Tag: stock market

Google parent company Alphabet Inc. reached record price levels in after-hours trading Thursday and could top a $700 billion market capitalization if it holds the gains through Friday’s trading session. Shares gained about 3% in late trading after the internet company announced third-quarter earnings that easily beat expectations Thursday afternoon. The stock would need a 3% gain for Alphabet to become just the second U.S. company after Apple Inc. to achieve a $700 billion market cap, after ending Thursday’s regular session at $679.6 billion, according to FactSet. If Alphabet accomplishes the feat Friday, it would have been only 131 days since the company first topped $600 billion, according to the WSJ Market Data Group, which would make it the fastest $100 billion market-cap gain on record. Alphabet’s Class A shares have already gained 25.1% so far this year, while the S&P 500 index has increased 14.4%.

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There will only be a partial release of roughly 2,800 records Thursday from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a White House official said Thursday. President Donald Trump is giving federal agencies an additional 180 days to review documents around the assassination. The requests for redactions mostly came from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency. The documents had been slated for release Thursday.

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The Securities and Exchange Commission has settled with the high-profile software company Zenefits over allegedly making false statements in a pair of private offerings about whether its employees were properly licensed to sell insurance. The SEC found Zenefits not only didn’t take steps to license its workforce, it also didn’t spend enough time on pre-licensing education, allowed employees to sell insurance before they had taken and passed their exams, and permitted some employees licensed in one state to sell insurance in states they weren’t licensed. Zenefits and its former CEO, Parker Conrad, didn’t agree or deny to the findings they violated securities laws. Zenefits agreed to pay a $450,000 penalty, and Conrad agreed to pay a total of $533,692 in a fine, interest, and disgorgement.

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Western Digital Corp. shares declined in the extended session Thursday after the computer memory company topped Wall Street expectations for the quarter. Western Digital shares rose 2% to $90.99, following an earlier decline after hours. The company reported fiscal first-quarter net income of $681 million, or $2.23 a share, compared with a loss of $366 million, or $1.28 a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted earnings were $3.56 a share. Revenue rose to $5.18 billion from $4.71 billion in the year-ago period. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had estimated earnings of $3.31 a share on revenue of $5.13 billion.

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Shares of Gigamon Inc. rose nearly 6% late Thursday after the company said private-equity firm Elliott Management had agreed to buy it for $1.6 billion. After the deal is completed, Gigamon will become a private company, it said. In a separate statement, Gigamon said it earned $2.2 million, or 6 cents a share, in the third quarter, compared with $6.1 million, or 16 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted for one-time items, Gigamon earned $9.5 million, or 23 cents a share, compared with $14 million, or 36 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue fell to $79.2 million, compared with $83.5 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2016. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected adjusted earnings of 23 cents a share on sales of $84.7 million.

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Chinese internet giant Baidu Inc. plunged about 12% in late trading Thursday despite reporting nearly twice the profits experts expected, as the company’s revenue forecast for the fourth quarter came in lighter than expected. The search company reported third-quarter net income of $1.2 billion, or $3.62 a share, on revenue of $3.54 billion, up 29% from a year ago. After adjustments for share-based compensation and other effects, the company claimed earnings of $3.89 a share, up more than 160% from a year ago. On average, analysts estimated Baidu would report adjusted earnings of $1.96 a share on sales of $3.56 billion. Baidu’s fourth-quarter forecast called for revenue of $3.34 billion to $3.52 billion, while analysts on average were projecting revenue of $3.76 billion, according to FactSet. Baidu shares dropped to less than $230 in after-hours trading following the release of the report, after closing with a 0.9% decline at $260.62.

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Shares of Deckers Brands fell in Thursday’s extended session after the footwear company said it will no longer seek a sale after failing to find a potential bidder out of some 90 entities it had contacted. However, the company remains open to considering other strategic alternatives to boost stockholder value, said John Gibbons, chairman of the board, in a statement. Deckers also announced a new stock buyback program of up to $335 million on top of the $65 million remaining in its current plan. It separately reported second-quarter earnings of $1.54 a share on revenue of $482.5 million, ahead of the $1.02 a share in earnings and revenue of $438 million forecast by analysts in a FactSet survey. Shares trimmed losses in late trade to slide 0.6% after being down as much as 6% earlier. [Updated with quarterly earnings data.]

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Super Micro Computer Inc. shares dropped in the extended session Thursday after the “green” computing company forecast results that fell below the Wall Street consensus. Super Micro shares dropped 22% to $17 after hours. The company said it expects fiscal first-quarter adjusted earnings of 26 cents to 30 cents a share, down from its previous estimate of 30 cents to 40 cents a share. The company narrowed its expected revenue range to $675 million to $685 million, from its previous $625 million to $685 million range. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast earnings of 34 cents a share on revenue of $652 million. For the second quarter, Super Micro expects revenue of $725 million to $780 million, while analysts expect $749.5 million. The company said it is still conducting an auditing review of its statements and has delayed its annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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Shares of Microsoft Corp. gained in Thursday’s extended session after the technology giant posted better-than-expected quarterly results. The company reported its fiscal first-quarter earnings rose to $6.58 billion, or 84 cents a share, from $5.67 billion, or 72 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue grew 12% to $24.5 billion. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had projected earnings of 71 cents a share on revenue of $23.52 billion. The maker of the Windows operating system had announced earlier this year that it will release its quarterly results in generally accepted accounting principles in the new fiscal year, a move that Silicon Valley peers like Alphabet Inc. and Facebook Inc. are adopting as well. Microsoft shares climbed 0.6% to $79.20, matching an all-time high set on Oct. 24.

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The European Central Bank sees September as an implicit end to its bond-buying program after policymakers didn’t debate options beyond that date, according to a report by Bloomberg News, citing unnamed officials. But one member of the Governing Council had suggested if inflation did not show enough improvement, it could extend the bond-buying after that date, the report said. The ECB announced it would reduce the its monthly asset-buying program to €30 billion ($35.42 billion) in January from €60 billion, but extended the program to September 2018.

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