Category: Stock Market News

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. chairman Warren Buffett is part of a partnership that has reached the second round of bidding for the core assets of Yahoo Inc. , Reuters reported Friday afternoon based on anonymous sources. Yahoo is searching for a buyer for its core Internet business, and reportedly settled on 10 bidders in a first round of paring down last month. Reuters reported that Buffett was backing a consortium in the bidding that also includes Quicken Loans Inc. founder and Cleveland Cavaliers NBA franchise owner Dan Gilbert. Yahoo expects to fetch $4 billion to $8 billion for the core of the company, The Wall Street Journal has reported, which does not include the company’s investment in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. nor its part of Yahoo Japan. Yahoo shares gained 1% in late trading Friday after the report surfaced.

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Blue Buffalo Pet Products Inc. shares fell in the extended session Friday after the natural pet products company filed for a secondary offering of shares. Blue Buffalo shares fell 8.3% to $24.20 after hours. The company filed to sell an additional 25 million shares, with an option for an additional 3.8 million shares to cover overallotments. Shares belong to existing stockholders and Blue Buffalo will not receive any proceeds. Blue Buffalo has about 196 million shares outstanding, according to FactSet data. The offering comes less than a year after Blue Buffalo launched its initial public offering.

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Lam Research Corp. and KLA-Tencor Corp. revealed Friday that the Department of Justice has requested more information about the two chip-equipment companies’ proposed $10.6 billion merger. The companies said they are working with the Justice Department on a consent decree amid the so-called second request for additional info, and expect the merger to take place in the third quarter of the calendar year. The Department of Justice already helped to squash a large merger in the sector, when Applied Materials Inc. gave up on its proposed deal with Tokyo Electron Ltd. last year.

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Dan Loeb’s hedge fund Third Point LLC bought more than a half a million Class A share position of Google parent Alphabet Inc. , according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing late Friday. Third Point created the new position of 534,030 Alphabet shares, while eliminating positions in Ace Ltd. , eBay Inc. , and Morgan Stanley . The hedge fund also cut its positions in Allergan PLC and Amgen Inc. by more than half. Third Point also created new positions in VMWare Inc. , 21st Century Fox Inc. , and Lowe’s Cos. , according to the filing.

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U.S. stocks sold off on Friday despite stronger-than-expected retail sales data. The S&P 500 and Dow industrials posted their third consecutive weekly declines. The S&P 500 closed down 17.62 points, or 0.9%, to 2,046.49 and booked a 0.5% weekly loss. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 185.18 points, or 1.1%, to 17,535.32 and ended the week 1.2% lower. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite ended the session down 19.66 points, or 0.4%, at 4,717.68 and recorded a 0.4% weekly drop, its fourth in a row.

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Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates sold off its entire stakes in Amazon.com Inc. , Coca-Cola Inc. and Gap Inc. during the first quarter, while adding new stakes in Alphabet Inc. and McDonald’s Corp. according to the latest regulatory filings. Among other moves made by the fund, which had $7.9 billion in equity assets as of March 31, during the quarter, it slashed his holding of Apple Inc. by two-thirds, his PepsiCo Inc. stake by about 80% and his Facebook Inc. holdings nearly in half, the funds 13F filing shows. Bridgewater also more than tripled his stake in Intel Corp. and added new stakes in United Parcel Service Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc. and D.R. Horton Inc. . Separately, he increased his holdings in a number of oil and gas stocks, while reducing his exposure to gold miners.

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Oil futures fell on Friday but gained 3.5% for the week, buoyed by expectations that declines in global output and stronger demand for crude will help ease the world’s glut of supplies. June WTI crude lost 49 cents, or 1.1%, to settle at $46.21 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The weekly gain was WTI oil’s fifth in six weeks.

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PepsiCo Inc.’s stock accelerated lower in afternoon trade Friday, after Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management disclosed in a filing that it had sold its entire 18.3 million share stake in the beverage and snack giant during the first quarter. Pepsi shares were recently down 2%, compared with a 1% loss just prior to the release of Trian’s filing. Pepsi’s stock had gained 2.6% during the first quarter, and was up 3.5% since then through Thursday. Trian’s disclosure of its common stock holdings, as of March 31, also showed that it cut its stake in General Electric Co. to 74.2 million shares, from 77.8 million shares as of Dec. 31. Meanwhile, Trian boosted its stakes in Bank of New York Mellon Corp. to 31.8 million shares from 30.9 million shares, in DuPont Co. to 20.5 million shares from 20.2 million shares, in Pentair PLC to 14.3 million shares from 13.7 million shares and in Sysco Corp. to $43.3 million shares from 42.7 million shares.

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Gold futures settled higher on Friday, helping to pare their loss for the week. Overall strength in the U.S. dollar has put pressure on prices, but losses for the U.S. equities market this week provided some safe-haven support for gold. June gold added $1.50, or 0.1%, to settle at $1,272.70 an ounce on Friday. It was down nearly 1.7% from the week-ago settlement.

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Oil futures continued to trade lower after data from Baker Hughes showed that the number of active U.S. rigs drilling for crude fell by 10 to 318 as of Friday. The oil-rig count has now fallen for eight weeks in a row. The total U.S. rig count fell 9 to 406. June crude was at $46.13 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, down 57 cents, or 1.2%. It was trading at $46.06 before the data.

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