Category: Stock Market News

Carl Icahn, chairman of Icahn Enterprises LP, greeted the appointment of Kathryn Marinello as the new chief executive of Hertz Global Holdings Inc. with lofty praise. “Kathy has a history as a proven CEO and I believe she is the right person to lead Hertz as we move forward. Her consistent track record of successes in consumer and financial services, as well as technology businesses, is impressive,” said Icahn in a statement. Icahn Enterprises is Hertz’s biggest shareholder. The car rental company said late Tuesday that Marinello will succeed CEO John Tague when he retires on Jan. 2. Shares of Hertz slid 3.3% after hours.

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The American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday reported an unexpected climb of 4.7 million barrels in U.S. crude supplies for the week ended Dec. 9, according to sources. Analysts and traders polled by The Wall Street Journal forecast a stockpile decline of 1.7 million barrels, on average. Supply data from the Energy Information Administration will be released Wednesday morning. January crude was at $52.43 a barrel in electronic trading, down from the contract’s settlement of $52.98 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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Harmonic Inc. shares slipped in the extended session Tuesday after the digital video infrastructure company said its financial chief plans to resign in the coming months. Harmonics shares fell 2.9% to $5.05 after hours. The San Jose, Calif.-based company said CFO Harold Covert will continue on until after the filing of the company’s annual report with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the meantime, Harmonic has launched a search for a new CFO.

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International Business Machine Corp. Chief Executive Ginni Rometty said Tuesday the tech firm plans to hire about 25,000 new workers over the next four years. In an opinion piece for USA Today, Rometty called the new hires “new collar” jobs, meaning not traditional white collar or blue collar positions but those “that employers in many industries demand, but which remain largely unfilled.” IBM plans to hire about 6,000 U.S. workers to these positions in 2017, Rometty said. The announcement comes after a slew of layoffs at Big Blue with an estimated 14,000 workers laid off back in May. At the end of 2015, IBM reported having just under 378,000 workers worldwide, down from around 434,000 at the end of 2012. IBM shares were unchanged after hours, after closing up 1.7% at $168.29 Tuesday.

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All three of the main U.S. stock benchmarks notched record closes on Wednesday as investors braced for the Federal Reserve’s December interest-rate announcement, set for Wednesday at 2 pm. Eastern. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which finished higher for a seventh straight day, gained 114.50 points, or 0.6%, to 19,910.93, closing within striking distance of the psychologically-important 20,000 level. Tech stocks like Intel Corp. and Apple Inc. were among the best performers on the blue-chip gauge. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 index advanced 14.73 points, or 0.7%, to 2,271.69, with tech and energy shares leading the index higher. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 51.29 points, or 1%, to 5,463.83. The Fed is widely expected to raise interest rates for the second time since the financial crisis, with market-based indicators pricing in a nearly 100% chance of a hike.

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Facebook Inc. is changing its approach to virtual reality, which includes a change at the top for its VR unit, Oculus. The Facebook unit, which the social-networking giant acquired for $2 billion in 2014, will split into groups focused on personal computers and mobile, and the chief executive will step down from the top spot to lead the PC group. The Oculus Rift VR headset requires tethering to a powerful PC for its virtual worlds, but has shown off efforts toward a more mobile and wireless headset. “You do your best work when you love what you’re working on. If that’s not the case, you need to make a change,” outgoing Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe wrote in a blog post announcing the changes. “With this new role, I can dive back into engineering and product development.” A recent Oculus hire, Jon Thomason, will lead the mobile group, and Facebook Chief Technical Officer Mike Schroepfer will lead the search for a new Oculus CEO, Iribe wrote. Facebook shares were up about 3% in Tuesday afternoon trading.

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Shares of JetBlue Airways Corp. soared 6.7% toward a 10-month high in midday trade Tuesday, after the air carrier said it was doubling its share repurchase program, and as the company presented its 2017 outlook at its investor gathering. The company said it previously approved $250 million three-year stock buyback program was increased to $500 million, with the term extended to Dec. 31, 2019. So far this year, JetBlue said it bought about 5.4 million shares for $120 million. That implies a price of $22.22 per share for those repurchased, which is 4.5% below current prices. Separately, the company said it expects 2017 capacity growth in the 6.5%-to-8.5% range over last year, with most of the growth from the eastern U.S. (17.5% to 19.5%).

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The Federal Trade Commission ruled Tuesday that Mars Petcare Inc. mislead consumers by suggesting that its Eukanuba dog foods will increase the lifespan of dogs. The FTC said the ads which implied that with Eukanuba dogs will live 30% or more longer than their typical lifespan, and that the Eukanuba brand foods enable dogs to live exceptionally long lives, are “false or misleading or were not substantiated” at the time the representations were made. “Among other things, the evidence relied on by [Mars Petcare] for its representations concerning the Eukanuba brand dog food consisted primarily of results from a single study, the results of which showed no significant difference in the median age at death of the dogs in the study relative to the typical age at death of dogs of the same breed,” the FTC said in statement.

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Apple Inc. made its AirPods wireless headphones available to the public on Tuesday, nearly two months after first unveiling them at an event alongside the iPhone 7. The headphones, the answer to Apple’s removed headphone jack, which Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller referred to as the “entrée to a wireless future” at Apple’s flagship hardware event in September, have been mysteriously delayed for weeks. They were supposed to begin shipping in October. On Tuesday, they became available for online purchase for $159, with the current delivery times slated for Dec. 29. They’re scheduled to hit store shelves beginning next week, narrowly in time for the holidays. Apple did not say why it had put off their release, but a spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal last week that the company didn’t “believe in shipping a product before it’s ready.” Shares of Apple rose 1.6% to $115.04 on Tuesday. They’re up 6.5% in the past three months, compared with a 10% increase for the Dow Jones Industrial Average .

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Alphabet Inc. is moving away from making a car without a steering wheel or pedals, according to The Information. The move marks a backing away from Google’s initial self-driving car goals, but The Information reports that Google plans to partner with automakers to make a self-driving car with more “traditional features.” Additionally, the self-driving car unit is expected to be broken out into a separate company under Alphabet, according to The Information. Shares of Alphabet have gained 6% in the past month, compared to the S&P 500’s gain of 5%.

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