Category: Stock Market News

Salesforce.com Inc. announced better-than-expected profit and revenue Wednesday, but shares still suffered in late trading as projections for the current quarter came in a bit light. The cloud-software company reported net income of $229.6 million, or 33 cents a share, on sales of $2.04 billion, with GAAP profit getting a boost from a one-time tax windfall from its acquisition of Demandware. After adjusting for stock-based compensation and other costs, Salesforce claimed a profit of 24 cents a share. Analysts on average projected adjusted earnings of 22 cents a share on sales of $2.02 billion, according to FactSet. Salesforce also raised its full-year revenue guidance, from a range of $8.16 billion to $8.20 billion to a range of $8.275 billion to $8.325 billion. However, the company’s guidance for the current quarter was slightly lower than Wall Street expectations, with Salesforce projecting adjusted earnings of 20 to 21 cents a share on sales of $2.11 billion to $2.12 billion; analysts on average expect earnings of 24 cents a share on sales of $2.124 billion, according to FactSet. Salesforce shares fell nearly 6% in immediate late trading, ducking lower than $75 after closing with a 0.5% decrease at $79.42.

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Oil futures fell to their lowest settlement in nearly three weeks on Wednesday after weekly data showed that U.S. supplies of crude oil rose more than expected for the week ended Aug. 26. Prices, however, managed to hold onto a 7.5% gain for the month. October WTI crude dropped $1.65, or 3.6%, to settle at $44.70 a barrel for the session on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest finish since Aug. 12, according to FactSet data.

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Twitter Inc. stock jumped more than 5% Wednesday, even as markets lagged, after one of the social network’s cofounders hinted on television that the board would at least consider a sale. Ev Williams, a Twitter cofounder and board member, was asked by Bloomberg TV on Wednesday morning about a potential acquisition, and admitted that the board had to weigh the potential for such a move. “We’re in a strong position now, and as a board member we have to consider the right options,” Williams said. Analysts have frequently called Twitter a potential acquisition target, with Google parent Alphabet Inc. commonly mentioned as a potential suitor. Twitter shares reached as high as $19.60 in Wednesday morning trades, a gain of 6.6%, while the S&P 500 bounced between small gains and losses.

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Gold futures settled lower on Wednesday, helping push the precious metal to its first monthly decline since May, underscoring a broad slide in the metals complex in August. Gold for December fell $5.10, or 0.4%, to settle at $1,311.40 an ounce on Wednesday, for a 3.4% decline over the month of August. Silver for December delivery rose 3 cents, or 0.2%, to settle at $18.71 an ounce, but over the month of August the price of the most-active contract dropped 8.1%. Similarly, prices for copper, platinum, and palladium all declined over August.

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The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday it will require stronger warnings on certain opioid medications and central nervous system depressant drugs among other labeling changes intended to reverse a nationwide opioid addiction epidemic. The agency will require boxed warnings, “the FDA’s strongest warning,” and medication guides for patients stating the serious risks connected to using the nearly 400 products, including prescription oxycodone, hydrocodone, and morphine or opioid-containing cough products. The new measures, which cover opioid analgesics and a class of central nervous system depressant drugs called benzodiazepines, are intended to raise awareness among patients and health care providers of risks like death, coma and respiratory depression, the agency said. The two drug types have been increasingly prescribed together by doctors, which has been “associated with adverse outcomes,” despite existing labeling warnings and clinical guidelines cautioning against this type of co-prescription, the FDA said.

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Brazilian stocks and the Brazilian real rose Wednesday after the country’s senate voted to remove President Dilma Rousseff from office, ending a protracted battle for control of the country. After rising earlier in the session, the dollar slipped against the Brazilian real on the news. The greenback was down 0.3% at 3.23 real in recent trade. Meanwhile, Brazilian stocks trimmed an early decline. The iShares MSCI Brazil Capped ETF remained down 1.8% at $33.18. Shares of the ETF traded at $33.78 the day before. Vice President Michel Temer will now finish out the remainder of Rousseff’s term, which ends in 2018.

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CBS Corp. on Wednesday launched a commercial-free version of its CBS All Access subscription streaming service. The new offering is $9.99 a month for commercial-free access to CBS’s on-demand library of more than 7,500 scripted-series episodes, as well as late night, daytime and news programming and its upcoming new “Star Trek” series. CBS All Access will still have its $5.99 a month subscription, which includes sitting through commercials. Shares of CBS are up more than 8% in the year to date and nearly 13% in the last 12 months, outperforming the S&P 500 Index , which is up nearly 6% in the year and 10% over the last 12 months.

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The Securities and Exchange Commission fined RBC Capital Markets LLC on Wednesday for $2.5 million for allegedly making materially false and misleading disclosures in its fairness opinion valuation analysis for a proxy statement for Rural/Metro Corporation’s sale in 2011 to a private equity firm. An SEC investigation found that RBC’s presentation as the lead financial adviser to Rural/Metro, a medical transportation services provider, contained allegedly materially false and misleading statements which made the bid look more attractive. Although RBC’s presentation described one of its valuations as being based on Wall Street analysts’ “consensus projections” of Rural/Metro’s 2010 adjusted EBITDA, it did not reflect any analysts’ research or a “consensus” view, according to the SEC. RBC received a $500,000 fee for the fairness opinion presented to Rural/Metro’s board as it considered the sale. RBC neither admitted nor denied the findings.

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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said Wednesday he is looking for core inflation to tick up before the central bank raises interest rates. “I’m very interested to see core inflation,” Kashkari said, according to the Wall Street Journal. “We haven’t seen it yet. That’s what I’m looking for.” The Minneapolis Fed President is not a voting member of the Fed’s policy committee this year.

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Oil futures fell further on Wednesday after the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that domestic crude supplies rose by 2.3 million barrels in the week ended Aug. 26. That was above the 600,000-barrel climb expected by analysts polled by S&P Global Platts, while the American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday reported an increase of 942,000 barrels, according to sources. Gasoline supplies fell 700,000 barrels, while distillate stockpiles climbed by 1.5 million barrels, according to the EIA. October crude fell 91 cents, or 2%, from Tuesday’s settlement to $45.44 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices traded at $46.01 before the data.

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