Chinese consumers may have soured on some American products, like iPhones, but they have only sweetened on U.S. residential real estate. READ MORE...

Riyadh (AFP) - OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia said Wednesday that its huge oil reserves, already the second largest in the world behind only Venezuela, are even bigger than previously thought. READ MORE...

(Bloomberg) -- The lights would stay on if California utility giant PG&E Corp. files for bankruptcy.But the company, its customers and investors would be set for years of uncertainty. While utility bankruptcies are rare, they can result in anything from a healthy company to a breakup, with business units sold off like spare parts.

Here are two more ways a partial government shutdown could affect Americans if it continues: millions won’t get food stamps and the economy will grow at a slower pace. READ MORE...

Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump is increasingly eager to strike a deal with China soon in an effort to perk up financial markets that have slumped on concerns over the trade war, according to people familiar with internal White House deliberations. READ MORE...

Morgan Stanley is shifting its focus from defensive stocks to cyclical stocks as Wall Street starts pulling away from bear market territory, chief U.S. equity strategist Michael Wilson told CNBC on Tuesday. READ MORE...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Millions of small business owners will be in uncharted waters this tax season as they try to determine if they qualify for a deduction that could exempt one-fifth of their income from taxes. READ MORE...

AT&T (T - Get Report) is planning to hand walking papers to employees in at least 10 operations centers around the country, according to a report by Vice's Motherboard. The reported cuts come as AT&T puts the final wraps on its $85 billion merger with Time Warner, with such corporate combinations often spawning efforts to cut costs and eliminate redundancies. READ MORE...

BlackRock Inc., the world's largest asset manager, is cutting 3% of its global workforce.About 500 people will lose their jobs in the coming few weeks, according to a memo obtained by Bloomberg.  “Market uncertainty is growing, investor preferences are evolving and the ecosystem in which we operate is becoming increasingly complex,” Rob Kapito, BlackRock’s president, said in the memo. The firm is seeking to “move decisively to refocus our resources where the impact will be greatest” and to operate more efficiently, Kapito wrote.

The semiconductor sector has been hit particularly hard in the recent market decline, but Broadcom (Nasdaq: AVGO) has held up better than most.The stock did gap sharply lower back in July, but has been rallying since then. The daily chart shows a particular bullish formation has formed in the last three months and that is a Three Rising Valley pattern.

AMD CEO Lisa Su used a CES keynote address on Wednesday to unveil the Radeon VII, a new high-end gaming chip that will rely on an advanced 7-nanometer (7nm) manufacturing process, and also shared details about 7nm desktop and server CPUs that will be arriving later this year.READ MORE...

Target saw a surge of shoppers head to its stores and website during the 2018 holiday season, a sign that its investments in store remodels and delivery services are paying off, and an early sign that consumers across the U.S. spent more on gifts this year.READ MORE...

Kohl’s Corp. shares plunged  -7.2% on Thursday, after the retail chain reported weaker sales growth for the holiday season compared to last year. Kohl’s same-store sales for the November-to-December holiday period increased +1.2%, less than the year-ago period’s nearly +7%. However, Michelle Gass, Kohl's CEO, seemed more optimistic.Gass said in a statement, "We are delighted with our 1.2% shifted comparable sales increase for the holiday period, which builds on the positive momentum we have achieved throughout the year".

Pfizer had acquired the sites as part of its $15 billion purchase of Hospira Inc. in 2015. The factories, which produce generic injectables like penicillin, employs around 1,700 workers in the states of Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.These plants do not make products for the India market.  Additionally, Pfizer is shuttering a Hospira research and development lab in the Indian city Chennai, but spokesman Steven Danehy said that that was unrelated to the shutdown of the aforementioned two plants. Pfizer also mentioned that it is expanding operations in its Visakhapatnam facility in south India.

Earnings are expected to come in around $4 a share, below the prior projection of as much as $4.30. According to the retail chain, the major factors behind the downward revisions include under-performance in categories such as women’s sportswear, fashion jewelry and cosmetics, along with challenges in fulfilling orders following a fire at its West Virginia distribution center.Although the holiday season began on a high note, there was a drag during the mid-December period, as indicated by Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette. The news led to its shares dropping by as much as -18 percent on Thursday, marking the sharpest intraday decline since October 2008.    

Twitter Inc. shares traded higher Thursday after a so-called double upgrade for the microblogging website from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. BAML analyst Justin Post upped his rating on the stock two notches, to "buy" from "underperform", with a price target of $39 per share, firmly ahead of the Street consensus of $33.11.The change followed a price target reduction from analysts at Cowen & Co., who lowered their estimate by $2 to $25 a share, and from JPMorgan, which trimmed theirs by $1 to $45 a share.

Analysts have found a new drinking buddy in Constellation Brands (STZ) after Wednesday's selloff made the stock more attractive to slide up to.READ MORE...

On Thursday, American Airlines Group Inc. lowered its estimate for a key revenue metric for the fourth quarter. It is now expecting its unit revenue – which compares sales to flight capacity - to have grown about 1.5% in the quarter, compared with its earlier estimate of 1.5 - 3.5% increase. The airline also cut its full-year earnings per share estimate to a range of $4.40 to $4.60, from $4.50 to $5 earlier.Analysts were expecting earnings of $4.62 per share, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. The news sent American Airlines shares tumbling -7 percent in pre-market trading.    

The amount was disclosed by a person familiar with the details, according to CNN.  The settlement does not include any admission of wrongdoing by the automaker, though. According to the source, fines of about $305 million would be split among the US Justice Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board.Fiat Chrysler will make payments of up to $2,800 per vehicle to the owners of 100,000 diesel-powered Jeep SUVs and Ram pickup. Two years ago, regulators accused that Fiat Chrysler had installed software on 100,000 diesel-powered cars and trucks as a way to cheat on diesel emissions tests.

Ford Motor is slashing thousands of jobs in Europe, as the carmaker embarks on closing a plant and terminating production of some unprofitable models in the continent – as part of a restructuring plan.In July, the company had indicated its intent to spend $11 billion over the next three to five years towards shuffling its global business. In its announcement on Thursday, Ford mentioned that it will be ending production of the C-Max compact car in Germany, and that it wants to shutter a transmissions plant in France.