Caesars Entertainment will introduce sports betting to its several casinos (they used to have it only in Nevada) – but now it will expand to its locations in Atlantic City and on the Gulf Coast. MGM Resort International is following a similar strategy and expending the online gambling platforms and sports betting.The online offering will include sports betting, casino gaming, and poker. Mobile applications for betting will be developed in cooperation with Boyd Gaming. Of course, no betting while driving.

Just when you thought the Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon streaming empire was invincible, Wal-Mart has now entered the fold with plans to launch its own streaming service targeted at Middle America.Wal-Mart is increasingly seen as scrappy in its effort to modernize, first with its efforts to expand its shipping and e-commerce business and now with its effort to enter the media space. Walmart already has a streaming service available, called Vudu, but the recent announcement of a new streaming service would be separate and focused on a different market.

Deutsche Bank will move a large part of its euro clearing business from London to Frankfurt. For a long time, London has been a major hub of euro clearing - trading of financial products priced in euro – with the city accounting for  around 75% of the transactions.Deutsche Bank’s announcement could spark concerns over whether other banks would follow suit, thereby pointing towards a potential headwind to London (and advantage to European cities) resulting from Brexit. According to a 2016 report commissioned by the London Stock Exchange, the United Kingdom could lose up to 83,000 jobs over seven years if clearing operations move out of London and into the eurozone.

Heineken NV’s Brazil expansion is apparently pressuring its profit margins. Last year, the Dutch brewing company bought the Japanese firm Kirin Holdings Co.’s Brazil business – an acquisition that established Heineken as Brazil’s second-largest brewer.Adjusted operating profit increased 1.3 percent to 1.75 billion euros ($2 billion) in the first half of the year, falling short of analysts’ estimates.

might be eyeing Keystone Foods, a U.S. supplier of chicken nuggets to McDonald's. According to a Bloomberg report, two people familiar with the matter and who did not wish to be named said that Tyson is in exclusive talks with Brazil’s Marfrig Global Foods SA to buy Keystone Foods.No official statement, however, has been made from either of the companies.

Tyson Foods Inc. cut back its profit projections for 2018, as tariffs and trade uncertainties take a toll on its export market. The largest U.S. meat producer predicts its earnings for fiscal 2018 (excluding one-time items) to be about $5.70 to $6 a share - compared with a previous forecast of $6.55 to $6.70.While tariffs slapped by China and Mexico on American pork (following U.S. levies on imported steel and aluminum) pose headwinds to its meat export market, Tyson is also hurting from slowing domestic demand for chicken and commodity market volatility. It is a challenging environment for U.S. meat producers like Tyson, as the export-heavy industry is undergoing a surge in production (and therefore potentially more surplus to be unloaded) amid global trade tensions. Tyson Foods' Chief Executive Officer Tom Hayes has expressed that the company would be seeking pricing and cost management strategies to offset the effects of freight and feed ingredient costs.

Caterpillar Inc. surpassed expectations on profit and upped its outlook for the full year, even as it might have to grapple with ‘trade war’ effects. The machine manufacturing behemoth's Q2 2018 earnings of $2.82 per share were more than double compared to the year-ago period. While acknowledging the potential $100-200 million in additional costs due to tariffs on materials, the company still hopes to rake in earnings in the range of $11-12 dollars per share– revising its previous forecasts upwards.The firm is expected to tackle higher costs by raising product prices.    

The German auto behemoth exported around 81,000 cars from its South Carolina manufacturing unit to China last year, which contributed around $2.4 billion revenues for the company. BMW is one of the major players to have been hit by the U.S.-China ‘trade war’ in recent times.Following U.S. levies on $34 billion worth of Chinese imports, China retaliated by taxing an equal amount of American goods imported into its nation.  

Global yields spike, as speculations gather steam over the Bank of Japan’s scaling back its stimulus measures. Yields on 10-year Japanese bonds climbed to an almost 18-month high during Asian hours, apparently on anticipation that the upcoming  BOJ meeting on Tuesday might see the central bank reduce its bond-buying target and/or allow more room for interest rates in Japan to move around the zero-level. 10-year U.K. bonds’ yield climbed five basis points to 1.33 percent as of 10.56 a.m. in London, while German bunds’ yield rose four basis points to 0.44 percent. Yield on U.S. Treasuries increased two basis points to 2.98 percent.  

He became famous predicting financial crisis of 2008 and was prominently featured in “The Big Short” movie. Now, he is shorting automaker Tesla as he admitted during his recent interview on CNBC.Here what he said about Elon Musk and his company: “He’s nowhere in autonomous driving, as far as I can tell, and big competition is coming in his space next year.” In addition, he also admitted that he is shorting an internet real estate platform, Zillow.

Kodak made waves earlier this year when they announced the creation of a unique digital media rights platform using blockchain, in conjunction with WENN Digital Inc.Skeptics were quick to denounce the photo giant’s efforts, claiming the company dabbling in cryptocurrency was nothing more than evidence of the blockchain bubble in action. But Kodak, who has struggled in recent years to adapt to the demise of film photography, has seen positive early returns from the service and recently achieved a major coup – Formula One champion F1 driver Fernando Alonso is becoming one of the first major sports figures to move his complete digital library to their KODAKOne Image Rights Management Platform. The agreement will see Alonso adopt KODAKOne to protect both personal and professional images and videos.

This means that most PCs and Apple MacBooks will not be upgraded to the next models for more than a year since thy all will be waiting for new Intel 10-nanometer chip.  At the same time this Intel delay is good for Advanced Micro Devices which are currently attacking Intel server market with similar chips and has some new products coming out early in 2019 to compete with the latest Intel chips. AMD investors were so happy with Intel troubles that AMD stock jumped as high s +8% till settling to +3% by the end of the day.Obviously lack of new chip products from Intel made a lot investors very unexcited about the future of the company and they sold the stock with an 8% loss today.

And the President promised us (after the announcement) that we will see even better times. Two main components of GDP growth were consumer spending (2.69% contribution to growth) and net exports (1.06% contribution).One of the explanations for such a large contribution was the desire of exporting companies to increase exports before new tariffs are introduced. Is that good news for the markets?

One of the most visible today is at Microsoft, where a petition signed by more than 30,000 was presented to CEO Satya Nadella asking him to cancel Microsoft's $19.4 million cloud contract with ICE (U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement).The petition comes in response to a controversial "zero tolerance" policy that separated families at the border, which the US government has since been ordered to reverse.  Similar protests within corporations have been more commonplace particularly in the technology sector, where other issues such as gender equality and immigration at-large have been central issues.  

Revenues came in at $711 million which was above estimates of $696.2 million, but monthly active users fell short of expectations by about 3 million. Much like Facebook, Twitter is dealing with increased public scrutiny about malicious use of its platform to spread misinformation, and it has led the company to spend a great deal more on security and resources to fix the problem.Rising expenditures led Twitter to adjust forward looking expectations, adjusting their EBITDA between $215 million and $235 million down from higher estimates last quarter. 

21st Century Fox has accepted Walt Disney Co.’s offer to acquire its entertainment assets. The $71.3 billion deal marks one of the biggest mergers ever in the U.S. entertainment industry.Disney has already agreed to divest Fox’s 22 regional sports networks that compete with its own ESPN, and therefore fulfilled the U.S. Justice Department’s condition for the acquisition’s approval. Disney’s first bid for Fox's assets came in December at $52.4 billion.

Exxon Mobil produced less energy, and missed profit expectations in the latest quarter. The energy major’s total production dropped by -7% globally in Q2.The firm also cited planned maintenance as a factor behind lower production. Exxon’s Q2 profit rose by 18% to $3.95 billion, falling short of projections. But there's still some potential chance for the company to bounce back  – thanks to its +30% production growth in Permian Basin of West Texas and Bakken of North Dakota last quarter, and the firm’s plans of investing billions of dollars in overseas projects that it hopes will bolster long-term growth.  

The U.S. economy grew at 4.1% (annualized rate) in Q2 2018 - the fastest pace in four years. Contributing to the record growth was nonresidential business investment (with 7.3 %  growth) and consumer spending (with 4% increase). The U.S. Commerce Department also revised upwards the previous quarter’s growth figures – Q1 2018’s was 2.2% (up from from previous estimate of 2%).Nomianal GDP as of Q1 topped $20 trillion, per latest estimates by the Department. On  a year-over-year basis, Q2 GDP climbed 2.8%, slightly below U.S. President Donald Trump’s target of 3%.

Bitcoin enters its third day of decline, as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) turns down an exchange-traded fund’s  request  to be listed. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss wanted to list their Bitcoin ETF on Cboe Global Markets Inc., but SEC is adamant that it is not convinced that the cryptocurrency is adequately monitored and therefore rejected the listing request. The news led to a dampening of Bitcoin optimism, with the digital coin’s price dropping below $8,000. Had the SEC green-lighted the ETF’s listing, there could potentially have been a surge of institutional investments/mutual fund participation – and therefore increasing trading volume – in the cryptocurrency market.  

Investment firms might be wanting to acquire Yum China Holdings Inc., the NYSE-listed operator of KFC and Pizza Hut in mainland China, according to some reports. China’s Hillhouse Capital Group is reportedly eyeing the fast-food operator as suggested by three people familiar with the matter, according to a report by The Information.Another report by Bloomberg suggested that global investment firm KKR & Co. is also exploring takeover possibilities according to some people who asked not to be identified because details are private. However, reports suggest that talks are still in their nascent stages and no one could confirm if there would eventually be a deal or not. Yum China operates more than 8,100 restaurants in over 1,200 cities and towns across mainland China.