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The White House will issue what President Donald Trump has called “fake news awards” later Wednesday, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. “It’ll be something later today,” she told reporters at the daily briefing. Trump has said the so-called awards will go to “the most corrupt & biased of the Mainstream Media.”
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Wells Fargo & Co. said Wednesday Chief Risk Officer Mike Loughlin will retire, after about 10 years in the role. The bank said Loughlin will remain in the role until a successor is named, which should be in the next few months. Loughlin had joined Wells in 1986, after the acquisition of Crocker Bank. The stock gained 1.5% in afternoon trade, putting it on track for a record close. It has rallied 19% over the past three months, while the SPDR Financial Select Sector ETF has gained 5.8% and the S&P 500 has advanced 9.3%.
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Apple Inc. shares traded little changed Wednesday after the company said it planned to contribute $350 billion to the U.S. economy over the next five years, through new jobs, a new campus, and investments in data centers. In a release issued Wednesday afternoon, the company announced that it would build a second headquarters in a city to be named later on in the year. Apple also said it would add more than 20,000 jobs, on top of its current 84,000. The firm plans to boost its Advanced Manufacturing Fund, which helps domestic manufacturers, from $1 billion to $5 billion. Apple added that the new tax bill should prompt the company to repatriate $38 billion. “A payment of that size would likely be the largest of its kind ever made,” the company said in its release. Apple’s stock is up 47% over the last 12 months, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 31%.
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Apple Inc. shares are little changed in midday trading Wednesday despite an upbeat note from Morgan Stanley analysts about the company’s prospects in China. Adoption of the iPhone X is outpacing adoption of the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, according to Morgan Stanley analysts led by Katy Huberty. She believes that Apple is picking up share of the active-smartphone base in the country and that the company has better retention rates than its local rivals. Reduced prices on some older iPhone models are also helping the company gain share and appeal to “mid-market” customers, she added. “An increasing mix of upgrades from the much larger base of 3+ year old iPhones points to a strong upgrade cycle in China,” Huberty wrote. Apple shares are up 46% over the last 12 months, compared with a 31% rise for the Dow Jones Industrial Average .
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Victoria’s Secret parent company L Brands Inc. and Signet Jewelers Ltd. could get squeezed by the late start to the tax season, say Instinet analysts led by Simeon Siegel. The IRS announced earlier this month that it will begin accepting tax returns on Jan. 29, with nearly 155 million individual tax returns expected to be filed. The tax filing deadline will be April 17 since April 15 is a Sunday and April 16 is Emancipation Day, a legal holiday in Washington D.C. The IRS expects tax refunds to hit bank accounts starting on Feb. 27 if taxpayers choose direct deposit and there are no other problems. “[B]ased on the IRS’s announced tax season start, which is the latest since 2014, we expect companies with Valentine’s Day exposure (Signet, L Brands) and those reliant on consumers with less disposable income to be the most pressured,” Instinet wrote. Last year, companies like Foot Locker Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said that the tax refund delay impacted sales early in the calendar year. L Brands shares are down 19.3% for the past year, and Signet shares are down nearly 31% for the period. The S&P 500 index is up 22.8% for the last 12 months.
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The Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday again voted to advance the nomination of Jerome Powell to lead the Federal Reserve. The panel had overwhelmingly backed Powell last month but had to vote again because the action was not carried over to this session of Congress. Powell, who has been a Fed governor since 2012, was approved by voice vote, with only Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, voting no. The nomination now moves to the Senate floor. Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s term expires Feb. 3. The Banking Committee also voted to give Fed Vice Chairman Randal Quarles a new 14-year term at the central bank.
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The Canadian dollar fell on Wednesday, after the Bank of Canada raised interest rates by 25 basis points to 1.25%, but cited the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement as a risk. “Recent data have been strong, inflation is close to target, and the economy is operating roughly at capacity. However, uncertainty surrounding the future of Nafta is clouding the economic outlook,” the BOC statement read. It further said that “some continued monetary policy accommodation will likely be needed to keep the economy operating close to potential and inflation on target.” In November, core consumer price inflation stood at 1.3%, compared with the BOC target around 2%. Market participants updated their forecasts to reflect their anticipation of Wednesday’s rate hike after Canada posted strong December employment data earlier this month. The BOC raised interest rates twice in 2017, but then took a dovish turn in its language. One U.S. dollar last bought C$1.2467, compared with C$1.2435 late Tuesday. The yield on Canada’s ten-year government bond slipped 0.8% to 2.16%.
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U.S. stock-market indexes opened slightly higher on Wednesday, hovering near record levels a day after Dow industrials saw their biggest one-day reversal in almost two years. Investors continued to focus on earnings releases, including results from Bank of America and Goldman Sachs. The S&P 500 gained 6 points, or 0.2%, to 2,782. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index advanced by 19 points, or 0.2%, to 7,243. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 110 points, or 0.4%, to 25,908. Among the best performers on Wall Street, shares of IBM rose sharply, after analysts at Barclays upgraded the stock to overweight from underweight.
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Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Wednesday that it has named Judith McKenna chief executive of Walmart International, effective Feb. 1, 2018. She succeeds David Cheesewright who has been in the role since 2014 and has been with the company for 19 years. He has “recently shared his desire to retire from a full-time role,” according to a Wal-Mart release. He will remain in his position until March and then work on specific projects on a limited basis. McKenna is currently chief operating officer for Walmart U.S. She began working with Wal-Mart’s Asda unit in 1996 as chief operating officer and chief financial officer. Walmart International has more than 6,200 retail units in 27 countries. Wal-Mart shares are up more than 47% for the past 12 months while the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 30.1% for the period.
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Shares of International Business Machines Corp. rose 1.8% in premarket trading Tuesday after analysts at Barclays upgraded the stock to overweight from underweight. The firm now has a $192 price target on IBM shares. “We think that the narrative can favorably shift for shares of IBM,” wrote the analysts, led by Mark Moskowitz. He thinks that after years of declining revenue, the company could be on the verge of showing stabilized sales or even returning to top-line growth. He’s optimistic about the mainframe cycle and its ability to serve as a “buffer” while IBM progresses on newer initiatives. “IBM could emerge as the next important cloud vendor after Amazon and [Microsoft’s ] Azure over time as customers seek a multi-cloud strategy to avoid vendor lock-in or technology complacency,” he wrote. IBM’s stock has fallen 2.4% in the past 12 months, compared with a 22% gain for the S&P 500 over that time.
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