Category: Stock Market News

Facebook Inc. launched a new augmented-reality platform at its annual developer conference, F8, in San Francisco on Tuesday. In a keynote speech, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he no longer viewed glasses and spectacles – such as those created by Alphabet Inc. , Microsoft Corp. and Snap Inc. — as the first mainstream augmented reality platform. Instead, he believes the cameras on existing smartphones will lead the adoption of augmented reality. Zuckerberg said the technology will be able to read the depth of the room to better recognize and interact with objects in the physical world. This would be a more advanced kind of augmented reality than what is portrayed in the trendy game Pokémon Go. In that game, digital images are placed over objects in the real world, however they have little other connection and interaction with the surrounding world. Facebook also launched AR Studio on Tuesday, which would help consumers and developers build their own objects in augmented reality. Shares of Facebook fell 0.2% to $141.13 in afternoon trade. They’ve gained more than 10% in the past three months, outperforming the S&P 500 , up 3%.

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Steven Stephens, the Cleveland man accused of shooting a pensioner and posting video of it on Facebook, has been found dead in his car, media reports said Tuesday. The 37-year old had been on the run since the weekend and is reported to have shot himself after a car chase with police, they said. Stephens posted a video of himself allegedly approaching an older man and shooting him in the head on Sunday. He later went on Facebook Live , the instantaneous broadcasting tool, to talk about this and other alleged crimes. It took Facebook several hours to remove the posts, prompting criticism of the social media giant’s ability to monitor its own content.

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W.W. Grainger Inc. shares slid 8.7% Tuesday, after the company said its pricing strategy had derailed its first quarter. The supplier of maintenance, repair and operating products said net income fell 6% to $175 million, or $2.92 a share, in the first quarter, down from $187 million, or $2.98 a share, in the year-earlier period. Sales rose 1% to $2.5 billion. The FactSet consensus was for EPS of $2.99 and sales of $2.563 billion. “Overall, the first quarter clearly fell short of our expectations, driven primarily by the stronger than anticipated customer response to our U.S. strategic pricing actions, with a greater volume of products sold at more competitive prices,” Chief Executive DG Macpherson said in a statement. The company is now planning to full forward pricing actions planned for 2018 to the 2017 third quarter and lowered its full-year outlook to reflect the change. The company is now expecting 2017 sales go grow 1% to 4%, compared with prior guidance of 2% to 6%. It expects EPS of $10.00 to $11.93, down from prior guidance of $11.30 to $12.40. The company said it will work to improve margins and reduce costs in Canada, which remains challenged. Shares were halted for the news, and had not traded premarket after the halt was lifted. But they are down 4% in 2017, underperforming the S&P 500 , which has gained 5%.

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It’s not surprise that Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s stock is declining in the wake of first-quarter results reported before the open, but how much it’s falling may shock for investors. The banker’s stock slumped 4.2% in morning trade to $216.78 after both profit and sales missed expectations. That would be the biggest one-day, post-earnings percentage decline since it fell 4.7% on Jan. 19, 2011 after Goldman reported fourth-quarter 2010 results. On the day following the previous 25 quarterly reports since then, the stock has fallen after 16 of them, by an average of 1.5%, according to an analysis of FactSet data. On the days after quarterly reports that the stock rose, the average gain was 2.8%. Analyst Steven Chuback at Instinet said Tuesday’s report offers Goldman bears “quite a bit of fodder” given the significantly weaker trading results than its peers. He reiterated his neutral rating and $220 stock price target, which is just 0.8% above current levels. The stock has tumbled 9.3% year to date, while the SPDR Financial Select Sector ETF has eased 0.6% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average has gained 4%.

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Verizon Communications Inc. on Tuesday announced a three-year minimum purchase agreement with Corning Inc for $1.05 billion. Shares of Corning were up more than 2% after the announcement. Verizon shares were up less than 1%. Corning will provide Verizon with up to 12.4 million miles of fiber optic cable each year from 2018 to 2020. The goal is for Verizon to build an architecture of “next-gen” fiber network to support all of its businesses, which it hopes will improve its 4G LTE coverage, speed the deployment of 5G and deliver high-speed broadband to homes and businesses. “Our plans identified a shortfall in fiber supply, and Verizon has been working with business teams to forecast demand and fill supply gaps with existing suppliers,” said Verizon Chief Supply Chain Officer Viju Menon in a statement. “Securing the required volume of optical fiber and hardware solutions with Corning will ensure we meet our planned rollout schedules.” Shares of Corning have gained 12% in the year to date, while Verizon is down more than 8% and the S&P 500 index has increased nearly 5% so far this year.

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Standard & Poor’s placed ratings on Cardinal Health Inc. on review for a possible downgrade, after the Dublin, Ohio-based drugs and medical supplies company said it was buying a unit of Medtronic Plc for $6.1 billion. The deal is “a transaction that is meaningfully larger than the tuck-ins we had anticipated,” the rating agency wrote in a note. Cardinal Health is planning to fund the deal with a $4.5 billion bridge loan and $1.6 billion of cash. “We expect leverage will rise materially to the high-2 times area from 1.4 times as of Dec. 31, 2016,” said S&P. The agency rates Cardinal Health at A-minus, but would likely lower that to BBB-plus, based on the proposed financing terms, it said. It expects to resolve the action once the deal closes. Earlier, Fitch revised its outlook on the company’s rating to negative, also citing concerns about leverage. Cardinal Health’s most active bonds, the 1.70% notes due March of 2018, were trading at 100 cents on the dollar, according to MarketAxess. Shares fell 11.6%, while the S&P 500 was flat.

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Bank of America Corp.’s first-quarter earnings reported early Tuesday beat expectations for net interest income and fee income, showcasing the bank’s strong operating leverage, according to Instinet analyst Steven Chubak. “While the shares have outperformed the peer group YTD (+3%, vs. -2% at peers), this print should provide sufficient fodder for Bank of America bulls and spur continued outperformance,” Chubak wrote in a note to investors. The bank reported combined revenue for global banking and markets of $9.5 billion, surpassing Instinet’s $9.1 billion forecast, while FICC — fixed income, currencies and commodities trading — came to $2.9 billion, ahead of its $2.7 billion forecast. Investment banking revenue of $1.6 billion was ahead of Instinet’s $1.4 billion estimate, reflecting strength in debt capital markets, equity capital markets and mergers & acquisition fees. The analyst rates the stock a buy and is sticking with his stock price target of $25, or 10% above its current trading level. Shares were flat in early trade, and are up just 2.9% in 2017, while the S&P 500 has gained 4.6%.

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Shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. on Tuesday erased more than 50 points from the Dow Jones Industrial Average at the start of trade, after the giant investment bank’s first-quarter results fell short of Wall Street estimates. Goldman’s stock , a contributor to the Dow, was off about 3.4%, or $8, from its Monday close of $226.26, which would translate into a 55-point drop for the price-weighted blue-chip benchmark. A point drop of that magnitude for Goldman also would put it on track to log its worst daily decline since March 21, when shares of the bank run by CEO Lloyd Blankfein lost $8.56 or 3.5%, according to FactSet data. Goldman reported a profit of $2.26 billion, or $5.15 a share, which compares with $2.68 a share for the same period a year ago, when Goldman posted its worst first quarter in 12 years as trading slumped. In early trade, the Dow was off nearly 100 points, or 0.5%, at 20,538, the S&P 500 index was down 8 points, or 0.4%, at 2,340, while the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 15 points, or 0.3%, at 5,842.

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U.S. stocks opened lower on Tuesday, with financials leading the decline after Goldman Sachs reported weaker-than-expected quarterly results. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 95 points, or 0.5%, to 20,545. The S&P 500 slid 7 points to 2,342, a drop of 0.3%. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 20 points, or 0.3%, to 5,837. Goldman Sachs Group Inc lost 3% and was the biggest drag on the Dow. The company’s results overshadowed forecast-topping results from fellow financial Bank of America , shares of which rose 1.4%. Among other results, Johnson & Johnson fell 2% after reporting a drop in revenue. Investors also continued to watch political issues abroad, with the coming election in France and tensions between the U.S. and North Korea. In the latest economic data, housing starts fell 6.8% in March. Industrial output rose 0.5% in the month.

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Snap Inc. announced new lenses, or augmented reality overlays, Tuesday that Snapchat users can use to “paint the world” or create a 3D experience on a photo. Previously, users could put lenses, such as dog face, over their own face in a selfie or with one other person. The move comes on the same day as Facebook Inc.’s developer conference. Facebook’s Instagram has been taking aim at Snap, with the expanded roll-out of its Instagram Stories, which the company said had surpassed Snap in terms of daily active users. Shares of Snap were down 1.2% in premarket trade Tuesday. Snap shares have fallen 11.5% month-to-date, compared to the S&P 500’s loss of 1%.

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