A Tuesday filing revealed that one of Tesla’s biggest investors has made a big bet on it. On Nio’s first day on the NYSE, September 12, the stock closed a little lower than it was initially priced.After peaking the next day with 75% gains, the car-maker’s stock shifted into neutral and gradually rolled downhill before finding a parking spot below it’s original closing price, at about $6.20. Now, just hours after the new disclosure, and hours after market close, the stock price is feeling out a new support level which may keep it over $7.80, which would be up 25% from it’s recent moving average.

After acquisition talks for game developer Zynga (ZNGA) were reported early Tuesday, a sudden 10+% spike in the stock caused a trading halt.The halt was lifted midday and trading resumed, and the share price closed the market Tuesday at $4.36, up +12.37%. Zynga, headquartered in San Francisco, is known for mobile-based games FarmVille, Words With Friends, CSR Racing, and more.

The Trump administrations withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement, and its subsequent decision to re-impose sanctions, could very well have rippling effects on global oil markets.  A number of US companies have already stopped their imports despite the sanctions going into effect in early November 2018.A number of companies from countries like India, however, which are heavily oil dependent, are continuing to import Iranian oil -- defying the Trump administration’s call for countries to completely cut-off trade. A slow but steady increase in the US's rig count during the course of 2018 has helped investors remain optimistic.

Instagram is flexing its muscles against online bullies, to protect users' well-being. On Tuesday, the Facebook-owned photo-sharing website announced that it will apply a new machine learning tool that can proactively identify bullying in photos and captions and then feed them into the website’s Community Operations team for human review.The technology is expected to detect bullying gestures such as comparing and ranking images/captions (e.g., on a split-screen, a person being compared with an image in a negative or demeaning way could get flagged). Even earlier in the year, Instagram expressed its grave concerns about online bullying and harassment, and said that it will delete bullying posts/comments.  

By boosting its payout three times in less than two years, ConocoPhillips is all set to emerge as a viable income growth option for investors in the space.  Between 2001 to 2012, ConocoPhillips pushed its yield to well above 4%, which was more than double what the S&P 500 offered at that time.However, with the oil supply glut and the subsequent market downturn in 2016, the company aggressively slashed its payout to preserve cash. Today, with the markets improving with production cuts and increased signs of tighter balance between supply and demand, companies like ConocoPhillips and its peers are making it a priority to reward investors.

Is Google upping its game against other FAANG members?The search giant is rapidly proliferating its hardware business, as it is set to launch its latest gadgets – a smartphone, a smart speaker and a tablet computer. What’s  making the most noise among its new offerings is the Google Pixel 3, a premium Android-powered device, which is touted by some as a potential rival to the iPhoneXs. Pixel 3 is expected to come with Google's latest Android software Android 9 Pie, and with screens that expand till the edges of the phones. The Home Hub will be Google's new smart speaker, which might be a potential competitor to Amazon's own Echo Show device and the Facebook Portal home camera. The Pixel Slate is also slated to be be unveiled today its new tablet computer.

While exact motives remain unclear, the $8.3 billion hedge fund Pershing Square has recently established a $900 million long position in Starbucks (SBUX), the fund’s helmsman Bill Ackman announced today.His $1 billion short on Herbalife (HLF), which he believed was a pyramid scheme masquerading as a direct sales company, was the subject of a feature-length documentary called "Betting On Zero.

General Electric Co. has landed a $700 million contract to supply turbine and generator units for Egypt’s first nuclear power project. GE will deliver four turbine units – reportedly one in each year from 2023 through 2026 - for Egypt’s planned 4,800 megawatt El Dabaa nuclear facility.The units will start operating at the rate of one per year from 2026 until 2029, said Michael Keroulle, chief commercial officer for GE’s Steam Power business, in a phone interview (according to Bloomberg). The contract has been awarded to AAEM (a joint venture between GE and Russia-based Atomenergomash), which will design and deliver the turbine system for the reactor, according to GE.

An analysis from Bank of America Merrill Lynch suggests that Apple sales will gather steam, thanks to people wanting to upgrade to iPhones - according to the results of a recent global survey of smartphone users. Apple’s announcements of iPhoneXs and iPhone Xr  spurred people’s interest in upgrading to an iPhone in recent months, according to Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan’s note to clients Tuesday.The Bank of America analysis indicates growth opportunities for Apple in India and China markets. Mohan estimates that Apple’s fiscal 2019 earnings per share would be $14.41 versus the $13.62 Wall Street consensus.      

“"While we are working to support the US government with our cloud in many areas, we are not bidding on the JEDI contract because first, we couldn't be assured that it would align with our AI Principles and second, we determined that there were portions of the contract that were out of scope with our current government certifications," Google's statement said. The company is however open to a bidding for a part of it if the DOD employs more cloud computing companies' services for the program.But the Pentagon suggests that splitting the contract among multiple providers might make the project too complex and adversely affect the data migration process. In the past, Google’s employees have been vocal about not supporting any contract with the U.S. government that might in any way contribute to warfare technology.

Although Square Capital has been extending credit to Square (SQ) customers since 2014, some analysts think their newest loan product is might be moving the business in an overly risky direction. BTIG, the privately-held investment banking firm, has published a report suggesting that Square is becoming too dependent on their loan revenue, and estimates that their stock is currently overpriced by about 75%.The BTIG report cited past examples of online lenders who failed to properly gauge the risks of lending, and suggested that the current subjects of inquiry are making similar mistakes. Square’s new loan product, called Square Installments, is offering lower-than-average interest rates for business clients making significant purchases, which can be repaid over three, six, or twelve month installment periods.

The private information of over 500,000 Google users was accessible to 438 application development companies, and Google chose not to tell anyone for over 6 months. The search giant, now a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc (GOOGL), has decided phase out the consumer-level services of its floundering social networking platform Google+, which was the source of the breach, over the next several months.The company reports that the compromised information included birthdates, profile photos, email addresses, and gender, all of which was made accessible due to a bug in their software rather than a malicious attack. The long-avoided disclosure was made in a blog post by Google earlier today.

Tesla Inc.’s stock extended losses for a fifth straight session on Monday.The stock closed at its lowest level since March 2017, and lost more than $10 billion in market capitalization in one week. Even as the electric carmaker's  sales of Model 3 sedan are performing well in the U.S. and third quarter projections for it look healthy, the company's CEO Elon Musk’s tweets mocking the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by calling it the “Shortseller Enrichment Commission” might have diluted the positives and therefore potentially added to investor concerns.

However, speculations are rife that the move might have been spurred by a Wall Street Journal report that indicates that Google did not publicly disclose a bug infiltrating Google+ user accounts. According to the WSJ article, Google's legal and policy team told senior executives at the company that disclosing the security loophole could lead to "immediate regulatory interest."Google, on the other hand, said in a statement provided to CNN Business, "Every year, we send millions of notifications to users about privacy and security bugs and issues," and added, "Whenever user data may have been affected, we go beyond our legal requirements and apply several criteria focused on our users in determining whether to provide notice.”.  

Tech (XLK, VGT, QQQ) and other sectors are tanking along with the major indices (DIA, SPY) while international tensions mount, leaving investors wondering where they can turn. Many investors are being encouraged to buy the dip, regardless of the sector.Stocks such as J.P. Morgan (JPM), Goldman Sachs (GS), and Visa (V) are examples of companies which have performed well during months of rising-rates in the past. Currently regional banks are surging, with the SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE) serving as a catch-all, and individual banks such as SVB Financial Group (SIVB) attracting investors in recent days.

Its stock jumped +20% on the news. On Wednesday, the book store chain said that it has appointed a committee to review acquisition offers, including the one that came from chairman Len Riggio who currently owns 20% of the company’s equity.Also, an investor holding a 7% stake has reportedly expressed his interest in buying the company to Riggio . Barnes & Noble also suggested that an unidentified shareholder is apparently trying to aggressively increase their stake in the company.

Called Portal (and the larger Portal+), the device comes with a touchscreen and has a user detection system that follows the user anywhere they move across a room, allowing one-to-one/group video chats and providing voice assistant features.While the camera itself doesn't move, it is equipped with a 140-degree purview including panning and zooming softwares. Having faced major privacy issues in recent times – including the Cambridge Analytica scandal and this month’s hacking of 50 million accounts on its social networking site – Facebook is trying to assure that the Portal has privacy build into "every layer" (according to Facebook's VP of hardware Rafa Camargo’s comments to CNN Business). For Portal, Facebook is also integrating third-party features such as Amazon's Alexa voice assistant for playing music and controlling connected devices.

A federal magistrate who reviewed a test-case of the class action suit though which thousands of municipalities are seeking billions of dollars in damages has deemed that the injuries claimed by the plaintiffs cannot be ignored without a further hearing. Among the many companies named in the suit are Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Purdue Pharma Inc., McKesson (MCK), and AmerisourceBergen Corp (ABC), some of whom make drugs and some of whom distribute them.The suit alleges that the companies understated the risks of the drugs, overstated the benefits, and ignored suspiciously high volumes of the drugs being ordered. President Trump and other officials have taken action to stamp out the opioid epidemic which has escalated to ghastly proportions, claiming around 100 American lives every day.  Parallels exist between the current lawsuit and the Big Tobacco case of the 1990s, in which governments were able to extract a $246 Billion settlement from tobacco companies.

The Danish Bank’s Estonian branches appear to have been used to launder over $200 billion between 2007-2014 while third-party auditors failed to report any issues. Additional details have continued to surface in recent weeks while shareholders have sold off in droves and the CEO of the bank has resigned in shame.The stock price is down to $26.35 from its 52-week high of $41.13 as of the time of this writing. Ernst & Young, an international accounting firm who played the role of the Impartial Third-Party Auditor in the screen-worthy story, is the subject of an investigation by Denmark’s business regulator.  E&Y have been admonished in the press for a lack of diligence, since observers seem surprised that an auditor would not have noticed the long series of red flag transactions.

The decentralized public transaction ledger has seen increased adoption for a variety of use cases by different sectors, each intrigued by blockchain’s transparency, speed, and security (as well as cost-cutting potential).Now a Japanese city has introduced a blockchain-powered online voting system – an area of increasing interest for blockchain application. The Japan Times reported that Tsukuba, a hub of scientific research in Japan, declared themselves the “first in the country” to use a blockchain-based voting system – in this case, voters were choosing which social contribution projects to support.