Category: Stock Market News

Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin on Thursday announced he was opening an investigation into the wealth management arm of Wells Fargo & Co. The securities regulator said he wanted to determine whether the company had steered investors into higher-fee accounts and made investment recommendations unsuited to their needs. Wells has been dogged by revelations that it opened accounts for customers without their knowledge or consent, as part of a push toward selling more products and services. Wells shares are down 7% in the year to date, compared to a flat showing for the Dow Jones Industrial Average .

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Horace Mann Educators Corp. disclosed Thursday that Chairman Gabriel Shaheen will retire from the company’s board of directors, as he will not stand for re-election at the annual shareholder meeting on May 23. Shaheen has been chairman since May 2010 and a member of the board of directors the past 11 years. The company, which provides insurance and retirement services to school employees, said it appointed Wade Reece as vice chairman, effective March 6. The stock slipped 0.2% in afternoon trade. Separately, the company said late Wednesday that raised its quarterly dividend 3.6% to 28.5 cents a share from 27.5 cents a share, with the new dividend payable March 30 to shareholders of record on March 19. At current share prices, the new annual dividend rate of $1.14 implies a dividend yield of 2.68%, compared with the S&P 500’s implied dividend yield of 1.89%. Horace Mann’s stock has gained 2.4% over the past 12 months, while the S&P 500 has climbed 15.9%.

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Oil on Thursday marked its lowest settlement in more than three weeks. Prices extended their sharp losses from a day earlier, when the Energy Information Administration reported a weekly climb in U.S. crude supplies and a rise in domestic crude production to another weekly record. April WTI crude dropped $1.03, or 1.7%, to settle at $60.12 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after trading as low as $59.95.

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Proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. called Tesla Inc. [s” tsla] plan to award Chief Executive Elon Musk an estimated $2.6 billion compensation over a decade “unprecedented,” and advised shareholders to vote against it. The award would be worth $260 million a year, leading to to “massive costs” over the years and it would dilutive for investors, ISS said in a note Thursday. “Even when annualized, Musk’s pay opportunity would dwarf that of nearly every CEO at the largest
and most profitable public companies. This raises even more questions given that Musk does not devote his fulltime attention to Tesla, and serves as the CEO of multiple other high-profile companies,” ISS said. Competitor proxy adviser Glass Lewis came out against the proposal on Monday, also calling it too costly and too dilutive. Tesla unveiled the plan last month, and shareholders will vote on it later this month.

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Shares of steel and aluminum producers sank in afternoon trade Thursday, ahead of the expected signing by President Donald Trump of a somewhat softer tariff decree than the one announced last month following widespread pressure to change his tone. Shares of U.S. Steel Corp. dropped 3.6%, AK Steel Holding Corp. shed 4.7%, Nucor Corp. slid 3.5%, Steel Dynamics Inc. fell 3.6% and Commercial Metals Co. gave up 4.3%. Among aluminum producers, shares of Alcoa Corp. lost 1.8%, Century Aluminum Co. tumbled 9.1% and Kaiser Aluminum Corp. were down 1.5%. The SPDR S&P Metals & Mining ETF dropped 2.6%. Trump is expected to sign proclamations on steel and aluminum imports at 3:30 p.m. ET, with Trump saying he has the right to move the tariffs “up or down” depending on the country. On Feb. 16, the sector surged after Trump said he was planning a 25% tariff on steel imports from all countries and a 10% tariff on aluminum imports. The metals & mining ETF has now lost 3.7% since Feb. 16, while the S&P 500 has inched 0.2% lower over the same time.

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President Donald Trump will sign proclamations on steel and aluminum imports at 3:30 p.m. Eastern, the White House said. Trump said at a cabinet meeting he’s planning on tariffs of 10% for aluminum and 25% for steel, “initially.” But he added, “I’ll have a right to go up or down, depending on the country.”

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Corn prices climbed Thursday, set to mark their highest settlement since July, after the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut its forecast for 2017/2018 corn ending stocks by 225 million bushels to 2.127 billion bushels. In a monthly report, the USDA “surprised markets with a lower than expected estimate for end of season corn stocks, primarily due to an unexpectedly large projected increase in U.S. corn exports,” said Sal Gilbertie, president and chief investment officer at Teucrium Trading LLC. The USDA raised its estimate on exports by 175 million bushels to 2.225 billion bushels, which it said would be down from the prior marketing year. May corn rose 4 1/2 cents, or 1.2%, to $3.91 3/4 a bushel in Chicago. A settlement around this level would be the highest since July 2017, according to FactSet data.

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The Mexican peso and Canadian dollar strengthened somewhat against the U.S. dollar on Thursday, after President Donald Trump reiterated that Mexico and Canada could be exempt from the impending U.S. import tariffs on steel and aluminum. The tariffs are expected to be announced this afternoon. Trump also said that it would be easier to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement between the three countries, rather than terminating it. The seventh round of efforts to rejig the trade pact concluded on Tuesday. The Mexican peso rose 0.1% against the dollar, with one buck buying 18.7051 pesos. The Canadian dollar meanwhile remained weaker against its U.S. rival, even though it pared some of its losses following Trump’s comments. The greenback last bought C$1.2942, up 0.3%.

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Walt Disney Co. said on Thursday that “Iron Man” and “The Jungle Book” director Jon Favreau has signed on to executive produce and write a live-action “Star Wars” series for Disney’s upcoming standalone streaming service. “I couldn’t be more excited about Jon coming on board to produce and write for the new direct-to-consumer platform,” Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said in a statement. During the company’s most recent quarterly conference call in February, Disney Chief Bob Iger said they were developing a few “Star Wars” series specifically to stream on it’s forthcoming service. Disney did not provide a release date for Favreau’s live-action “Star Wars” series, nor did it give insight into the story Favreau would delve into. The long-awaited streaming service is scheduled to launch in the fall of 2019. Favreau, who has a role in the upcoming film “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” is currently in production for Disney’s update of “The Lion King,” which is also set to be released in 2019. Shares of Disney have declined more than 6% in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 index is up more than 15%.

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Walt Disney Co. said on Thursday that “Iron Man” and “The Jungle Book” director Jon Favreau has signed on to executive produce and write a live-action “Star Wars” series for Disney’s upcoming standalone streaming service. “I couldn’t be more excited about Jon coming on board to produce and write for the new direct-to-consumer platform,” Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said in a statement. During the company’s most recent quarterly conference call in February, Disney Chief Bob Iger said they were developing a few “Star Wars” series specifically to stream on it’s forthcoming service. Disney did not provide a release date for Favreau’s live-action “Star Wars” series, nor did it give insight into the story Favreau would delve into. The long-awaited streaming service is scheduled to launch in the fall of 2019. Favreau, who has a role in the upcoming film “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” is currently in production for Disney’s update of “The Lion King,” which is also set to be released in 2019. Shares of Disney have declined more than 6% in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 index is up more than 15%.

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