Category: Stock Market News

President Barack Obama gave Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg “a wake-up call” last November over Russia’s use of social media to meddle in the U.S. election, according to a Washington Post report Sunday. On Nov. 19, nine days after Zuckerberg called the idea that Facebook ads played a key role in the election “crazy,” Obama told Zuckerberg of the damage political disinformation had played, and warned his company needed to do more to address the threat. While Zuckerberg reportedly downplayed Facebook’s impact in his talk with Obama, last week Zuckerberg announced broad changes in how Facebook deals with political ads, and turned over 3,000 Russia-linked ads to congressional investigators. “I don’t want anyone to use our tools to undermine democracy,” Zuckerberg said in a video.

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The White House on Sunday announced new travel restrictions from visitors from eight countries, as President Donald Trump’s temporary travel ban targeting six mostly Muslim countries gets reshaped into permanent policy. The new restrictions single out Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen. Chad, North Korea, and Venezuela were not part of the earlier travel ban. The White House said the new restrictions will take effect immediately for those without “bona fide” close relatives in the U.S., and Oct. 18 for those who do, as well as for citizens of Chad, North Korea and Venezuela. U.S. visa holders will not be affected. The countries affected have “‘inadequate’ identity-management protocols, information-sharing practices, and risk factors,” the White House said in a statement. The restrictions will be tailored for each country, and will remain in place until the Department of Homeland Security deems sufficient improvements have been made in those countries. When asked about the new travel ban Sunday, Trump told reporters: “The tougher, the better.”

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An appearance by right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos at UC Berkeley fizzled Sunday, and a university spokesman dubbed his visit “the most expensive photo opp in the university’s history,” according to the East Bay Times. Amid heightened security, Yiannopoulos showed up at Sproul Plaza for about 15 minutes before being whisked off in an SUV. Yiannopoulos briefly met with his supporters, who were vastly outnumbered by protesters and police. The university estimated security for the brief event cost $800,000, and used the resources of eight police departments. Yiannopoulos had originally been scheduled to speak as the university kicked off “Free Speech Week,” which its student-group sponsors canceled last week. Berkeley police had been bracing for potential violence between Yiannopoulos supporters and protesters, but there were no immediate reports of violence or property damage.

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Angela Merkel is set to win a fourth term in Germany’s general election on Sunday, where polls closed roughly half an hour ago at 6 p.m. Central European time. Meanwhile, the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party is slated to come in third, with first projections showing them above 13% of the vote, according to the Wall Street Journal and local reports. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party is leading with around 33%–its worst result since the Federal Republic of Germany’s first election in 1949–followed by her main challenger Martin Schulz’s social democrats with roughly 20%. Both parties have registered steep losses compared with the last election, and the social democrats are unwilling to enter into another grand coalition to lead the country, local media reports. This means Merkel will likely have to form ties with the Greens and liberals, in the so-called Jamaica coalition.

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The Financial Stability Oversight Council said Friday it discussed the ongoing annual reevaluation of its designation of a nonbank financial company — in all likelihood, a reference to American International Group , as media reports suggested the group of regulators would ahead of the meeting. The FSOC didn’t say what, if anything, was decided. If the FSOC ruled that AIG was no longer a systemically important financial institution, the insurer would no longer be subject to federal oversight via the Federal Reserve. AIG was bailed out by the federal government during the financial crisis of 2008.

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Facebook Inc. will not execute a stock split that creates a non-voting class of shares after facing an investor lawsuit, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg announced Friday afternoon. Zuckerberg wanted the stock split to ensure he remained in control of Facebook even while donating a massive amount of his stock to an LLC he and his wife Priscilla created to support philanthropic causes. In his announcement on Facebook, Zuckerberg said the increase in Facebook’s stock price allows him to avoid creating a non-voting class of stock. “Over the past year and a half, Facebook’s business has performed well and the value of our stock has grown to the point that I can fully fund our philanthropy and retain voting control of Facebook for 20 years or more,” Zuckerberg wrote. “As a result, I’ve asked our board to withdraw the proposal to reclassify our stock — and the board has agreed.” Facebook stock has increased 48.2% in 2017, pushing its market capitalization to near $500 billion, while the S&P 500 index has gained 11.7% in that time. Zuckerberg was set to testify next week in a Delaware court where investors were fighting the split, but that session was suddenly canceled Friday, amid rumors of a settlement between Facebook and investors.

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U.S. stocks ended with slight moves on Friday, as the market’s recent upward momentum remained intact, although geopolitical uncertainty limited buying appetite with major indexes near records. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 10 points, or less than 0.1%, to 22,349. The S&P 500 rose 1.5 point to 2,502. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 4 points, or 0.1%, to 6,427. North Korea returned to the forefront after the country’s foreign minister Ri Yong Ho said late Thursday at a United Nations meeting that his country might consider a nuclear bomb of “unprecedented scale” in the Pacific. While geopolitical tensions have been elevated, some analysts said the stock market has become desensitized to the threats the U.S. and North Korea. For the week, the Dow rose 0.4%, the S&P rose 0.1%, and the Nasdaq fell 0.3%. Among the day’s most active stocks, CarMax Inc. rose 7.8% after quarterly earnings and revenue beat Wall Street expectations.

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The beginning of third-quarter earnings reporting season is still a few weeks away, but a record number of companies have already provided revenue guidance that was above expectations, according to Senior Earnings Analyst John Butters at FactSet. FactSet has been tracking guidance since 2006. Overall, 54 companies have issued positive revenue guidance, which is more than double the five-year average of 25, and above the first-quarter 2011 record of 45, Butters said. Over half (30) of the positive revenue guidance comes for the information technology sector, followed by 11 from the consumer discretionary sector and eight from health care, FactSet data shows. Since the end of the second quarter, the SPDR Technology Select Sector ETF has climbed 7.0%, the SPDR Consumer Discretionary Select Sector ETF has eased 0.1%, the SPDR Health Care Select Sector ETF has tacked on 3.0% and the S&P 500 has gained 3.3%.

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U.S. oil pricesedged up for the session on Friday and gained for a third-straight week. Major oil producers at the OPEC-led committee meeting said compliance with their production-cut agreement climbed to a record 116% in August. November West Texas Intermediate crude rose 11 cents, or 0.2%, to settle at $50.66 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. For the week, the contract tacked on 0.4%, but prices based on the front-month contracts climbed 1.5%.

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Health care stocks spiked higher in afternoon trade, to erase nearly all of their earlier broad losses, after Sen. John McCain said he could not vote for the Senate bill to repeal major parts of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The SPDR Health Care Select Sector ETF was down just 0.1% in afternoon trade, but had been down as much as 0.5% before McCain said no. Within the ETF, shares of UnitedHealth Group Inc. were down as much as 3.6% to lead the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s decliners, but bounced to be down just 1.1% post-McCain. Elsewhere, shares of Aetna Inc. and Cigna Corp. were both up 0.2%, reversing earlier losses of 1.9% for Aetna and 1.0% for Cigna.

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