Tag: stock market

Target Corp. said Tuesday that it is expanding its delivery and shipping services and raising its minimum wage to $12 in 2018, part of the effort to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2020. Two-day shipping will now be available on hundreds of thousands of items. Drive Up, a service that brings online orders out to shoppers who drive to their local store for pickup, will expand from 50 to nearly 1,000 stores by the end of the year. A service that delivers in-store purchases to customers’ homes the same day will expand from four New York City stores to all five boroughs and select stores in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington DC. The retailer also plans to expand its same-day Shipt service to the majority of Target stores and all major markets by the 2018 holiday season. And Target Restock, which delivers overnight, will expand to 40 markets, covering about three-quarters of the U.S. population. Target will open about 30 stores this year, and plans to remodel more than 300 around the country, with a focus on large metropolitan areas. Target is hosting its financial community event on Tuesday and announced earnings during the premarket hours. Target shares are down 5.4% in Tuesday trading, but are up 26.7% for the past year, outpacing the S&P 500 index , which is up 14.6% for the last 12 months.

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From:: Stock Market News

The New York Stock Exchange was fined $14 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission and charged with regulatory failures in connection with multiple episodes, including several disruptive market events. According to the SEC’s order, the violations include erroneously implementing a market-wide regulatory halt, negligently misrepresenting stock prices as “automated” despite extensive system issues ahead of a total shutdown of two of the exchanges, and applying price collars during unusual market volatility on Aug. 24, 2015, without a rule in effect to permit them. The SEC also said the NYSE broke rules on business continuity and disaster recovery. NYSE, NYSE Arca, and NYSE American — all units of Intercontinental Exchange — neither admitted nor denied the findings.

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U.S. prosecutors have asked a federal judge to sentence former drug-company executive Martin Shkreli to at least 15 years in prison, saying in a memo Tuesday that Shkreli has shown no remorse and has put profits and his public image before all else, according to media reports. Shkreli, convicted in August of defrauding hedge-fund investors, is to be sentenced on Friday, and his lawyers, saying he was a changed man, had asked for a sentence of less than two years. Shkreli on Monday was ordered to forfeit nearly $7.4 million in assets, including exclusive music albums and a Picasso painting. Shkreli first came to fame for buying the rights to a life-saving drug and then immediately raising the price to $750 a pill from $13.50.

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Gold prices climbed Tuesday to mark their highest settlement in two-and-a-half weeks. A sizable decline in the U.S. dollar, as concerns surrounding a potential trade war and tensions between North and South Korea appeared to ease, provided a lift to dollar-denominated prices of the yellow metal. April gold climbed $15.30, or 1.2%, to settle at $1,335.20 an ounce. That was the lowest finish since Feb. 16, according to FactSet data.

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From:: Stock Market News

The U.S. Energy Information Administration lifted its 2018 and 2019 forecasts on U.S. crude-oil production, according to the agency’s monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook report released Tuesday. The EIA raised its 2018 domestic crude production forecast by 1% to 10.7 million barrels per day. It also lifted its 2019 output forecast by 0.8% to 11.27 million barrels a day. The EIA, meanwhile, cut its 2018 views on West Texas Intermediate crude prices by 0.2% to $58.17 and Brent by 0.4% to $62.13 a barrel. It forecast an average 2018 natural-gas price of $2.99 per million British thermal units, down 6.6% from February’s outlook. April WTI crude was down 8 cents, or 0.1%, at $62.49 a barrel. May Brent added 20 cents, or 0.3%, to $65.74.

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Shares of Pandora Media Inc. are up 1.9% in Tuesday trading after its CFO, Naveen Chopra, spoke at a Deutsche Bank investor conference. Chopra spoke of the company’s December decision to launch Premium Access, a feature that lets users of Pandora’s free, ad-supported radio product unlock a temporary on-demand listening session in exchange for watching a video ad. Pandora is selling “virtually all the inventory that we have in video,” Chopra said, and Premium Access is helping Pandora up-sell free users to paid subscriptions. That said, Chopra said he believes that audio is “the place to be” given increased interest in smart speakers for which “news flash, display advertising, search advertising, social advertising and video don’t work very well.” Pandora also sees growth opportunities in podcasts. Naveen is part of the streaming pioneer’s new leadership team, which was brought toward the end of last year after Sirius XM Holdings made a strategic investment in the company. Pandora shares are down 62% over the past 12 months, while the S&P 500 is up 14%.

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From:: Stock Market News

Finisar Corp. and Infinera Corp. are among the optical companies whose shares are up Tuesday, after optical networking company Ciena Corp. reported better-than-expected earnings before the open. Finisar shares are up 3.6%, while Infinera shares are up 4.1% and Ciena’s stock is up 9.9%. Others in the optical business, including Oclaro Inc. and Lumentum Corp. have seen their shares rise as well following Ciena’s report. Ciena’s CEO Gary Smith said on the company’s earnings call that increased adoption of mobile apps and streaming video was driving demand for Ciena’s products. Ciena shares are down 0.8% over the past 12 months, while Finisar shares are down 45% and Infinera shares are up 0.6%. The S&P 500 has gained 14% in that time.

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From:: Stock Market News

The Dow Jones Industrial Average turned negative for the year on Thursday, as the day’s losses accelerated in midday trading. At its low of the session, the blue-chip average fell 0.6%, or 166 points, a decline that erased the Dow’s year-to-date gains. At its peak of the year, the Dow was up 7.7%. The S&P 500 remains up 1.5% for 2018 while the Nasdaq Composite Index is up 6.1%, supported by gains in large-capitalization technology stocks. All three indexes were lower on Tuesday, erasing an earlier rise as investors continued to debate the potential impact of a trade war in the wake of President Donald Trump announcing a pair of tariffs, a strategy that has received opposition from key Republicans like House Speaker Paul Ryan. The day’s losses were widespread, with nine of the 11 primary S&P 500 sectors down on the day. Health-care stocks lost 0.5% while the utility sector fell 0.8%.

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From:: Stock Market News

The Dow Jones Industrial Average late-morning Tuesday turned firmly negative, weighed by declines in heavyweights Boeing Co., and UnitedHealth. Shares of Dow components Boeing and health-care giant UnitedHealth Group Inc. were producing the biggest drag on the price-weighted index, cutting about 70 points from the average. The Dow was most recently off 142 points, or 0.6%, at 24,741. The swing into negative territory underlined a regime of up-and-down trade for equities following its fall into correction territory, defined as a decline from a recent peak of at least 10% last month. The Dow had been up by as much as 120 points before pivoting lower early Tuesday. Wall Street also was digesting news of easing tensions between North Korea and the U.S. against the backdrop of President Donald Trump’s threat of imposing import tariffs on steel and aluminum. At other U.S. benchmarks, the S&P 500 index was off 0.2% at 2,714, while the Nasdaq Composite Index [: COMP] was less than 0.1% lower at 7,324.

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From:: Stock Market News

Shares of Square Inc. are down 4.5% in Tuesday morning trading, after closing at an all-time high in the prior session. Analysts remain bullish on the stock, including Instinet’s Dan Dolev, who reiterated his optimism for Square in a Tuesday note. He argued that gross payment volume could accelerate in 2018 and that a recent deceleration in Square Capital loan volumes shouldn’t be cause for concern. Dolev is upbeat about the fact that most large sellers are onboarding themselves to the platform. He has a buy rating on the stock and a $64 price target, the highest among all analysts, according to FactSet. Square’s stock is up 193% over the past 12 months, while the S&P 500 is up 14% in that time.

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From:: Stock Market News