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McDonald’s Corp.’s stock climbed 1.6% in morning trade Tuesday after the fast food giant was upgraded to outperform from neutral at Credit Suisse. The firm has also raised McDonald’s price target to $112 from $100. Among the reasons for the upgrade, Credit Suisse cites an increase in global same-store sales that analysts believe will spread to the U.S., especially in the fourth quarter. The fast-food chain introduces all-day breakfast on October 6. Credit Suisse calls the U.S. business “the weakest link in the turnaround so far.” The firm is raising its fourth-quarter same-store sales estimate to 1.5% from 0.7%. The firm also believes McDonald’s stock will hit a “floor” in the low-$90 range, supported by the dividend, which represents at annual yield of 3.5% at current prices. McDonald’s stock is up 2% for the past three months.

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Amazon.com Inc. has added Universal Music artists, including Katy Perry, Luke Bryan, The Weekend, Drake and Ariana Grande, to its Prime Music service. Amazon also launched music playlists on Prime on Tuesday. The music service, which competes with the likes of Spotify and Apple Music , is currently only available in the U.S. and U.K. Amazon’s stock has risen more than 17% over the last three months, versus an 8.5% decline for the S&P 500. Its shares rose 1.4% to $510.97 in recent trade.

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​WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – U.S. consumer confidence ​rose slightly in September and was just a shade below a postrecession high. The consumer confidence index ​increased to ​103.0 from a revised ​101.1 in August, the Conference Board said Tuesday. That’s the highest leve since January, when consumer confidence touched an eight-year high. Economists polled by MarketWatch had projected the index to ​fall to 96.0, partly because of fresh worries about the health of the world economy. The present situation index, a measure of current conditions, also climbed to an eight-year high of 121.1 from ​115.8. Yet the expectations index declined to ​91.0 from ​91.6, suggesting Americans are a bit more cautious about the next six months. “While consumers view current economic conditions more favorably, they do not foresee growth accelerating in the months ahead,” said Lynn Franco, director of economic indicators at board.

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GameStop Corp. said it plans to hire 28,000 seasonal workers for the upcoming holiday shopping season. That represents a 12% increase from the 25,000 it hired a year ago, and a 64% jump from the 17,000 hired in 2013. The seasonal hires will begin on Oct. 18 and run through Jan. 8, which represents a span of 82 days, or 14% less than the 95 days–Oct. 6 through Jan. 9–they were hired for in 2014. The stock has run up 18% year to date, while the SPDR S&P Retail ETF has lost 8.8% and the S&P 500 has shed 8.7%.

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Cheniere Energy Inc.’s stock surged 2.2% in morning trade Tuesday, bouncing off a 19-month closing low on Monday, after billionaire investor Carl Icahn disclosed that he’s boosted his stake in the natural gas company for the third time in less than a month. Late Monday, Icahn filed to say he now owns about 27 million shares, or 11.43% of Cheniere’s outstanding stock, up from a stake of 22.7 million shares, or 9.59%, disclosed just two weeks earlier. On Aug. 31, he disclosed a 19.4-million-share, or 8.18%, stake in Cheniere. As of June 30, Icahn said he only owned 1.08 million shares. The stock is still down 29% over the past three months, compared with an 8.5% decline in the S&P 500 and a 6.7% drop in continuous natural gas futures .

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U.S. stocks opened higher Tuesday, recovering some of the previous session’s steep losses, as investors awaited data on consumer confidence. The S&P 500 rose 2 points, or 0.1%, to 1,886, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 29 points, or 0.2%, to 16,037. The Nasdaq Composite rose 15 points, or 0.3%, to 4,558.

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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — U.S. house prices rose 0.6% in July, led mostly by western markets including Portland and San Diego, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city composite released Tuesday. After seasonal adjustment, prices slipped 0.2%. Over the last 12 months, prices have climbed 5%, led by 10.4% growth in San Francisco and 10.3% growth in Denver. Fourteen cities reported greater price increases in the year ending July 2015, and every city saw price gains.

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Apple Inc.’s stock tacked on 0.6% in premarket trade Tuesday, following an upbeat research note at Sterne Agee CRT. Analyst Rob Cihra started coverage of Apple with a buy rating and stock price target of $150, which is 33% above Monday’s closing price of $112.44. “Addressing tech’s biggest markets across communications, computing and media, we believe Apple can keep pushing out the law-of-large numbers as it creates its own growth and captures value from others by engineering innovative hardware-software-services in a vertically-integrated model,” Cihra wrote in a note to clients. He said Apple’s “uniquely-premium” economic model allows the company to earn more off its high-end customers than the rest of its competitors combined. Cihra said he believes the company’s loyal user base and closed-loop platform drives a recurring revenue model over time. The stock has lost 9.7% over the past three months, but is still up 1.9% year to date, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average has declined 10%.

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Tuesday Morning Corp. announced that Chief Executive Michael Rouleau is retiring from his position and stepping down from the company’s board of directors, effective immediately. The off-price retailer has created a new Office of the Chairman that will be led by board chairman Steven Becker to oversee initiatives until a new CEO is named. Board member Terry Burman will serve in a new lead independent director role in the interim as well. Burman, Melissa Phillips, the company’s president and chief operating officer, and Phil Hixon, the company’s executive vice president of store operations, will also serve in the Office of the Chairman. A retail executive search firm, Herbert Mines Associates, will evaluate permanent CEO candidates. Tuesday Morning stock has tumbled more than 50% over the past three months. The S&P is down 8.6% for the same period.

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Jack Warner, one of the top officials in international soccer’s governing body, has received a lifetime ban on participating in any football-related activity, whether at a national or international level, FIFA said Tuesday. The ruling was handed down by FIFA’s ethics committee, which began investigating Warner’s activities after allegations of a corruption scandal broke in the spring. Warner had been a FIFA vice president and member of the executive committee. “Mr. Warner was found to have committed many and various acts of misconduct continuously and repeatedly during his time as an official in different high-ranking and influential positions at FIFA and CONCACAF,” said FIFA. CONCACAF stands for the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football. Warner had been president of CONCACAF from 1990 until 2011, when he was suspended and later stepped down. FIFA said Warner was a “key player in schemes involving the offer, acceptance and receipt of undisclosed and illegal payments.” The Swiss attorney general’s office last Friday opened a criminal probe into FIFA President Sepp Blatter.

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