Category: Stock Market News

Shares of Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. rose more than 4% late Wednesday after the retailer reported per-share quarterly earnings above expectations but said it expects a decline in profit for the year. The company said it earned $268.7 million, or $1.84 a share, in the fiscal fourth quarter, compared with $303.5 million, or $1.91 a share, for the fiscal 2015 fourth quarter. Sales reached $3.5 billion, from $3.4 billion a year ago. Comparable-store sales rose 0.4% in the period. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected the company to report earnings of $1.77 a share on sales of $3.5 billion. Bed Bath & Beyond is modeling a decline in net per-share earnings in the low-single digits to 10% for fiscal 2017, the company said in a statement.

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U.S. stocks pared gains in Wednesday afternoon, losing much of their early momentum, as oil prices came off their intraday high to trade lower. The S&P 500 rose 5 points, or 0.3%, to 2,366 while the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 69 points, or 0.3%, to 20,760. The Nasdaq advanced 4 points to 5,902 after hitting a record of 5,936.39. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery shed 0.1% to $50.98 a barrel after settling at $51.15 a barrel earlier.

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Oil futures ended with modest gains Wednesday, trimming an earlier rally after government data showed an unexpected rise in U.S. oil inventories last week. West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 12 cents to end at $51.15 a barrel after trading as high as $51.88 in earlier action. Oil retreated, briefly trading in negative territory, after the Energy Information Administration said U.S. crude inventories rose 1.6 million barrels last week versus forecasts for a fall of 200,000 barrels. A further rise in refinery utilization, however, limited selling pressure, analysts said.

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The dollar and Treasury yields moved higher on Wednesday after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s latest meeting revealed that the central bank plans to begin shrinking its $4.5 trillion balance sheet later this year. The minutes, from the Fed’s two-day policy meeting that ended March 15. also revealed that Fed officials discussed how the impact of any fiscal stimulus measures promised by President Donald Trump likely won’t be felt until 2018. Despite this, Fed officials still expect rates to rise gradually, unless the economy suddenly overheats. The yield on the 10-year note climbed 1.4 basis point to 2.376%, while the dollar strengthened to 111.33 yen, compared with 110.75 yen late Tuesday in New York. The euro , meanwhile, weakened to $1.0648, compared with $1.0670. Stocks dipped after the minutes, likely driven by officials’ concerns that present valuations are uncomfortably high.

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Most of the top Federal Reserve officials said it was likely that the central bank would start to shrink its balance sheet this year, according to minutes of the March policy meeting released Wednesday. Fed officials had an in-depth discussion of the technical details of the balance sheet policy, including whether to phase out reinvestment of principal payments or doing it all at once. Officials supported a gradual pace of rate hikes but said they could change their mind if the economy unexpectedly heated up. There was a lengthy discussion of the stock market, which some Fed officials described as “quite high” by standard valuation measures. Financial conditions were seen as a doubled-edged sword, either potentially providing greater stimulus from consumer spending or downside risks from a significant correction.

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Gold prices retreated Wednesday following three sessions of gains as better-than-expected employment data revived appetite for riskier assets such as stocks. The U.S. private sector added 253,000 jobs in March, according to Automatic Data Processing Inc., significantly ahead of the 170,000 projected by economists. June gold shed $9.90, or 0.8%, to settle at $1,248.50 an ounce. The S&P 500 rose 0.7% to trade at 2,377 in early afternoon.

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President Donald Trump said a chemical weapons attack in Syria was “an affront to humanity” and it “crossed a lot of lines” for him. Speaking at a news conference with the king of Jordan, Trump said “what happened yesterday is unacceptable to me” but did not discuss possible responses from the U.S.

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Taser International Inc. disclosed Wednesday that the maker of TASER electrical weapons and body cameras has changed its name to Axon Enterprise Inc., effective April 5. Starting Thursday, the stock’s ticker symbol will change to “AAXN.” The company also announced an initiative to equip every police officer with a body camera. “Since its inception, the Taser name has become synonymous with iconic, less-lethal weapons,” Axon said in a statement releases Wednesday. “Today, the company’s portfolio has grown to encompass a much wider range of technologies, including a rich ecosystem of connected devices and software applications.” The stock shed 1.8% in midday trade. It has dropped 11% year to date, compared with the S&P 500’s 6.1% gain.

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Shares of Amazon.com Inc. are on track for their sixth straight-record close on Wednesday, which would mark the longest streak of records for the stock since July 2013. Up another 1.7% to $922.04 in afternoon trade, Amazon stock is heading toward its eighth-straight session win. That would represent its longest winning streak since August 2014, when it closed in the green nine days in a row. Shares of Amazon have gained 57.5% in the past 12 months, compared with a 16.1% increase for the S&P 500 . Since the start of this year, Amazon’s market cap has rocketed $83.5 billion to $439.9 billion. The company has benefitted from investments in e-commerce and its cloud service, Amazon Web Services.

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BMW AG, Allstate Corp. and GlaxoSmithKline PLC joined Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai in pulling advertising from the Fox News show, “The O’Reilly Factor,” after revelations that anchor Bill O’Reilly, or the network’s parent, 21st Century Fox, paid $13 million in settlements to five women who accused him of sexual harassment, according to media reports. “Given the importance of women in every aspect of our business, we don’t feel this is a good environment in which to advertise our products right now,” Donna Boland, head of corporate communications for Mercedes-Benz, told CNN Money. Hyundai told the New York Times it made its decision because of the “recent and disturbing allegations.” Paul Rittenberg, executive vice president of advertising sales at Fox News Channel, said “we value our partners and are working with them to address their current concerns about the “O’Reilly Factor”. At this time, the ad buys of those clients have been re-expressed into other FNC programs.” News Corp, which owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of MarketWatch and the Wall Street Journal, and 21st Century Fox were part of the same company until 2013. 21st Century Fox shares were slightly lower Wednesday, but are up 13% in the year so far, while the S&P 500 has gained 5%.

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