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Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s bid to buy Youku Tudou , a Chinese video site similar to YouTube with 500 million monthly unique visitors, establishes Alibaba as a “formidable player” in online video, said Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Youssef Squali. The analyst, who reiterated a buy rating and $88 price target on the stock on Monday, said the move would enable Alibaba to set up a streaming service that is a hybrid between Google Inc.’s ad-based YouTube , Netflix’s subscription-based streaming service and Amazon’s Prime Instant Video, potentially with original programming. If approved, it would be Alibaba’s fourth acquisition in two years to expand its video entertainment offerings. Last year, it bought a majority share of ChinaVision Media, enabling it to set up a professional filming company now known as Alibaba Pictures. “This is yet another big step by Alibaba towards becoming an ecosystem rather than just an e-commerce platform,” said Edison Investment Research analyst Richard Windsor. Shares of Alibaba have fallen 14% over the last three months, underperforming the 4.5% decline of the S&P 500.

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From:: Stock Market News

Abercrombie & Fitch Co. [anf] was upgraded to hold from sell at Wunderlich and its price target raised to $21 from $15. The firm also increased its earnings per share estimate for fiscal 2016 to 71 cents from 66 cents, and fiscal 2017 to $1.08 cents from 79 cents. The firm based its upgrade on favorable shifts in style at the Hollister and Abercrombie brands. The firm believes same-store sales expectations for the company are too low and the search for a new chief executives would normally be a positive for investors. And the impact of the euro is reduced by the company’s repricing. Abercrombie & Fitch stock is down 28.7% for the year so far. The S&P is down 1.3% for the same period.

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From:: Stock Market News

Corporate-payments technology company Wex Inc. said on Monday that it’s reached a nearly $1.5 billion cash-and-stock deal to acquire transportation services payments company Electronic Funds Source LLC. Wex expects the deal to immediately add to earnings, and save the company about $25 million over the next three years. When the deal closes, Wex will pay about $1.1 billion in cash, and issue four million shares to investment funds affiliated with private equity firm Warburg Pincus LLC, which owns Electronic Funds Source.

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From:: Stock Market News

Weight Watchers International Inc.’s stock soared 37% in premarket trade Monday, putting it on course to open at a seven-month high, after the weight management services company said Oprah Winfrey was taking a 10% stake. As part of a new partnership, Winfrey will buy newly issued shares representing 10% of the shares outstanding, will receive options to buy an additional 5% of the shares outstanding and has joined the board of directors. “Weight Watchers has given me the tools to begin to make the lasting shift that I and so many of us who are struggling with weight have longed for,” Winfrey said in a statement. “I believe in the program so much I decided to invest in the company and partner in its evolution.” The stock had run up 64% over the past three months through Friday, but was still down 73% year to date.

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From:: Stock Market News

Pacific Crest Securities analysts downgraded Oracle Corp. to sector weight from overweight and lowered their fiscal year earnings estimates due to a “transition year” for Oracle. The analysts lowered their 2016 earnings per share projection to $2.56 from $2.70 and lowered the revenue estimate to $37.2 billion from $38 billion. Oracle is transitioning its offerings to the cloud, which the analysts say will be good long term. But the analysts say they expect Oracle to face difficulties during the transition and new license and maintenance revenue to drop, causing them to lower estimates.

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From:: Stock Market News

Halliburton Co. reported a third-quarter loss of $54 million, or 6 cents a share, compared with a profit of $1.2 billion, or $1.41 a share, in the same period a year ago. Excluding non-recurring items, such as asset write offs and severance costs related to the downturn in the energy market, adjusted earnings per share came in at 31 cents, beating the FactSet consensus of 27 cents. Revenue fell to $5.58 billion from $8.7 billion, led by a decline in North America as a result of reduced activity and pricing pressure. “This is a challenging market, but our strategy remains the same,” said President Jeff Miller. “We are looking through this cycle to ensure that we are positioned to accelerate our growth when the industry recovers, and we are managing through the downturn by drawing upon our management’s deep experience in navigating through past cycles.” The stock, which was indicated slightly lower in light premarket trade, has lost 3.9% year to date while the S&P 500 has shed 1.3%.

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From:: Stock Market News

Online retail giant Amazon.com Inc. is expanding its efforts to target people that post fake reviews on its website, according to media reports. The company has filed a lawsuit in Seattle, Washington, claiming 1,114 defendants are selling fake reviews for as little as $5 on the website Fiverr.com. Amazon doesn’t know the real names of the people posting the reviews, terming them “John Does” in the complaint. “While small in number, these reviews can significantly undermine the trust that consumers and the vast majority of sellers and manufacturers place in Amazon, which in turn tarnishes Amazon’s brand,” the tech company reportedly said in the complaint, filed on Friday. The lawsuit is not targeting Fiverr.com, but individuals using the site. Amazon in April sued several websites for selling false reviews.

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From:: Stock Market News

The U.S. dollar rose against most major rivals Monday after a reading of Chinese gross domestic product came in at a better-than-expected third-quarter rate. The U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.3% to 94.827. The Chinese government said gross domestic product grew 6.9%, which compared with expectations of 6.8% in a Wall Street Journal poll of analysts, though it was the slowest growth rate since 2009. The euro fell to $1.1319 from $1.1369 late Friday. The GDP reading “should offer some reassurance as to the speed of slowing of the world’s second-largest economy,” wrote Michala Marcussen, global head of economics at Société Générale, in a note. “The question remains, however, as to how much of a drag this has exerted beyond China’s borders,” she said, adding that the European Central Bank “is set to deliver a cautious tone” on Thursday with the release of its monetary policy statement.

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From:: Stock Market News

U.S. stock futures early Monday pointed to a flat open, with Dow Jones Industrial Average futures down 12 points, or less than 0.1%, to 17,103. S&P 500 futures inched lower by 1 point, or less than 0.1%, to 2,024.50. Global markets have been reacting to news that China’s economic growth slowed to 6.9% in the third quarter, slipping below 7% for the first time since 2009 but still topping expectations of 6.8%. Asian markets were mixed in the wake of the reading on China’s gross domestic product. “The fall in China’s Q3 GDP to below 7% was widely expected,” said Nour Al-Hammoury, chief market strategist at ADS Securities, in a note on Monday, though he added that a slowdown in industrial production and fixed-asset investment “did surprise the markets.”

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From:: Stock Market News

Economic growth for the third quarter of the year likely came in weaker than expected, largely because of a worsening net exports picture, but fourth-quarter growth is expected to withstand ongoing headwinds, according to Fannie Mae’s Economic & Strategic Research (ESR) Group. Slowing global growth and the appreciating dollar should continue to weigh on the […] …read more

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