country shares the G7/G20 view that excess volatility and disorderly moves are undesirable for the economy," Asakawa said, while adding, "We will keep close watch on market moves with a sense of urgency, while thoroughly checking to see if there's any speculative move".