Category: Stock Market News

Shares in Dialog Semiconductor PLC dived 14% on Monday after the company acknowledged it eventually could lose some of Apple Inc.’s business. Dialog, which makes power management integrated circuits, said it “recognizes Apple has the resources and capability to internally design a PMIC and could potentially do so in the next few years.” The British chip maker that is listed in Germany also said in a news release that it “does not have reason to believe
its current expectations of 2018 Apple business would be impacted by such potential actions” and it continues to supply its largest customer
with PMICs across a range of platforms.

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An Australian government regulator said Monday it will investigate Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google to see if the tech giants’ platforms have unfairly disrupted the country’s media and advertising business. The government said it hopes to find the impact that social media and search engines are having on the overall news environment. “We will examine whether platforms are exercising market power in commercial dealings to the detriment of consumers, media content creators and advertisers,” Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Chairman Rod Sims said in a statement. As in the U.S., Australian newspapers have seen significant reductions in print ad revenue in recent years, and the government is concerned that digital platforms are hurting local journalism and media consumers. “Through our inquiry, the ACCC will look closely at the impact of digital platforms on the level of choice and quality of news and content being produced by Australian journalists,” Sims said.

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PayPal Holdings Inc. said late Friday it has found evidence of a data breach in TIO Networks, a payment processing company PayPal bought in July. The unauthorized access could have compromised “personally identifiable information” for approximately 1.6 million customers, including TIO customers and customers of TIO billers. PayPal said the its platform was not impacted, as the TIO systems run separate, PayPal’s customers’ data remains secure. PayPal halted TIO operations on Nov. 10 as part of an ongoing investigation. The company said it has begun working with the companies it services to notify potentially impacted people, and with a consumer-credit reporting agency to provide free credit monitoring memberships for those affected. People involved in the data breach will be contacted directly and receive instructions to sign up for monitoring, PayPal said. Shares of PayPal were flat in late trading after ending the regular session down 0.6%.

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Shares of Chemours Co. used a late rally to close up 0.9% Friday, erasing earlier sharp losses, after the chemistry-based technology company announced a more than five-fold increase in its dividend and a new share repurchase agreement at its first investor day since the spinoff from Dupont. The company raised its quarterly dividend to 17 cents a share from 3 cents, payable March 15 to shareholders of record on Feb. 15. The company also authorized a $500 million share buyback program, which extends through 2020. Based on Friday’s closing price of $51.84, that could represent about 5.2% of the shares outstanding. The company said the new capital allocation strategy comes after the completion of transformation plan, which helped lower its debt position to a leverage ratio of two-times adjusted EBITDA, below its previously-announced leverage target of three-times. Earlier Friday, the stock fell as much as 5.2%, as the company’s 2018 free cash flow target of $500 million to $600 million was below some analyst expectations. The stock has now tacked on 3.7% over the past three months, but has more than doubled year to date, while the S&P 500 has gained 18% this year.

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Exxon Mobil Corp. said late Friday it will combine its refining and marketing divisions into a company called ExxonMobil Fuels & Lubricants Co. By combining ExxonMobil Refining and Supply Co. and ExxonMobil Fuels, Lubricants & Specialties Marketing Co., Exxon “will achieve further integration to improve decision making and enhance performance in the market. The improvements will help the company to better respond to the needs of its customers and compete more effectively,” it said in a statement. Bryan Milton, president of ExxonMobil Fuels, Lubricants & Specialties Marketing Co., has been appointed president of the new division. Shares of Exxon fell 0.1% in the late session after ending the regular trading day up 0.2%.

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Exxon Mobil Corp. said late Friday it will combine its refining and marketing divisions into a company called ExxonMobil Fuels & Lubricants Co. By combining ExxonMobil Refining and Supply Co. and ExxonMobil Fuels, Lubricants & Specialties Marketing Co., Exxon “will achieve further integration to improve decision making and enhance performance in the market. The improvements will help the company to better respond to the needs of its customers and compete more effectively,” it said in a statement. Bryan Milton, president of ExxonMobil Fuels, Lubricants & Specialties Marketing Co., has been appointed president of the new division. Shares of Exxon fell 0.1% in the late session after ending the regular trading day up 0.2%.

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Stocks fell Friday after former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents and said he would cooperate with a special counsel probe into possible Russian interference with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. But hopes the Senate would pass a tax bill were credited with helping stocks to erase much of the decline. The S&P 500 ended 0.2% lower near 2,642.22, but saw a weekly rise of 1.5%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended around 41 points lower after having fallen more than 300 points earlier in the session. The Dow saw a 2.9% weekly rise, its strongest of 2017. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.4% to close near 6,848, losing 0.6% for the week.

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U.S. oil prices settled higher Friday, finding support a day after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other major producers agreed to extend their production-cut agreement to the end of next year. However, concerns about growing output from producers who aren’t part of the deal, particularly the U.S., helped pull prices down by 1% for the week. That was the biggest weekly loss since the first week of October. January West Texas Intermediate crude rose 96 cents, or 1.7%, to settle at $58.36 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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Amid allegations of corporate espionage and a delayed disclosure of a massive breach, two senior Uber Technologies Inc. security executives have resigned, and a third has taken medical leave, according to Reuters. The news of executives exiting the ride-hailing giant comes days after a stunning revelation during a federal civil lawsuit launched by Alphabet Inc. subsidiary Waymo which alleges a former Uber executive stole 14,000 confidential documents that Uber used to bolster its self-driving vehicle technology. Earlier this week, a former Uber executive testified in federal court about the existence of a unit within Uber called Market Analytics that, among other things, was charged with obtaining trade secrets and other competitive intelligence on rival firms. In November, the company also disclosed a data breach that affected 57 million driver and rider accounts and a $100,000 ransom payment to the hackers, which also included agreements not to make the breach public. Uber concealed the breach for more than a year.

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Rep. Maxine Waters, a Democrat from California and the ranking minority member of the House Financial Services Committee, on Friday said she was concerned about recent press reports a Justice Department criminal investigation into Russian trades made by Deutsche Bank has “gone dormant.” In a letter to the department, Waters demanded to know the present status of the investigation. Early this year, Deutsche Bank paid over $600 million to settle with U.S. and U.K. bank regulators over a scheme that involved more than 2,400 pairs of “mirrored” trades that regulators said lacked economic purpose and could have been used to move money out of Russia.

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