Category: Stock Market News

Shares of BlackRock Inc. rallied 2.1% in premarket trade, after the investment management company beat profit and revenue expectations, amid asset and base fee growth. Net income rose to $947 million, or $5.78 a share, from $875 million, or $5.26 a share, in the same period a year ago. Excluding non-recurring items, adjusted earnings per share came to $5.92, beating the FactSet consensus of $5.57. Revenue rose 14% to $3.23 billion, above the FactSet consensus of $3.07 billion. Retail net inflows of $7.4 billion, included $4.6 billion for fixed income, $1.7 billion for equities and $1.0 billion for multi-asset investments. Net inflows into iShares ETF were $52.3 billion, while institutional active net inflows were $200 million. The stock has rallied 7.8% over the past three months, while the SPDR Financial Select Sector ETF has gained 6.3% and the S&P 500 has tacked on 5.2%.

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Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Wednesday said he has asked Catalan President Carles Puigdemont to confirm whether or not he has declared independence, according to media reports. Rajoy accused Puigdemont of creating deliberate confusion with his statement Tuesday, when the Catalan leader said he intends to declare independence in accordance with the Oct. 1 vote’s result but wants negotiations with the Spanish government first. Rajoy said the request for clarification is a step that is necessary before Madrid can make other moves. Such moves could include making use of Article 155 of Spain’s constitution, which allows Spain’s government to take over control of an autonomous region.

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Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem is leaving Dutch politics and will give up his Labour Party seat, he said in a letter posted online Wednesday. Dijsselbloem will step down on Oct. 25, after five years as finance minister and 17 years as a member of parliament, when a new government comes in. “The election results of March 15 ultimately determined the time of departure. The Labor Party, my party, needs further and needs nine guns. I have now come to the conclusion that in this role, at this stage, I do not have that firepower,” Dijsselbloem said in the letter. But he will continue as president of the Eurogroup, the group of eurozone finance ministers, until the end of his mandate in mid-January.

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The United States men’s soccer team will miss the World Cup for the first time since 1986 after a dismal, humiliating 2-1 loss to Trinidad & Tobago on Tuesday. All the U.S. team needed to do to clinch a berth was win or tie against the small Caribbean nation, which was in last place in its group. Instead, the U.S. kicked itself out of World Cup contention — literally, as an own-goal by Omar Gonzalez proved to be decisive. The U.S. still had a slim chance of advancing after the loss, but Panama and Honduras both won their qualifiers Tuesday, dropping the U.S. to fifth place in its group.

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Data-sharing service Dropbox Inc. will have a new office building all to itself after signing the largest lease in San Francisco history, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Tuesday. Dropbox will lease all 736,000 square feet in a new building under construction in the city’s Mission Bay neighborhood, the Chronicle reported. The new office space will be about four times bigger than Dropox’s current San Francisco headquarters, possibly signalling a sizable boost to its workforce, which currently has 1,500 employees. Dropbox has been valued at around $10 billion, and rumors of a massive IPO have been percolating for years. In June, Reuters reported Dropbox was seeking underwriters for an IPO planned for later this year. The company is expected to start moving into its new building in late 2018.

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President Donald Trump “likely obstructed justice” by firing FBI Director James Comey, and could face impeachment if special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation comes to the same conclusion, an analysis by the Brookings Institution said Tuesday. The 108-page report said Trump may have had the legal authority to fire Comey, but not if his intent was to disrupt the ongoing investigation into Russian election meddling. “Our review of the facts and the law leads us to the view that the president likely obstructed justice,” the think tank’s report said. “Should that conclusion be borne out, we believe he will be held to account under one or another of the vehicles we have outlined, for no one is above the law in our system.” Still, impeachment proceedings would need support of congressional Republicans, which appears unlikely.

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Molina Healthcare Inc. late Tuesday named Joseph Zubretsky its president and chief executive, effective Nov. 6. Zubretsky most recently served as CEO for The Hanover Insurance Group, and will succeed interim CEO Joseph W. White. White will remain with the company as its chief financial officer. Shares of Molina fell 1.8% after ending the regular session down 2.3%.

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Barracuda Networks Inc. shares fell in the extended session Tuesday even after the enterprise cloud-computing company matched Wall Street estimates for earnings and topped those for revenue and billings. Barracuda shares fell 6.1% to $24.18 after hours. By the close, shares had been up 20% for the year. The company reported fiscal second-quarter net income of $1.6 million, or 3 cents a share, compared to $2.4 million, or 5 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted earnings were 17 cents a share. Revenue rose to $94.3 million from $87.9 million in the year-ago period. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had estimated 17 cents a share on revenue of $93.3 million. Gross billings rose to $108.5 million, compared with $100.3 million in the year ago period. Analysts expected billings of $105.9 million.

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Micron Technology Inc. shares dipped nearly 3% in late trading Tuesday after the memory-chip company said it would sell about $1 billion in fresh stock as the company trades at its highest prices since the dot-com boom. Micron said underwriters had access to about $150 million in additional shares it could offer at the public offering price, which has yet to be determined. Micron will use the proceeds from the offering to pay down debt, with $476 million earmarked for notes set to mature in 2023. Micron closed at $41.98 and reached $42 in intraday trading Tuesday, its highest prices since 2001, but shares fell lower than $41 in late trading after the announcement. The company has profited from a spike in the price of memory chips, which has increased the cost of some tech gadgets for consumers, and said in its most recent earnings report that it expects demand to continue to be high. Micron stock is up 91% so far in 2017, as the S&P 500 index has gained 13.7%.

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Oil prices rallied Tuesday to finish at their highest level in more than week. Talk of progress toward a more balanced market from OPEC, Saudi Arabia’s pledge to cut exports and a hurricane-induced slowdown in U.S. production fed the first back-to-back session climb for U.S. prices since late September. November WTI crude rose $1.34, or 2.7%, to settle at $50.92 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange-the highest since Sept. 29.

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