Category: Stock Market News

Dollar General Corp. said Thursday it had net income of $253 million, or 93 cents a share, in the third quarter, up from $235 million, or 84 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. The EPS number included a 5 cents charge related to hurricane damage. Sales rose 11% to $5.90 billion and same-store sales rose 4.3%. The FactSet consensus was for EPS of 94 cents, sales of $5.79 billion and same-store sales growth of 2.7%. Chief Executive Todd Vasos said the company is planning to execute about 2,000 real estate projects in fiscal 2018, comprised of 900 new stores, 1,000 store remodels and 100 store relocations. “We continue to believe that investing in the business through our high-return new store growth is the best use of our capital to help drive long-term shareholder value. Our new store growth is complemented with a significant increase in our store remodel program from fiscal 2017 that we view as an investment to enhance and consistently deliver on our brand promise to help our customers save time and money every day,” he said in a statement. The company narrowed its fiscal 2017 guidance and now expects EPS of $4.37 to $4.47, compared with prior guidance of $4.35 to $4.50. It expects sales to grow about 7%, compared with prior guidance of 5% to 7% and it expects same-store sales to grow about 2.5%, compared with prior guidance of slightly positive to up 2%. Shares rose 1.3% premarket, and have gained 23% in 2017, while the S&P 500 has gained 17%.

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Hamas leader Ismail Haniya has called for a new Palestinian intifada — or uprising — against Israel after U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday recognized Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. “Jerusalem is being kidnapped and ripped from us,” Haniya said in a speech in Gaza on Thursday, according to media reports. “We should call for and we should work on launching an intifada in the face of the Zionist enemy,” he said. Trump’s move breaks with decades of U.S. policy to recognize Jerusalem as the capital, with previous administrations avoiding moves that could inflame tensions in the region. Jerusalem is a holy city to Muslims, Jews and Christians and has long been highly contested between Israel and Palestine. Israel claims all of the city is a united capital under its control, while the Palestinians see East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

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British bookmaker Ladbrokes Coral PLC is in “detailed” talks with GVC Holdings PLC over a takeover offer worth about 3.9 billion pounds ($5.2 billion), the two companies said in a joint statement Thursday. The cash-and-stock deal under discussion would give Ladbrokes shareholders around 46.5% of the merged company, while GVC shareholders would have 53.5%. It would give each Ladbrokes shareholder 32.7 pence in cash per share, with a “potential further value” of up to 42.8 pence depending on the outcome of a U.K. government review of fixed-odds betting terminals. That would value Ladbrokes at £1.609 per share, plus the further value of up to 42.8 pence per share, the betting companies said. That compares with a closing price on Wednesday of £1.357. The offer would also give 0.141 GVC share for every Ladbrokes share. However, shareholders would be able to choose whether to get more cash or more GVC shares, if that choice was offset by those made by other shareholders. GVC, the owner of Sportingbet, and other betting and gaming outlets, must make or drop its offer for Ladbrokes by Jan. 4, 2018. GVC’s chief executive, Kenneth Alexander, would take the same role at the combined company. Shares of Ladbrokes opened up 24% on Thursday at £1.92. On the FTSE 250, shares of GVC were up 4.1% at £10.75.

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Australia’s parliament has voted to legalize same-sex marriage, after a nationwide postal survey of opinion backed the move. Lawmakers in the House of Representatives backed the cross-party bill by a majority of 145-4 on Thursday, media reports said, delivering a victory to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. The change to the Marriage Act was given the green light in Australia’s Senate eight days ago.

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A 20-year-old man from Florida was responsible for the Uber Technologies Inc. breach that exposed the data of 57 million customers and 600,000 drivers, which the company kept secret for a year, Reuters reported Wednesday. Uber paid him $100,000 through a “bug bounty” program to destroy the data, Reuters said. The program is usually used to reward those who find system vulnerabilities, and experts told Reuters that rewarding a thief was extremely unusual. Reuters did not discover the name of the hacker. One source told Reuters that the hacker was “living with his mom in a small home trying to help pay the bills,” and did not pose a further threat to Uber. Reuters said Uber made the man sign a nondisclosure agreement, and verified that the data had been erased. The breach occurred in October 2016, but was not revealed until last month. New CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in November that Uber was wrong in covering it up, and said “We are changing the way we do business.”

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Sen. Al Franken disputed a report Wednesday that he will resign on Thursday. Minnesota Public Radio reported he will step down, citing a Democratic official who has spoken to the senator as well as key aides. But Franken tweeted shortly after that the story was “not accurate,” and that “no final decision has been made.” Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, faced calls to resign from fellow Democrats after multiple allegations of sexual harassment.

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Broadcom Ltd. shares rose following an initial wobble in the extended session Wednesday after the chipmaker’s quarterly results topped Wall Street estimates. Broadcom shares initially rose 1%, fell 1% and then trended higher for a 3.8% gain to $274 at last check after hours. The company reported fiscal fourth-quarter net income of $636 million, or $1.50 a share, compared with a loss of $632 million, or $1.59 a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted earnings were $4.59 a share. Revenue rose to $4.84 billion from $4.14 billion in the year-ago period. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had estimated earnings of $4.52 a share on revenue of $4.83 billion. For the fiscal first quarter, Broadcom estimates revenue of $5.22 billion to $5.37 billion. Analysts expect revenue of $4.83 billion.

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Spark Therapeutics Inc. stock surged Wednesday afternoon after the company announced positive results from a study of a gene-therapy approach to hemophilia. The drug, developed and tested in a collaboration with Pfizer Inc. , involves a single injection meant to help those suffering from hemophilia B, a disease that keep blood from clotting and is typically treated with regular and costly infusions. The study followed 10 adult males for 492 weeks and found that the number of episodes of bleeding decreased from an average of 11.1 a year before administration to 0.4 per year after, while infusions were reduced by 99%. The results were published in The New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, the companies said in a news release. Spark shares jumped as much as 9% in late trading after the announcement Wednesday, while Pfizer shares were unchanged.

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Sen. Al Franken will resign on Thursday, Minnesota Public Radio reported, citing a Democratic official who has spoken to the senator as well as key aides. Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, faced calls to resign from fellow Democrats after multiple allegations of sexual harassment.

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Digital Power Corp. denied rumors that it had inked a deal with Amazon.com Inc. for $450 million in cryptocurrency hardware on Wednesday afternoon, explaining that the company has not even negotiated any deal with Amazon. “While DPW has made moves towards entering the cryptocurrency and digital mining spaces and has disclosed its activities in recent press releases and will continue to do so, DPW categorically denies the validity and accuracy of any such rumors,” the company said in a news release. Digital Power, a small power-supplies company with a market cap of less than $50 million at the end of Wednesday trading, experienced rocky trade amid the rumors. In Wednesday’s session, shares gained as much as 39.3% and closed with a 24.9% decline at $2.74; in late trading after denying the rumors, shares topped $3 for gains of more than 13%. Amazon stock closed up 0.9% at $1,152.35 and was not moving in after-hours trading.

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