Category: Stock Market News

American Airlines Group said Tuesday it would give every employee a $1,000 bonus in the wake of the recent U.S. tax overhaul. “We believe it is the right thing to do for our team, which ultimately benefits our shareholders too,” American CEO Doug Parker and President Robert Isom said in a joint statement. The company said the bonuses will come in the first quarter of 2018 and total about $130 million. Earlier Tuesday, Southwest Airlines also said it would give $1,000 bonuses to its employees, and last week, major companies such as Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Comcast Corp. announced similar plans.

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Southwest Airlines Co. said late Tuesday its board of directors agreed to pay a $1,000 bonus to all full-time and part-time employees “to celebrate the recent passage of the tax reform legislation.” The employees will get the bonus on Jan. 8. “We are excited about the savings and additional capital, which we intend to put to work in several forms–to reward our hard-working employees, to reinvest in our business, to reward our shareholders, and to keep our costs and fares low for our customers,” Southwest Chief Executive Gary Kelly said in a statement. Shares of Southwest rose 0.2% in late Tuesday trading after ending the regular trading session up 1.3%. Netflix Inc. said last week it plans on giving its executives a raise, citing the tax overhaul, and several banks, including Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. , and other companies, such as Comcast Corp. , have announced similar plans.

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Apple Inc. has acquired Buddybuild, a Vancouver, Canada-based company that makes software development tools, according to a Buddybuild blog. Apple stock is down a fraction to $172.05 in late trading. Buddybuild, owned by Doe Pics Hit, Inc., raised nearly $9 million, according to FactSet, with the most recent fundraising in May 2016. Buddybuild did not disclose the terms of the sale. Apple stock is up 49% over the past year, as the S&P 500 index rose 20%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average , of which Apple is a component, rose 25% over the past year.

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MoneyGram International Inc. shares fell more than 8% late Tuesday after the Texas-based money transfer company and Ant Financial Services group, an affiliate of China-based Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. , said they have agreed to end their merger agreement after months of wrangling with the U.S. government. The companies couldn’t obtain approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment, MoneyGram said in a statement. They plan to work together “on new strategic initiatives” around remittances and digital payments in Asian markets after the deal didn’t materialize, they said. “Despite our best efforts to work cooperatively with the U.S. government, it has now become clear that CFIUS will not approve this merger. We are disappointed in the termination of this compelling transaction, which would have created significant value for our stakeholders,” MoneyGram Chief Executive Alex Holmes said in the statement. Ant Financial in April upped the deal to buy MoneyGram to $18 a share, after a competitor came in with an unsolicited offer in the increasingly politicized takeover battle. The potential deal was first announced in January 2016. American depositary shares of Alibaba were flat late Tuesday, after ending the regular session up 6.5%. MoneyGram stock ended Tuesday’s trading 1% higher.

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A new report released by Arcview Market Research on Tuesday says the legal marijuana industry is expected to generate nearly $40 billion in economic impact by 2021. That would be roughly a 150% increase in economic output from the $16 billion cannabis generated in 2017. The report provides estimates on cannabis’s total economic contribution, direct and indirect jobs created and tax receipts from each of the 35 states that are expected to have medical and, or recreational marijuana by 2021, according to a news release. “Across the country, Americans are worried about being able to find jobs and support their families,” Arcview Market Research Editor-in-Chief Tom Adams said in a statement. “The numerous employment opportunities created by the cannabis industry, especially in states that are legalizing adult use, cross the spectrum from retail and service jobs to science, technology and other traditional professions.” The report estimates that legalization of adult-use, or recreational marijuana sales in California, which began on Tuesday, will create nearly 146,000 cannabis-related jobs in the state in four years. As California joined some 28 other states, and the District of Columbia, that have legalized recreational marijuana stocks of companies tied to the industry saw big share gains on Tuesday.

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Oil settled lower Tuesday, as supply disruptions in the North Sea and Libya eased, but prices stuck close to the two-and-a-half-year high it settled at last week. Uncertainty surrounding output from Iran, in the wake of antigovernment protests, offered some support for prices, but analysts were skeptical of any big impact on production. February West Texas Intermediate crude fell 5 cents, or less than 0.1%, to settle at $60.37 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It’s settlement at $60.42 on Friday was the highest since June 2015.

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Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Republican from Utah, announced Tuesday he will retire from the Senate, opening a path to the Senate for former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Hatch, a seven-term senator and the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, announced his retirement on Twitter. Romney is said to be preparing a run for the Utah Senate seat.

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Tech shares rallied on the first day of trading in 2018 Tuesday with shares of chipmakers and software publishers leading the charge. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index rose 1.3%, outpacing the 0.6% gain on the S&P 500 Index and the 0.2% rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average . The PHLX Semiconductor Index rallied 2.1%, led by a 6.4% jump in shares of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and a 4.8% surge in Micron Technology Inc. shares. Other chipmakers with notable gains were Nvidia Corp. , up 2.1%, Broadcom Ltd. , up 3.3%, and Teradyne Inc. , up 5.1%. Notable software gains included Electronic Arts Inc. , up 4%, Symantec Corp. , up 2.7%, and Salesforce.com Inc. , up 2.2%. Other big tech movers included Netflix Inc. , up 5%, and Alibaba Group Holding Inc. , up 5.8%, while shares of Facebook Inc. rose 2.7%, and shares of Alphabet Inc. and Apple Inc. were up nearly 2%.

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Founders Fund, the venture-capital firm co-founded by investor Peter Thiel, has bought hundreds of millions of dollars of bitcoin, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. The bet is spread across the firm’s most recent funds, including one that began investing in mid-2017 that has made the cryptocurrency one of its first investments. Thiel co-founded PayPal Holdings Inc. and has been a prominent backer of President Donald Trump. He also made headlines when it emerged that he was the billionaire that financed the lawsuit brought by former wrestler Hulk Hogan against news website Gawker, that led to its collapse. Founder funds has more than $3 billion in assets under management and owns stakes in companies including Facebook Inc. , Airbnb Inc., SpaceX and Lyft.

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Gold prices rose Tuesday for an eighth session in a row, settling at their highest level since September. Prices got a boost from a weaker dollar, with the ICE U.S. Dollar Index down a fifth-straight session, and concerns surrounding protests in Iran feeding safe-haven demand for the precious metal. February gold added $6.80, or 0.5%, to settle at $1,316.10 an ounce. That was the highest finish for a most-active futures contract since Sept. 20, according to FactSet data.

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