business groups say they are encouraged by China's approval of a new law that loosens restrictions on foreign investment and said it could help smooth the way to a working trade agreement between the two countries. China's legislature passed a measure that would prevent Chinese officials from forcing U.S. and other foreign companies to turn over proprietary technology, a key issue in the current tug of war between the two countries.
The U.S. has imposed tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods in an effort to force changes to a range of China's economic policies.China has retaliated by putting duties on most U.S. imports. "It's one of those confidence building measures," Erin Ennis, senior vice-president of the U.S.-China Business Council, said of the move by Chinese legislators.
Merck & Co., Inc. says the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has approved the label expansion of its blockbuster PD-1 inhibitor, Keytruda (pembrolizumab).The drug has now been approved in combination with chemotherapy for the treatment of adult patients with metastatic squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) — a difficult to treat lung cancer.
The European approval was expected as the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use had recommended the same in February.
Sales of new U.S. homes in the U.S. dropped almost 7% in January, indicating the housing market got off to a slow start in early 2019 amid a partial government shutdown and patches of unusually harsh weather.
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This expansion is in-line with the company’s 2017 pledge of investing $10 billion in U.S. factories over the course of five years.
This new plan will have some employment benefits also.It will also increase its production capacity through factory renovation in locations like Huntsville, Alabama; Buffalo, West Virginia; Troy, Missouri; and Jackson, Tennessee.
To implement the plan, the company will need to ramp up production of fuel-efficient vehicles. Toyota said it will produce hybrid versions of the RAV4 crossover and Lexus ES luxury sedan in Kentucky for the first time.
E-commerce giant Amazon is now planning to open more physical grocery stores, a sector currently dominated by the likes of Walmart (WMT).
According to the Wall Street Journal, with the acquisition of Whole Foods Amazon got its first real taste of store-based grocery sales, but Amazon’s grocery models will be starkly different from that of Whole Foods.
But this move comes with its own set of challenges.Even though the company could remove expenses associated with established physical stores, it’s already a notoriously low-margin business, and Amazon Web Services is the primary source for the company's profits.
Additionally, recent figures suggest that Amazon’s online grocery sales are not remarkably higher than those of Walmart’s physical grocery sales – 12.5% to 11.1% in 2017.
Going ahead with its plans, Amazon will now have to open dozens of relatively smaller brick-and-mortar locations across the country.
A California jury in Oakland has found the company guilty and has ordered it to pay $29 million to the victim.
The company, on the other hand, has denied such allegations claiming that its products are checked by experts and numerous studies and tests have already proved that their products are free from any cancer causing substance.The company has lost a motion to appeal a verdict in Missouri that awarded more than $4 billion to 22 women who accused that the asbestos in the company’s talcum products is the reason for their ovarian cancer.
Following the current lawsuit, shares of the company have fallen sharply.
Less than a month before WrestleMania 35 in East Rutherford, New Jersey, World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. WWE 3.45% stock ripped higher Thursday after the company got its highest Wall Street price target yet.
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Ride-hailing company Uber is planning to kick off its initial public offering in April, putting it close on the heels of its smaller rival Lyft, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
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Its projection for the second quarter, however, falls short of analysts' expectations.
For the three months ended March 1, Adobe reported earnings of $1.71 per share, exceeding analysts’ estimates of $1.62 per share (based on FactSet poll of analysts).The computer software company’s revenue for the quarter came in at a record-high $2.6 billion, topping analysts’ expectations of $2.55 billion .
President and CEO Shantanu Narayen mentioned strong momentum in Adobe’s Creative Cloud, Document Cloud and Experience Cloud businesses as significant contributors to Q1 results.
However, Adobe’s guidance for the current quarter (ending June) fell below analysts’ forecasts.
Oracle shares whipsawed in after-hours trading Thursday, after the company exceeded expectations on both earnings and revenue.
For the fiscal third quarter, the cloud computing company’s adjusted earnings increased +8% year-over-year to 87 cents per share, beating Wall Street's expectations of 84 cents per share.The company’s revenue rose +3% year-over-year to $9.61 billion in the quarter, surpassing analysts’ estimates of $9.59 billion.
Following the report, Oracle stock price jumped initially during extended trading Thursday, but only to pull back later that day.
CEO Safra Catz indicated that the company is expecting double-digit percentage range for full-year 2019 earnings-per-share growth.
Normally, I look for signals on stocks or ETFs that are hitting the lower rail of upward sloped channels, but the Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE: XLU) got my attention yesterday as it is up near the upper rail of a trend channel.In the case of the XLU, it has been known to stay up close to the upper rail depending upon the risk appetite of investors.
We see on the chart below how the channel formed in the second quarter before falling in December to form the lower rail.
After Thursday’s trading close, Broadcom announced better-than-expected fiscal first quarter earnings and its plan to give back $12 billion to shareholders.
For the three months ending February 3, the semiconductor & infrastructure software company raked in earnings of $5.55 per share, higher than the Street estimates of $5.22 per share.The earnings-per-share were also greater than the year-ago quarter’s figure, by a solid +8.4%.
The company’s net revenues for the quarter jumped +8.7% from the year-ago period to $5.789 billion, falling a bit short of the consensus expectation of $5.82 billion.
Having experienced a free cash flow of more than $2 billion – a +39% year-over-year increase - Broadcom wants to pay out around $12 billion to stockholders through a combination of cash dividends and share buy backs and eliminations in fiscal 2019.
Roku shares have a quick rebound on Thursday, following Needham analyst Laura Martin’s upped her price target on the stock.
While re-iterating her “buy” rating on the media streaming device maker’s stock, Martin raised the price target to $85 from $65.The analyst indicated several factors supporting her decisions, such as Roku’s user growth opportunities from upcoming streaming platforms of Walt Disney and Apple, advertising revenue to non-linear TV, and possibilities that the company might be acquired.
Shares of Roku gained more than +3% on Thursday - partly offsetting their -14% decline the previous day following downgrades by analysts at Macquarie Research and Loop Capital on overvaluation concerns.
For US consumers applying for a new mortgage to buy a home or refinance one, the average size of said mortgage hit a record high of $354,500 last week. The rise hints that first-time buyers face a challenge in finding their home of choice heading into spring, which is typically the busiest time of the year for home sales, said the Mortgage Bankers Association
“With more inventory in their price range compared to first-time buyers, move-up and higher-end buyers continue to have strong success finding a home,” Joel Kan, MBA’s associate vice president of economic and industry forecasting, said in a statement. The MBA’s seasonally adjusted index of loan applications to buy a home grew 4.3 percent to 250.8 in the week ended March 8.
Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who has been asked to sign off on a government agreement that allowed CVS Health Corp. to buy Aetna, ordered a hearing for April 5.
He said that he wanted the hearing to discuss which witnesses, if any, should testify before he decides whether to approve the government’s deal with the companies.
The $69 billion transaction closed in November. The Justice Department approved the merger of CVS and Aetna in October on condition that Aetna sell its Medicare prescription drug plan business to WellCare Health Plans Inc. That deal has also closed.
The U.S. Federal Reserve could announce plans to stop shrinking its bond stockpile as early as next week and as late as June, Pacific Investment Management Co (Pimco), which oversees more than $1.66 trillion in assets, said on Thursday.
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The recall was occasioned by a Honda Odyssey crash where the front airbag deployed and injured the driver’s arm.
Previously, the recalled vehicles were repaired using specific Takata desiccated replacement inflators (PSDI-5D) or entire replacement airbag modules containing these inflators.But an investigation revealed that manufacturing issues at Takata’s Mexico facility introduced excessive moisture into the inflator during assembly, leading to the problem.
Free repairs would begin with immediate effect with replacement parts being made by other suppliers.
This recall is not the first of its kind as automakers in the U.S. have repaired more than 7.2 million defective Takata air bag inflators in 2018. The companies have now ramped up efforts to track down parts in need of replacement.
According to the company, the total number of recalled inflators is expected to be around 21 million in about 12.9 million Honda and Acura vehicles that have been subject to recall for replacing
It is estimated that Breakstone’s sales could garner a valuation of roughly $400 million.
The dairy industry has been increasingly losing its relevance as customers are turning to non-dairy alternatives like oat, soy and almond milk.Last year, Kraft Heinz announced the sale of its Canadian natural cheese business to Italian dairy group Parmalat for C$1.62 billion ($1.23 billion).
Falling shares of dairy products is another cause for companies to make such selling decisions.
Recently, the Commission has been tough regarding anti-trust laws specifically related to bug tech companies.
Spotify reasoned that Apple has an ‘unfair advantage’ over its competitors as its control of its App Store limits customer choices and puts the pressure of fees on its rivals.Spotify has only approached the EU Commission after it failed to resolve the issue directly with Apple.
Spotify’s CEO explained that since the recent introduction of new rules for the App Store, the company has been acting both as a player and referee to deliberately disadvantage other app developers.
Due to these new rules, Spotify has to pay Apple a 30% tax on items purchased through Apple’s payment system.
OPEC on Thursday cut the forecast of global demand for its crude this year as rivals boost production, building a case to extend a supply-cutting deal with Russia and other allies beyond the first half of 2019.
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