Category: Stock Market News

Billionaire Warren Buffett doled out praise for investment icon Jack Bogle at his annual meeting, saying the pioneering champion of index investing has left “tens of billions” in the pockets of investors over the years. “Jack Bogle has done more for the American investor than any man in the country,” Buffett said at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. annual shareholder meeting in Omaha, Neb., on Saturday. Bogle, who turns 88 on Monday, is the founder of the Malvern, Pa.-based Vanguard Group, the world’s largest provider of mutual funds, boasting $4 trillion in global assets. Index investing, or funds that track a benchmark like the S&P 500 index or the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been credited with lowering the costs of investing for average folks. Bogle was in attendance at the annual meeting and was applauded after Buffett’s plaudits. Buffett has been an unabashed proponent of index funds, which has ballooned in popularity, compared with picking stocks, or active management, which has underperformed in recent years.

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Hackers have released emails from the campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron just days before voters go to the polls, according to media reports late Friday. The nine-gigabyte cache of emails was posted by an anonymous user on Pastebin,according to Reuters.. The Macron campaign confirmed that had been hacked, Reuters reported. French voters go to the polls on Sunday to choose between centrist candidate Macron and right-wing candidate Marine LePen.

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Hackers have released what they claim to be emails from the campaign of French Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron just days before voters go to the polls, according to media reports late Friday. The nine-gigabyte cache of emails was posted by an anonymous user on Pastebin,according to Reuters. Whether the emails are genuine or not has yet to be confirmed. French voters go to the polls on Sunday to choose between centrist candidate Macron and right-wing candidate Marine LePen.

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Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. [s:brk.b] said late Friday that net and operating earnings declined in the first quarter from a year ago. The company said first-quarter net income fell to $4.06 billion, or $2,469 a share, from $5.59 billion, or $3,401 a share, in the year ago quarter. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast earnings of $2,674 a share. Operating earnings for the quarter declined to $3.56 billion from $3.74 billion in the year-ago quarter. Berkshire’s class B shares were down 0.3% at $166.01 after hours, while Class A shares were flat at $250,000. Late Thursday, Buffett said he dumped a third of his stake in International Business Machines Corp. after revaluing the company, sending IBM shares down 2.5% on Friday.

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Belden Inc. said Friday afternoon it was rescinding its bid for Digi International Inc. after the acquisition target reported poor results and forecast the day before. Belden announced an offer to buy the modem maker for $13.85 a share in November, but said it was rescinding that bid “in light of the fiscal second quarter 2017 results and full-year 2017 outlook reported by Digi.” On Thursday, Digi reported that revenue decreased 9.6% year-over-year in the first half, while EBITDA dropped more than 26%. Digi’s guidance no longer lived up to the EBITDA multiple Belden used to make the bid, Belden said. Digi, which closed with a 13% decline at $10.70 Friday after those results, dropped to $10.20 in late trading after the deal was officially called off.

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U.S. stocks rose Friday with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closing at records on better-than-expected jobs report for April. The U.S. private sector added roughly 211,000 new jobs last month, ahead of the 190,000 increase forecast by economists in a MarketWatch poll. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, fell to 4.4%, the lowest level since May 2007. The S&P 500 gained 9 points, or 0.4%, to end at 2,399, closing up 0.6% for the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 54 points, or 0.3%, close at 21,006, for a weekly rise of 0.3%. The Nasdaq added 25 points, or 0.4%, to end at 6,100, finishing out the week 0.9% higher.

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RH shares jumped 9.5% in Friday trading after a late-Thursday announcement that the company authorized a $700 million share repurchase program. RH, the furniture and home decor retailer formerly known as Restoration Hardware, completed a $300 million repurchase program in the fiscal first quarter of 2017. RH shares are up 85% for the year to date while the S&P 500 index is up 7% for the period.

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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch)-Consumer borrowing rose solidly in March, according to data released Friday, suggesting the consumer has not completely retrenched. Total consumer credit increased $16 billion in March of a 5.2% seasonally adjusted annual rate, the Federal Reserve reported Friday. The increase was also above economist estimates for a $13 billion gain in consumer credit in March, according to Econoday. Consumer spending increase a revised $13.8 billion in February, down slightly from the initial estimate of $15.2 billion. The U.S. economy got off to a slow start this year as consumers dialed back spending. The Fed said earlier this week that the slump in first quarter growth was temporary.

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Oil futures settled higher Friday, but fell more than 6% for the week. Prices suffered from a steep decline in the previous session, settling Thursday at their lowest level since Nov. 29–the day before the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries announced an agreement to curb crude production. The recent drop prompted traders to question the effectiveness of OPEC’s efforts to rebalance the market. June WTI crude rose 70 cents, or 1.5%, to settle $46.22 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices lost about 6.3% from a week earlier.

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Gold prices fell Friday for a third session in a row, losing more than 3% for the week and holding ground at their lowest level since mid-March. April’s strong jobs report was expected to keep the Federal Reserve on a path of higher interest rates. June gold lost $1.70, or 0.1%, to settle at $1,226.90 an ounce. It lost 3.3% for the week, the largest such loss since the week ended Nov. 11, according to FactSet data.

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