Tag: stock market

Journalist Jemele Hill is leaving ESPN’s SportsCenter, The Hollywood Reporter wrote on Friday, citing unnamed sources. Hill, the co-host of SportsCenter’s 6 p.m. show titled “The Six,” has been at the center of an onslaught of recent criticism of the Walt Disney Co.-owned ESPN and its perceived liberal bias. In October ESPN suspended Hill for a second violation of the company’s social media guidelines, which they later updated. She suggested on Twitter that fans boycott advertisers of the National Football League and before that she called President Donald Trump a white supremacist. Hill’s last day on SportsCenter will be Feb. 2, just two days before the Super Bowl, and co-host Michael Smith will host the show on his own after that. Hill will still work at ESPN as a writer for The Undefeated, sources told The Hollywood Reporter. She still has three years left on her four-year contract with ESPN. Shares of Disney have gained roughly 3% in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 index is up more than 24% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up more than 31%.

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average was trading squarely in record territory on Friday, with almost all of the advance on the back of a run-up in shares of components Intel and 3M Co. Intel Corp. saw its shares rise about 9%, or $4.10, while 3M Co.’s stock was up 1.9%, or about $5, combining to contribute more than 60 points to the Dow . A $1 move in any one of the price-weighted, blue-chip average’s 30 components translates to a 6.83-point swing. The Dow was up 64 points, or 0.2%, at 26,457, in recent trade, trading in record territory, while the S&P 500 index climbed 0.4% at 2,849. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite Index was gaining 0.5% at 7,446. Both Intel and 3M recently reported fourth-quarter results that exceeded Wall Street expectations, underscoring what has been a solid start to earnings season.

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Video game maker Electronic Arts Inc. and the National Football League said on Friday they are teaming up with Walt Disney Co.-owned ESPN and Disney XD to broadcast EA’s upcoming “Madden NFL” league and championship series. The “Madden NFL” gaming league is a first-of-its-kind one-on-one competitive gaming sports league. The league, and EA’s partnership with Disney to broadcast it, illustrates the increasing interest in Esports. Between Super Bowl LII and the 2018 NFL draft, Disney XD and the ESPN app will house competitive gaming content from “Madden NFL 18,” according to a news release. Some of the games will also air across ESPN’s different cable TV channels. Disney shares are up roughly 3% in the last 12 months, while shares of Electronic Arts are up more than 39%. By comparison, the S&P 500 index is up more than 24% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up more than 31%.

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Shares of General Electric Co. slumped 0.8% in morning trade Friday, which puts them below Monday’s more-than six-year closing low, after J.P. Morgan analyst Stephen Tusa said there are still “more questions than answers” after the industrial conglomerate’s fourth-quarter results and disclosure of an SEC investigation. “With everything that has now happened since new management has come onboard…, we don’t know how a value investor or ratings agency analyst can have confidence in the ultimate value of assets here, most notably what’s hung up on the industrial balance sheet, which will get a harder look by any potential buyer as the portfolio begins to come apart,” Tusa wrote in a note to clients. “We continue to see a levered industrial company with weak levels of [free cash flow]…, with a side dish of levered finco, with a management team in the tough position, working to prevent a ‘hard landing’ in which bond investors start to worry about liquidity.” He reiterated his underweight rating and $16 stock price target. The stock, which has now lost 5% since fourth-quarter results were reported before Wednesday’s open, was on track to close at the lowest level since Dec. 1, 2011. It has plunged 25% over the past three months, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average has rallied 13%.

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Shares of Amazon.com Inc. are up 0.8% in Friday morning trading, and reached an all-time intraday high of $1,392.27 earlier in the session, after analysts at Morgan Stanley raised their price target on the stock to $1,400, from $1,250. The analysts, led by Brian Nowak, also raised their bull case on shares to $2,100 from $2,000. Nowak is upbeat about Amazon’s ad-revenue opportunities and the US trade budget spend. ” In all, we estimate that US trade spend is $178bn, with $55bn spent on vendor allowances that we believe is directly addressable and could shift to online advertising,” he wrote. This could boost the total addressable market for Amazon and other companies like Alphabet Inc. and Facebook Inc. that draw a lot of ad dollars, Nowak argued. He increased his Amazon ad revenue estimates for this year and next, predicting that the company’s sponsored-product revenue will grow at a 54% annual rate from 2016 to 2019. Amazon shares are up 65% over the past 12 months, while the S&P 500 is up 24%.

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The Japanese yen strengthened against the U.S. dollar on Friday, as Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda affirmed the central bank would continue to support the Japanese economy through monetary easing. Kuroda also said that inflation was finally getting close to the BOJ’s target of 2% and that there would be a slight pickup in inflation expectations. Japan is understood to have the loosest approach to monetary policy among the developed economies, and is expected to be one of the last to join the trend of policy normalization. The dollar last bought ¥108.95, down from ¥109.41. The pair touched its lowest level since September on Thursday.

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Shares of Activision Blizzard Inc. rose 0.6% in Friday morning trading, while shares of Electronic Arts Inc. gained 0.7%, after analysts at Credit Suisse wrote of “gearing up for the mobile game renaissance.” The analysts, led by Stephen Ju, think that mobile games based on existing Activision franchises “will exert the greatest influence on Activision’s growth” as they could expand popular titles to consumers who don’t have expensive consoles or gaming PCs. Ju doubts that the company will release titles this year, but he believes management may provide more information on its plans for this initiative. He’s also upbeat on EA’s “steps to optimize FIFA Mobile and release Sims Mobile.” Ju raised his price target on Activision shares to $81, from $77, and upped his EA target by a dollar to $131. He has outperform ratings on both stocks and a neutral rating on Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. , which he thinks could also benefit from mobile gaming. Ju raised his Take-Two target to $125 from $116, and shares are up 0.4% in Friday morning trading. Activision shares are up 79% over the past 12 months, while EA’s stock has gained 40% and Take-Two’s has gained 118%. The S&P 500 is up 24%.

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U.S. stock indexes started higher on Friday as the Dow and the S&P 500 were on track to set record high closes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 53 points, or 0.2%, to 26,445. The S&P 500 was up 8 points, or 0.3%, to 2,847. The Nasdaq Composite Index added 37 points, or 0.4%, to 7,438. On Thursday, the Dow was the only major benchmark index that set an all-time high. Fourth-quarter gross domestic product was up 2.6 percent, falling below expectations but strong enough to stave off concerns that the U.S. economy was starting to stumble as it headed into the new year.

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FedEx Corp. said Friday it would commit more than $3.2 billion to pension funding, capital investments and employee compensation, following the tax-reform legislation. The package delivery company said over $200 million, or about 6.3% of the total commitment, will go toward increased compensation, with about two-thirds of that going to hourly employees by moving up 2018 annual pay increases by six months. The package delivery company will contribute $1.5 billion to the pension plan and invest $1.5 billion to expand the FedEx Express Indianapolis hub over the next seven years, and to modernize the Memphis SuperHub. The company said it has made not change to its 2018 earnings or capital expenditure guidance that it provided last month. The stock, which was still inactive in premarket trade, has has rallied 17.0% over the past three months, while the Dow Jones Transportation Average has run up 11.4% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average has climbed 12.8%.

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U.S. stock-index futures on Friday showed slight gains, but were off their best levels, after a first reading of U.S. economic growth came in a touch softer than forecast. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 37 points, or 0.1% to 26,413, while S&P 500 futures climbed 8 points, or 0.3%, to 2,849. Nasdaq-100 futures added 30.50, or 0.4%, to 6,961.75. U.S. fourth-quarter GDP was 2.6%. compared with expectations for 2.9%. Still, the reading signals that the economy is healthy after back-to-back readings of 3% in the previous two quarters.

Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.

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