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Walmart Inc. said Wednesday that it has launched its first digital home brand, Allswell, a collection of bedding and mattresses. The news comes a day after the retailer announced four new fashion brands for men, women and children. The collection will be sold exclusively on the Allswell Home website and will include two mattresses, the Softer One and the Firmer One, and four limited-edition bedding sets. Mattresses will be priced from $495 for a twin size to $1,035 for the Supreme Queen, the brand’s name for a king-sized mattress. Individual bedding pieces will be priced from $60 to $350. The Queen Bedscapes, the brand’s name for its limited-edition bedding sets, will range from $980 to $1,200. Allswell head Arlyn Davich will oversee the launch and serve as president. Walmart shares are down 5.4% for the last three months, and up 29% for the past year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 22% for the past year.

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Crocs Inc. shares slipped nearly 2% in Wednesday premarket trading after it gave weak full-year outlook. The footwear company said it had a net loss of $28.3 million for the fourth quarter, or 41 cents per share, after a loss of $44.5 million, or 60 cents per share, for the same period last year. Revenue totaled $199.1 million, up from $187.4 million the year prior. The FactSet consensus was for a loss of 33 cents per share and revenue of $195.0 million. “We expect moderate wholesale and double-digit e-commerce growth to be offset by the loss of retail revenue associated with store reductions,” said Chief Executive Andrew Rees in a statement. For the first quarter, the company expects revenue of between $265.0 million and $275.0 million. The FactSet consensus is for revenue of $271.3 million. Revenue for the full year is expected to be “relatively flat,” negatively impacted by $60 million from business model changes and store closures. Sales in 2017 were $7.92 billion. The FactSet consensus for 2018 is $8.65 billion. Crocs shares are up 28.6% for the past three months, and up 111.6% for the last year. The S&P 500 index is up 16.1% for the past 12 months.

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Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. shares fell 3.5% in premarket trade Wednesday after the company reported a fourth-quarter revenue miss and downbeat 2018 guidance. Earnings for the latest quarter came to $513 million, or $1.45 per share, after a loss of $515 million, or a loss of $1.47 per share in the year-earlier period. The company did not provide an adjusted earnings-per-share figure for the fourth-quarter. The company’s 2017 adjusted EPS came to $6.83, compared with the FactSet consensus of $3.89. The latest results include an income tax benefit of $4.15 billion for 2017, primarily due to an internal tax reorganization effort and benefits related to the U.S.’s corporate tax overhaul. Revenue for the quarter declined to $2.16 billion from $2.40 billion, compared with the FactSet consensus of $2.18 billion. For 2018, the company expects revenue of $8.1 billion to $8.3 billion, compared with the FactSet consensus of $8.38 billion. Valeant shares have surged 12.8% over the last three months, compared with a 4.5% rise in the S&P 500 .

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Streaming-video company iQiyi, a unit of Baidu Inc. , filed for an initial public offering raising as much as $1.5 billion on Tuesday, according to an SEC filing. That amount is seen as a placeholder and is likely to change significantly. The Beijing-based company plans to list its American Depository Shares on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “IQ.” iQiyi offers a streaming service similar to Netflix Inc. that has about 50.8 million subscribers in China. In April 2017, the company signed a licensing agreement to stream some original Netflix content in China. Baidu will remain the controlling shareholder, holding all Class B stock while the Class A stock will be publicly traded. Goldman Sachs (Asia), Credit Suisse, BofA Merrill Lynch, China Renaissance, Citi and UBS Investment Bank are the IPO’s joint underwriters. According to the SEC filing, iQiyi lost $574 million on revenue of $2.7 billion in 2017.

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Brad Parscale, who President Donald Trump named his 2020 campaign manager Tuesday, has close financial ties with a company that has a questionable business history and ties to a convicted fraudster, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. In August, Parscale sold his digital marketing company to CloudCommerce Inc. for $10 million, the AP reported, and he currently serves on the company’s management team. But records show the company has little to show from $19 million in investments over the past two decades, with a little over $100,000 cash in hand, the AP said. A top executive at the company, which had a different name then, pleaded guilty to securities fraud in 2006. While CloudCommerce said the former executive is no longer connected to the company, the AP said it found indications that he has remained involved in corporate decision-making. CloudCommerce is a penny-stock company, and its shares reportedly surged 500% after Parscale’s deal closed last August. The company has changed names and its type of business a number of times over the years, and regulators have questioned CloudCommerce for possible stock manipulation in the past, the AP reported.

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Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is looking into President Donald Trump’s business dealings with Russia prior to his 2016 election, CNN reported Tuesday. Investigators are said to be questioning whether the Russians had compromising information on Trump, and how they may have attempted to influence him during his business dealings. Trump’s failed attempt to build a Trump Tower in Moscow and the financing for Trump’s Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013 also appear to be the subjects of questions, CNN said. The move risks another clash with Trump, who has said that his family finances before the election should be off-limits to Mueller’s investigation.

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U.S. intelligence agencies had substantial evidence that Russian operatives had compromised state websites or voter registration sites in seven states prior to the 2016 presidential election, but did not inform the states involved, NBC News reported Tuesday. Those states are Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Texas and Wisconsin, NBC reported. Officials told NBC that the sites were breached in different ways and to different extents. While some states were warned that hackers were probing their systems, they were not told of the full extent of the attacks. State and federal officials told NBC News that no votes were changed and no voters were removed from rolls. The issue remains a hot-button topic as the midterm elections loom this fall. NSA chief Mike Rogers testified Tuesday on Capitol Hill that President Donald Trump has not given him orders to disrupt the origin of Russian hacking attacks, and warned the intrusions are not expected to stop on their own.

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Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. announced that it had secured a licensing agreement for a potential psoriasis drug Tuesday afternoon, just hours before the company is scheduled to announce quarterly earnings. Valeant said it reached an exclusive agreement with Kaken Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. for KP-470 to develop and commercialize topical products with the compound in the U.S., Canada and Europe. “Medical dermatology remains a key therapeutic area of focus for the Company, and we are dedicated to developing new treatment options,” Valeant Chief Executive Joseph Papa said in Tuesday’s announcement. Valeant shares gained about 1.8% in after-hours trading Tuesday as investors awaited the company’s fourth-quarter earnings report, scheduled to be released Wednesday morning before markets open.

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E.L.F. Beauty Inc. shares dropped in the extended session Tuesday after the beauty products retailer’s revenue outlook fell short of Wall Street estimates. E.L.F. shares fell 8% after hours. The company forecast 2018 earnings of 59 cents to 61 cents a share on revenue of $286 million to $291 million. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expect earnings of 58 cents a share on revenue of $301.3 million. E.L.F. reported fourth-quarter net income of $21.5 million, or 44 cents a share, compared with $6.6 million, or 13 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted earnings were 26 cents a share. Revenue rose to $81.6 million from $76.4 million in the year-ago period. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had estimated earnings of 17 cents a share on revenue of $81.8 million.

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Ocwen Financial Corp. shares jumped more than 11% late Tuesday after the company said it had entered an agreement to acquire PHH Corp. for $360 million in cash. The purchase price would represent a 35% discount to PHH’s GAAP book equity on Dec. 31, and Ocwen would also assume PHH’s debt around $120 million. “Ocwen projects that the increased size and scale of the combined company should create various strategic and financial benefits,” including reducing cots and improved margins through economies of scale, the company said. The deal is expected to close in the second half of the year. Shares of PHH rallied 24%. The stocks ended the regular trading session down 2.3% and 3.6%.

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From:: Stock Market News