Category: Stock Market News

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Ameriprise Financial Services Inc. , the Minnesota-based broker-dealer and investment adviser with overcharging retail retirement account customers by recommending higher-fee mutual fund shares when less options were available. Approximately 1,791 customer accounts paid $1.8 million in unnecessary up-front sales charges, contingent deferred sales charges, and higher ongoing fees and expenses as a result of Ameriprise’s practices, according to the SEC’s press release issued Wednesday. Ameriprise cooperated with the Commission to issue payments including interest to the affected customers and converted eligible customers to the mutual fund share class with the lowest expenses for which they are eligible, at no cost. Ameriprise did not admit or deny the findings but consented to a cease-and-desist order, a censure, and a penalty of $230,000.

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The New York State Department of Financial Services is asking banks including Deutsche Bank and Signature Bank about its ties to Jared Kushner, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the request. Kushner is the son-in-law of President Donald Trump and a senior adviser in the White House. The report said the inquiries seek information about Kushner’s individual finances and those related to his family’s real-estate company, Kushner Cos., the report said.

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Market research firm IDC said Wednesday that it expected shipments of personal computing devices to decrease at a 1.8% annual rate through 2022. IDC considers personal computing devices to be desktop, notebook, and workstation PCs, as well as standard and detachable tablets. Detachable tablets, which are those like Apple Inc.’s iPad with removable keyboards built by the manufacturer, are expected to be the lone source of fast growth in the market, with IDC predicting that shipments will grow 9.6% annually through 2022. Conversely, the IDC analysts forecast a 0.9% decline for traditional PCs and a 6.2% decline for traditional tablets. On Tuesday, the firm said it expected 2.8% annual growth in smartphone shipments over the same period.

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Oil prices settled sharply lower Wednesday, with U.S. benchmark crude losing more than 4% in February for its first monthly drop since August. A bigger-than-expected weekly climb in U.S. crude stockpiles and a fresh weekly record in domestic production contributed to oil’s losses for the session. April WTI crude fell $1.37, or 2.2%, to settle at $61.64 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the lowest finish since Feb. 16.

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Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team is asking witnesses questions about whether Donald Trump was aware Democratic emails had been stolen before that was publicly known, and whether he was involved in their release, NBC News reported Wednesday. The report said Mueller’s investigators have asked witnesses whether Trump was aware of plans for WikiLeaks to publish the emails. The questions suggest the special counsel is probing possible coordination between WikiLeaks and Trump associates in disseminating the emails.

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Gold prices make a last minute turn lower Wednesday to post a modest loss, contributing to the metal’s first monthly decline since October. Strength in the dollar following Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s House testimony Tuesday continued to pressure prices. April gold edged down by 70 cents, or less than 0.1%, to settle at $1,317.90 an ounce. Prices, which traded slightly higher for much of the session, ended the month with a loss of roughly 1.8%.

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Analysts at Macquarie Research on Wednesday downgraded shares of Comcast Corp. , to neutral from a day after the media and entertainment company said it would propose a $31.0 billion bid for Sky Plc. . Comcast’s potential to expand internationally, double its scale and leverage cross-border IP is great, Macquarie lead analyst Amy Yong wrote in a note, but uncertainty around M&A gives analysts at Macquarie doubt. “Though the downside in Comcast shares is limited after yesterday’s move, we believe the unpredictability could cap near-term upside,” Yong wrote. “If the 2017-2018 M&A playbook has taught us anything, it’s that anything can happen on the regulatory front and this could invite additional regulatory scrutiny.” Shares of Comcast have declined a little more than 1% in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 index is up more than 16%.

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Nutritional-supplement company Herbalife Ltd. saw its shares soar more than 7% Wednesday afternoon after a report indicated that its fiercest critic had unraveled a massive bet that the company would fall to zero. CNBC on Wednesday reported that Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital exited its Herbalife,according to CNBC’s Scott Wapner. Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management LP made a bet against the company five years ago, accusing it of running a pyramid scheme. The company has steadfastly denied those allegations. And the bet that it would collapse in value has been dead wrong. In fact, shares of Herbalife are up 35% so far in 2018, compared to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq Composite Index , which are up between 2% and 6% so far this year. In fact, Herbalife shares are up 130% over the past five years, according to FactSet data. Ackman first shorted the stock at around $47 factoring in the cost of the wager, according to The Wall Street Journal. Ackman had said Pershing Square would sell out if the wager gets too risky, but previously pledged to take his crusade “to the end of the earth.”

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Exchange-traded funds that track the biotech sector fell on Wednesday, underperforming the broad market as Celgene tumbled. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF fell 0.7% while the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF was down 0.6%. Among the biggest drags on the sector was Celgene Corp , which tumbled 8.3% in heavy trading after it said the Food and Drug Administration wouldn’t let it file for approval of its ozanimod drug for relapsing multiple sclerosis. Among other big drags on the sector, Depomed Inc. was down 11.7% while Acadia Pharmaceuticals Inc. shed 17%. Another drugmaker, Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. , sank 11% after it reported fourth-quarter revenue that missed expectations and also gave a 2018 outlook that was below forecasts.
Thus far this year, the SPDR ETF is up 7.8% while the iShares fund is up 2.3%. The S&P 500 is up about 2.7% in 2018. On Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.1% while the S&P was flat and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.1%.

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average was struggling to advance Wednesday afternoon, even as the gauge was scoring a bump from advances in component United Technologies Corp. . Shares of United Tech were up 2%, or $3.11, after CNBC reported that activist investor Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital was building a stake in the industrial conglomerate. Meanwhile, shares of Boeing Co. , another industrial giant and Dow component, were gaining 1.3%. The pair of Dow components were contributing about 50 points to the price-weighted benchmark. A $1 move in any one of the Dow’s 30 components equates to a 6.89-point swing in the average. Still, the blue-chip gauge was trading flat in afternoon trade at 25,416. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 index was up 0.1% at 2,747, while the Nasdaq Composite Index added 0.2% at 7,343. All three of the benchmarks have been seeing up-and-down action all session, a day after finishing sharply lower on reignited fears the the Federal Reserve might quicken the pace of its rate hikes in 2018.

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