Category: Stock Market News

Shares of VMware Inc. rose in Thursday’s extended session after the virtualization software vendor posted strong earnings and announced a sizeable stock repurchase plan. VMware reported its fourth-quarter earnings rose to $441 million, or $1.04 a share, from $373 million, or 88 cents a share, a year ago. On an adjusted basis, VMware would have earned $1.43 a share. Revenue grew to $2.03 billion versus $1.87 billion. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast the company to earn $1.39 a share. VMware also said it will buy back up $1.2 billion in Class A common shares. The stock rose 2.5% after hours.

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 32 points to a second-straight record close above 20,000, with 17 of 30 components gaining ground, but most stocks in the broader market fell. The number of declining stocks outnumbered advancers by a 1,523 to 1,400 margin on the NYSE and by a 1,731 to 1,042 score on the Nasdaq exchange. Volume in advancing stocks was 39% of the NYSE’s total volume, and 44% of the Nasdaq’s total volume. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 slipped 0.1%, the Nasdaq Composite eased less than 0.1% and the Russell 2000 index of small-capitalization stocks fell 0.5%.

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Shares of Alphabet Inc. fell 3% in extended trading Thursday after the company reported weaker-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings. The Google and YouTube parent reported net income of $5.3 billion, or $7.56 a share, compared with $6 billion, or $7.06 a share, in the year-earlier period. Excluding one-time items, Alphabet reported earnings of $9.36 a share, narrowly below the FactSet consensus estimate of $9.64. Revenue for the period rose to $26.06 billion, or roughly $21.2 billion when removing traffic acquisition costs. Revenue topped analyst expectations of $20.6 billion. Both cost of revenues and operating expenses were higher during the quarter. As of Thursday’s close, shares of Alphabet had been up 4.2% in the past three months, compared with a 7.3% increase for the S&P 500 .

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President Donald Trump wants to pay for a wall along the border with Mexico through a 20% tax on imports, White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters Thursday. Spicer’s comments appeared to be an embrace of House Republicans’ border adjustment plan, which would tax imports but exempt exports from taxation. Republicans have pressed the plan as an alternative to tariffs. Earlier Thursday, Mexico’s president canceled a planned meeting with Trump as the two disagreed over who would pay for the proposed wall. Spicer said import taxes would be applied to countries the U.S. has a trade deficit with, like Mexico.

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Michael Piwowar has been designated acting chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission by President Donald Trump, according to the agency’s website. Piwowar, currently serving as a commissioner, is the only Republican. Former chairwoman Mary Jo White’s resignation in December was effective January 20. The SEC has been operating with two additional vacancies. The only other commissioner at the moment is Democrat Kara Stein. The two-member SEC is able to approve enforcement actions or new rules as long as the vote of the two members is unanimous. Jay Clayton, a lawyer in private practice, was nominated by President Trump to be the next chairman in early January, but a confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee has not yet been scheduled.

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Airbnb posted its first profit in the second half of 2016 and expects to maintain it through 2017, according to a report from Bloomberg, citing sources close to the company. This differentiates the home-rental company from some of Silicon Valley’s other billion-dollar unicorns, such as Uber. The ride-sharing company is valued at $68 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal, but lost an estimated $3 billion last year, Bloomberg reported. Airbnb is the fourth-most valuable company in The Wall Street Journal’s list of private companies valued at $1 billion or more, behind only Uber, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi and Chinese Uber rival Didi Chuxing. Revenue at Airbnb increased more than 80% during 2016, according to Bloomberg’s sources. That comes despite a regulatory clampdown on the service in major cities, including San Francisco and New York.

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Citigroup Global Markets will pay $18.3 million to settle charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission that it overbilled at least 60,000 advisory clients over a 15-year period by approximately $18 million and misplaced client contracts. The SEC said Citigroup cannot locate approximately 83,000 advisory account contracts that were initiated between 1990 and 2012. Citigroup, according to the SEC, failed to match billing rates in client contracts, billing histories, and other documents with those entered into its computer systems for new fees. Citigroup also collected fees even though client accounts were inactive. The affected clients have been reimbursed. Citigroup consented to the SEC’s order and agreed to improve its fee-billing and books-and-records practices. The firm will pay a $14.3 million penalty and $800,000 in interest and give up $3.2 million in excess fees collected due to the missing contracts

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The Mexican peso slumped Thursday after the country’s president, Enrique Pena Nieto, canceled a meeting scheduled for next week with President Donald Trump. The announcement comes a day after Trump signed an order to build a wall along the Mexican border and suggested Mexico will pay for it. On Thursday, the peso weakened by 1%, with the dollar buying 21.30 pesos compared with 21.21 late Wednesday in New York.

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Mexico’s president said Thursday he has canceled a meeting scheduled for next week with President Donald Trump. President Enrique Pena Nieto’s announcement comes a day after Trump signed an order to build a wall along the Mexican border. Trump has insisted Mexico will pay for the wall but Pena Nieto has never agreed to that. Earlier Thursday, Trump said on Twitter it would be better to cancel the meeting “if Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall.” The Mexican peso weakened 1.1% against the U.S. dollar after Pena Nieto’s announcement.

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The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission settled charges against Chicago-based E*Trade Securities LLC , an introducing broker, and E*Trade Clearing LLC, the firm’s futures broker-dealer, for record-keeping and supervision violations. According to the CFTC order, between October 2009 and January 25, 2014 E*Trade Securities and E*Trade Clearing allowed audit trail logs for their customers trades to be destroyed after 10 days rather than that maintaining them for use by regulators who use the records to monitor the firm’s compliance with laws and regulations. E*Trade did not admit or deny the findings but will pay a $280,000 penalty for both business units.

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