Walmart is stocking up on technology and brands to encourage customers’ holiday season splurge. Thursday onward, the retail giant will arm store workers with mobile checkout scanners so that shoppers picking big items like TVs, furniture or Christmas trees can pay on spot (i.e., without having to queue up at registers), especially in the busiest sections of the stores/supermarkets. Walmart will also add digital maps on its apps to help customers navigate its store aisles/sections so they can find products more quickly. These technology-driven upgrades intended for a smoother customer experience at its physical stores is critical for Walmart since brick-and-mortar still accounts for the majority of the company's sales, even amidst a booming e-commerce industry. But Walmart is not shying from upping the ante on its digital market either.This year, the firm has already added more than 2,000 brands (including Lord & Taylor and Moosejaw) on its online shoppin

The U.S. is limiting its exports to a Chinese chipmaker as regulators increase scrutiny over potential national security threats. The US Commerce Department announced Monday that it will not allow U.S. companies to sell parts to Chinese semiconductor firm Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Company, unless the latter is able to get a special license to buy an American product. The export restriction apparently stems from U.S. official’s concerns about China getting access to critical components of U.S. military systems.Fujian Jinhua potentially "poses a significant risk of becoming involved in activities that are contrary to the national security interests of the United States," the Department said regarding its latest curb on exports.

The last week of October will likely be extremely busy for shale earnings, as at least 10 energy stocks are scheduled to report their Q3 earning results. The first three to report after market close on Monday are Continental Resources (CLR, $50.18), Diamondback Energy (FANG, 107.71) and Viper Energy Partners (VNOM, $35.06). Although the share price of CLR fell in Monday’s trading, as the crude oil futures sell-off continued, analysts are betting big on CLR.EOG Resources (EOG, $102.04) and Parsley Energy (PE, $23.09) to report on Thursday.

The struggle for GE continues for a major part of 2018, as the company postponed its Q3 2018 earnings call by five days to October 30, 2018 -- largely owing to needing further review of the fair value of all its assets and liabilities, after it came to notice that the goodwill of the power division needs a write-down of ~$23 billion. With profits dropping by nearly 30% in the previous quarter, this $23 billion book entry is another major blow for the company.Market analysts believe the real economic loss for GE may be in the range of $67 billion. The abysmal performance of the power division and the renewable energy division in 2018, coupled with this impairment loss, may make GE's balance sheet look worse compared to its recent past even though there is zero cash loss. 

Oil drilling company Patterson-UTI Energy yet again posted disappointing quarterly numbers despite the oil drilling business growing leaps and bounds in North America. The company provides two of the most essential services for shale drilling - high-specification rigs capable of handling complex shale jobs and pressure pumping services to frack shale wells and make them producing.Despite providing some critical services and being present right at the epicenter of booming shale production, the company’s net loss for Q3 grew by ~600% compared to the previous quarter, whereas the operating loss grew by ~790% during the same period. One of the main reasons for this quarter may have fallen short is the decision to retire 42 of its older legacy rigs and take a $48.4 million impairment charge.

Historically, the highest readings have come at market tops and the lowest readings have come at market bottoms. High readings themselves haven’t necessarily been a signal of an impending bear market, however. From 1997-2000, the index was above the 125 level and the market continued to move higher.However, when the index fell by more than 10% from its peak is when things started getting bad. With the recent peak reading of 138.4, the index would need to drop down to 124.6 in order to represent a 10% decline.

Amgen Inc. is slashing prices of its cholesterol fighting drug Repatha, amidst rising healthcare costs and increased regulatory surveillance to protect patients from exorbitant medicine prices. The biopharmaceutical company will reduce the U.S. list price of Repatha by -60% - from more than $14,000 a year to $5,850.In Q2, revenue from Repatha was $148 million – which beat estimates, was still much lower compared to analysts' previously high expectations about its success.

Walmart’s Jet.com will serve Blue Apron meal-kits starting Monday for New York City. Jet.com will feature four Blue Apron meal kits.The e-commerce firm's angle in this deal seems to be expanding its footprints in the grocery space crowded by players like FreshDirect, Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Now service, Ahold Delhaize’s Peapod. Blue Apron, on the other hand, apparently hopes the collaboration with Jet.com would give new fodder to its meal delivery business which is suffering from cratering sales.

Ford is having a bad year in 2018.Now, the company is announcing layoffs. READ MORE...

The combined entity could potentially emerge as the next behemoth in cloud computing – one of the most in-demand services today. IBM will pay in cash to buy all shares in Red Hat at $190 each.The deal might close in second half of next year. Cloud technology essentially provides services such as data storage, database management, networking, access to servers access , software solutions, analytics, intelligence and more via the internet.

Federal investigators are probing whether Tesla misstated information about production of its Model 3 electric sedans and misled investors about the company’s business, according to The Wall Street Journal. READ MORE...

General Electric’s stock rally following appointment of a new CEO snapped last week, with its shares touching a new low on Friday. In recent times, the company has been mired in deep-seated troubles including a cratering insurance business and challenges in its power-equipment segment.On Friday, GE stock price dropped more than -4% to $11.3 – its lowest since September 28 which was the last trading day before Culp was named CEO. The stock’s decline over the whole of last week was around -10%.

Private equity firm KKR & Co., Inc. and some other companies invested a total $1.25 billion in video game developer firm Epic Games. Epic Games, whose game 'Fortnite' gained roaring popularity, is valued at $15 billion as part of the new funding round (The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter).Along with KKR, Iconiq Capital, Smash Ventures, aXiomatic, Vulcan Capital, Kleiner Perkins and Lightspeed Venture partners are the newest prominent names backing the gaming company. In 2012, Tencent acquired 40% of Epic’s equity for $330 million.

You no longer need to pay extra for upgraded  features while buying a Tesla Model 3 Performance. Previously, one had to shell out an additional $5,000 for an upgrade package which included 20-inch wheels with sportier tires, better brakes, lower suspension, and a higher top speed – now, these features would be available to buyers at the base price itself (which starts at $64,000 for the Model 3 Performance) . A statement from Tesla suggests that  it periodically tweaks available options and packages to try to ensure the ‘smoothest ride’ for customers." For the existing owners of  Model 3 Performance cars who might feel they missed out on the upgrade perk, CEO Elon Musk tweeted that early buyers still got access to Tesla's Supercharging stations for free – something the the new purchases wouldn’t.

Japan and China signed a bilateral currency swap arrangement on Friday aimed at enhancing the financial stability of the two countries, the Bank of Japan said. READ MORE...  

Software firm Citrix Systems (Nasdaq: CTXS) has been able to remain above its 52-week moving average and could be using the trendline to bounce after reporting earnings. Citrix reported earnings on Thursday morning and the company beat on the top and bottom lines.Earnings came in at $1.40 per share and that was 15 cents above the consensus of $1.25. We see on the weekly chart that Citrix has been trending higher over the last two and a half years and a trendline has connected the lows over the last 15 months.

Both the companies entered into an agreement that will see the SunPower install solar power at two distribution centers and 19 Walmart stores in Illinois. This 23MW energy project is set have a combination of rooftop and ground-mount systems, and is expected to start in the first half of 2019. As per the Walmart officials, this is the first major step of the company towards its 2025 plan, by which the company plans to power half of its operations with renewable energy.However, the bigger picture for the company is to cut emissions in its global value chain by one billion metric tons by the year 2030. Although the agreement value has not been disclosed by any of the parties, a multi-million dollar contract of this magnitude could prove to be highly beneficial for SunPower.

Houston, TX-based National Oilwell Varco Inc. is one of the global leaders in designing, manufacturing and selling of comprehensive systems, components, products and equipment used in oil and gas drilling and production worldwide. After struggling through a difficult oil market downturn, the company in Q2 2018 not only posted positive numbers but also surpassed a majority of the analyst’s estimates quite comprehensively, thanks to the sustained progress in the oil market. So as the company is about to publish its Q3 results, the investor community expects its performance to improve further, given the positive outlook given by the CFO in the previous quarterly call. Here are three things to look for: 1) Look for rig technologies to lose some luster, largely owing to conversion of inventory into cash that has been slow to move during this prolonged downturn period (and also because of the industry hovering near its cyclical lows). 2) Look for wellbore technologies to mai

Next year, it might get costlier to taste Hershey’s chocolates. The chocolate maker is planning to raise prices of one-fifth of its products by around 2.5% in 2019.Initially, Hershey had wanted to hike prices by summer. In addition to price hikes, the company is focusing on digital strategies to milk a rapidly growing e-commerce market, while also adding new products and  making acquisitions to boost revenues. Chief executive officer Michele Buck indicated that the company’s association with SkinnyPop popcorn – following Hershey’s last year acquisition of Amplify Snack Brands – has turned out well for the company’s sales growth. Also seeming to target an increasingly health-conscious population, Hershey announced this year that it would buy Pirate Brands from B&G Foods Inc. for $420 million.

Twitter beat earnings and revenues expectations in Q3, even with  monthly active users lower than the previous quarter. The social networking platform generated a $789 million profit, including one-time gains, compared to a net loss of $21 million in the year-ago period.Twitter claims the drop is due to its cleaning up the platform by removal of abusive users and fake accounts. Its daily users however was up +9% in the past quarter, according to Twitter.