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".

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has fined Morgan Stanley $10M for compliance failures and anti-money laundering.The lapse impaired the firm's overall tracking of tens of billions of dollars of wire and foreign currency transfers, FINRA said. Those transactions included transfers to and from countries known for money laundering risk, FINRA said.

Apple’s latest line of iPhones is apparently attracting more consumers to switch from Android, compared to the previous year – according to a Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) report. The report found that 16% of iPhone buyers upgraded from an Android model during the 30-day period following the iPhone XR’s launch.The figure was 11% in case of the iPhone X’s release in November 2017. In the 30 days following its launch in October 2018, the lowest-priced new iPhone model XR contributed 32% of total iPhone sales in the U.S. (as found by CIRP).

In October, the All India Online Vendors Association (AIOVA) filed a petition with the anti-trust body Competition Commission of India (CCI) alleging that Amazon favors merchants that it partly owns, such as Cloudtail and Appario.The group filed a similar petition against Flipkart in May, alleging preferential treatment for select sellers. The new regulations also preclude any potential discrimination - as to whether a product purchased belongs to an affiliate of the online platform or not - in designing any cash back incentive offered to customers.

Retail sales during the holiday season clocked its fastest increase in six years. From November 1 through December 24, retail sales surged +5.1% from a year ago, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse. Shoppers spent more than $850 billion in the holidays. Online sales increased more than +19% compared to last year, according to Mastercard.On Wednesday, Amazon claimed to have raked in record sales during the holidays. However, spending at department stores fell 1.3% from last year, according to Mastercard.

 The Gap is shuttering its Fifth Avenue store in New York, as confirmed by the company. At the beginning of November, Gap had more than 1,000 stores around the world and nearly 800 stores in North America.The closing of the Fifth Avenue store, scheduled for January 20, is only a part of the planned closures of hundreds of Gap stores. According to Gap CEO Art Peck, closing stores could save Gap up to $100 million in profit. In its latest quarter, Gap's sales declined -7% compared to a year ago.

JC Penney’s stock price dropped almost below $1 on Wednesday – for the first time since 1929 when it began trading on a stock exchange. The department store chain has been incurring losses since 2010, and is currently knee-deep in $4 billion debt with a junk credit rating.JC Penney had a $151 million loss in its third quarter. The company is considering additional store closures. Its attempted turnaround strategies, such as selling appliances a few years ago, seems to have been unable to create the effect the firm is desperately in need of.

Amazon is adding a bunch of new cargo jets to its fleet to help it deliver more of its own packages.READ MORE...

McDonald's India, subsidiary of the Chicago-headquartered fast food giant - McDonald's Corp., finally reported net profit for the FY2017-18 after 22 years of business in India. According to its latest filings with the Registrar of Companies of India, the company reported a net profit of INR 65.2 lakhs (approx.The company further said in its filing that it has not only been able to stem further erosion of its net worth, its also been able to successfully reverse the trend of erosion through the infusion of fresh capital. Recording a y-o-y growth of ~8%, the company reported a total income of INR 119.60 crore earned mostly through royalty income.