Social media stocks are in the spotlight today, after Facebook (FB) said it is adjusting its News Feed strategy -- earning the FAANG stock a rare downgrade. FB rival Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP) was also downgraded today, with Raymond James lowering its rating to "underperform" from "market perform," saying Snapchat user growth remains challenging, and that that the platform's young audience isn't as attr...Read More
By Collin Kettell on January 12, 2018?>>?Frank discusses gold and Hive Blockchain, a company where he is chairman. They have partnered with Genesis. Hive is a cryptocurrency mining and investing company. He became interested in the space when found out that the CEO of Fidelity a company with two trillion in funds has been discussing bitcoin. He says, "Something big is happening." Hive made far mor...Read More
FRANKFURT, Jan 12 (Reuters) - The risk of an imminent hike in the European Central Bank's interest rates is low, Germany's representative on the ECB's rate-setting body said on Friday, reaffirming a pledge to keep policy easy for a long time to come. Investors started to bet on a December rate hike this week after the accounts of the latest ECB meeting showed policymakers were preparing for a chan...Read More
(Includes additional detail and context, separate Goldman fine)By Pete SchroederWASHINGTON, Jan 12 (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve fined five large U.S. banks a combined $35.1 million to settle cases of mortgage servicing flaws dating back to 2011.The central bank announced the fines against Goldman Sachs , Morgan Stanley , CIT Group , U.S. Bancorp , and PNC Financial as part of a broader effort...Read More
* Stocks lifted led by resources shares* Rand falls ahead of Ramaphosa speech (Updates figures, adds detail, quotes)JOHANNESBURG, Jan 12 (Reuters) - South African shares firmed on Friday, supported by resources stocks lifted by better than expected Chinese trade data, while the rand slipped in cautious trading ahead of a weekend speech by the leader of the ruling African National Congress party. T...Read More
WASHINGTON, Jan 12 (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve fined five large U.S. banks a combined $35.1 million to settle cases of mortgage servicing flaws dating back to 2011.The central bank announced the fines against Goldman Sachs , Morgan Stanley , CIT Group , U.S. Bancorp , and PNC Financial as part of a broader effort to terminate enforcement actions begun in 2011 and 2012 against large banks for m...Read More
Gold rallies in spite of rising interest rates, perplexing the pundits.A healthy increase in inflation is also boosting gold demand in the U.S.Meanwhile, improving prospects in Europe have abetted overseas gold demand.Gold prices edged higher on Thursday, reaching their highest level since September and buoyed by a weaker dollar and rising oil prices. The yellow metal is on track for its fifth str...Read More
(Corrects day of week in first paragraph)SAO PAULO, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Brazil has made slower-than-expected progress in cutting government spending ahead of this year's presidential elections, a Standard & Poor's director said on Friday, a day after the ratings agency downgraded the country deeper into junk.In a webcast, S&P managing director Lisa Schineller highlighted the difficulty of...Read More
(Kitco News) - Traders and analysts who takepart in the weekly Kitco News gold survey look for the recent weakness in theU.S. dollar to continue underpinning gold in the next week. Wall Street Bullish Bearish Neutral VSMain Street Bullish Bearish Neutral Those who disagree suggest thegreenback’s slide may be due for a pause, which in turn could take away some ofthe shine...Read More
* TSX up 1.42 points, or 0.01 percent, to 16,288.36* Six of the TSX's 10 main groups move lower* Index on track for 0.3 percent fall on week TORONTO, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Canadian lumber companies jumped and the country's marijuana producers fell on Friday, while heavyweight resource and financial stocks also moved in different directions, leaving the main Toronto equity index little changed in mor...Read More
By Helen BartholomewLONDON, Jan 12 (IFR) - European stock exchanges, including Cboe Europe and Aquis Exchange, have aligned minimum pricing increments for Swiss share trading with Zurich's SIX Swiss Exchange, which some believe may have been granted an unintended competitive advantage by MiFID II. The Swiss bourse saw its market share in domestic securities jump to 75% at the start of 2018 - up 10...Read More
* Euro trades at highest since late 2014* Dollar index hits 4-month low* Bitcoin bounces after 11 pct fall (Updates prices and market activity to U.S. market open, changes dateline; previous LONDON)By Saqib Iqbal AhmedNEW YORK, Jan 12 (Reuters) - The dollar slumped to a more than three-year low against the euro on Friday, as the common currency extended its gains on hopes that European Central Ban...Read More
News of a political breakthrough for German Chancellor Angela Merkel has the U.S. dollar cooling against the euro. In turn, February gold futures are flirting with four-month highs, while a fresh round of bullish brokerage notes is also drawing attention to gold stocks. Among those in focus are Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd (NYSE:AEM), Barrick Gold Corp (NYSE:ABX), and Yamana Gold Inc. (NYSE:AUY). Here'...Read More
Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) has been a long-time punching bag for Wall Street, but the social media stock has been a technical outperformer since bottoming at $14.12 last April. In fact, it just surged 42.3% in the fourth quarter. This technical strength is continuing today, with the shares last seen trading at a two-year high of $25.70, as a bullish analyst note has lifted TWTR stock 5.8% this mornin...Read More
LONDON, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Four euro zone countries are scheduled to sell bonds in the coming week via auction. * On Monday, Slovakia will reopen bonds maturing in January 2027 and March 2037 and is expected to raise up to 300 million euros, according to analysts. * On Wednesday, Germany is to sell 1.5 billion euros of 30-year bonds. * On Thursday, France plans to sell 6.5-7.5 billion euros of thr...Read More
* Consumer prices rise 0.3 pct in Dec. vs est. rise of 0.2 pct* Retail sales up 0.4 pct vs est increase of 0.4 pct* Facebook falls after making changes to News Feed* Indexes up: Dow 0.42 pct, S&P 0.19 pct, Nasdaq 0.07 pct (Updates to open)By Sruthi ShankarJan 12 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes were higher on Friday as strongDecember retail sales data drove gains in consumer stocks and b...Read More
FRANKFURT, Jan 12 (Reuters) - A blueprint for talks on Germany's next coalition governmentcirculated on Friday spelled out measures to achieve a renewable quota of 65 percent in the power mix by 2030.* Negotiators said they plan tenders for 4 gigawatts (GW) of photovoltaics and 4 GW onshore wind as well as an unspecified offshore wind energy contribution for 2019 and 2020* This will help achieve t...Read More
Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:EA) is down 0.8% to trade at $111.00 this morning, after Morgan Stanley downgraded the video game stock to "equal weight" from "overweight," while issuing a price-target cut to $120 from $126. Morgan Stanley cited weak digital revenue for its "Star Wars" game, as well as the company's conservative stance on upcoming titles, as reasons for the downgrade. SunTrust Robins...Read More
Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) is falling in early trading, after CEO Mark Zuckerberg, announced that the social media platform will be filtering its News Feed to prioritize what's been shared by a user's family and friends, as opposed to non-advertising content produced by publishers and other businesses. Zuckerberg said he expects the shift to have a negative impact on user engagement and time spent...Read More
OSLO, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Norway's central bank has awarded 73 billion Norwegian crowns ($9.17 billion) in an F-deposit for Jan 12-15, with a highest rate of 0.50 percent, it said on Friday.Overall demand in the auction was for 79.82 billion crowns.Allocation at the highest rate was 88.86 percent, the central bank added.($1 = 7.9611 Norwegian crowns) (Reporting by Oslo newsroom) Disclaimer: The vi...Read More