STRASBOURG (Reuters) - Facebook Inc’s Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg came under pressure from EU lawmakers on Wednesday to come to Europe and shed light on the data breach involving Cambridge Analytica that affected nearly three million Europeans.The world’s largest social network is under fire worldwide after information about nearly 87 million users wrongly ended up in the hands of...Read More
The oil names will both report earnings in the next few weeksWe're heading into the heart of earnings season, which could create several potentially profitable trading opportunities. Among those getting ready to unveil their quarterly results are oil-and-gas names NRG Energy Inc (NYSE:NRG) and Suncor Energy Inc. (NYSE:SU). Both energy stocks have exceeded options traders' volatility expectations o...Read More
TOKYO (Reuters) - From a rising Nikkei stock market to falling measures of volatility, there is little in Japan’s financial markets to suggest that this may be a nation on the verge of a political upheaval.Public support for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the architect of the Abenomics brand of reforms that has helped weaken the yen, raised economic growth levels and lifted corporate profits, is...Read More
A few weeksago, I alerted you to the bullish situation being created in the silver marketsince the global equity panic ended on February 9th. A few hoursago, the silver price began to take off like a scalded cat without anyrecognizable catalyst, other than the reasons I spoke of in this article. Based on the extremebearishness of the speculator positions in the latest silver Commitment ofTraders r...Read More
IBM's giant earnings pullback has been a dark cloud over the marketThough oil prices are charting a definitive path higher -- May-dated crude futures were last seen up 2.1% at $67.90 per barrel on an unexpected weekly decline in domestic inventories, and hit a three-year peak earlier -- the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) is failing to make a big move in either direction today, as IBM stock con...Read More
ANKARA (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections will be brought forward to June 24, more than a year earlier than planned, saying the country urgently needed to make the switch to an executive presidency.Erdogan said he made the decision after speaking to the head of the nationalist MHP party, Devlet Bahceli, who a day earlier h...Read More
(Kitco News) - With last year’s equity momentum gone, the best strategy in the marketplace, which is largely ignoring the Federal Reserve’s monetary tightening, is to buy gold, according to one strategist.“2017 has left the building,” chief investment strategist at 3EDGE Asset Management LP Fritz Folts told Bloomberg earlier this week. “We will definitely have more vo...Read More
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said on Wednesday he would oppose President Donald Trump’s nomination of CIA Director Mike Pompeo as secretary of state, in a blow to the nomination.Menendez criticized the Trump administration, and Pompeo in particular, for lacking a strategic vision across the foreign policy spectrum.&...Read More
Brenda Goh, Andrew GalbraithSHANGHAI (Reuters) - When spirits dealer Daniel Taytslin brought his first pallet of American Ragtime Rye whiskey into Shanghai in early April, the 672 bottles faced a 5 percent import tariff at China’s customs.His next shipment from New York could be a lot more expensive as China prepares to slap a 25 percent additional tariff on hundreds of American products, in...Read More
Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss, Anna IrreraNEW YORK (Reuters) - A start-up launched by three Princeton University graduates for a new cryptocurrency has raised $133 million from a slew of big investors in a private placement, Intangible Labs Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Nader Al-Naji said on Wednesday.Intangible Labs is the creator of basis, a digital currency that aims to maintain a stable pr...Read More
Rania El Gamal, Alex LawlerDUBAI/LONDON (Reuters) - Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia would be happy to see crude rise to $80 or even $100 a barrel, three industry sources said, a sign Riyadh will seek no changes to an OPEC supply-cutting deal even though the agreement’s original target is within sight.The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Russia and several other producers bega...Read More
Andreas Rinke, Paul CarrelBERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel backs the idea of a European Monetary Fund, provided national governments have sufficient oversight, sources close to her said before a visit by the French president.President Emmanuel Macron, who will meet Merkel in Berlin on Thursday, is pushing hard for bold euro zone reforms to defend the 19-member currency bloc again...Read More
(Reuters) - The benchmark S&P 500 index posted slight gains on Friday, helped by gains from industrial and energy stocks, but IBM’s disappointing results and a sell-off in semiconductor stocks weighed on the Nasdaq and the Dow.IBM (IBM.N) fell 6.2 percent after the company reported quarterly profit margins that fell short of Wall Street expectations.Semiconductor stocks .SOX also took a...Read More
Gold's immediate trend still up despite equity market improvement.Safety bid remains intact due in part to lingering geopolitical fears.Flattening yield curve is another factor bolstering gold demand.While the fear which gripped investment markets last week has dissipated in recent days, gold continues to benefit from lingering fears and remains near a multi-week high. Its lateral consolidatio...Read More
IBM's first-quarter gross profit margin came in below the consensus forecastIBM (NYSE:IBM) last night reported a first-quarter profit of $2.45 per share, excluding items, on $19.07 billion in revenue -- more than analysts were expecting. However, Big Blue said its adjusted gross margin dropped to 43.7% and it expects full-year adjusted earnings of at least $13.80, both below forecasts. As a result...Read More
(Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein said on Wednesday he expects Chief Operating Officer David Solomon to succeed him when he decides to leave.In an interview with CNBC, Blankfein said he did not have a definite “timeline for succession.”Speculation over Blankfein’s succession surfaced earlier this year, after the Wall Street Journal...Read More
RIGL stock, on the other hand, is continuing its wild April ridePharmaceutical stocks Calithera Biosciences Inc (NASDAQ:CALA), Teligent Inc (NASDAQ:TLGT), and Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIGL) are all making big moves today, following Food and Drug Administration (FDA) news. What's more, CALA and TLGT could have room to run, if short sellers decide to hit the exits.Calithera Stock An Ana...Read More
OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Bank of Canada held interest rates steady on Wednesday, as expected, but said more hikes will be needed over time amid progress on the dynamics of wage growth and inflation, two issues that had previously concerned the central bank.In altering its long-repeated notes of caution on price and wage pressures, the bank sounded a more hawkish tone on the future of interest rates,...Read More
The bullish buzz has actually been building for Wendy's and Chipotle in 2018Back in late February we highlighted the growing bullish bias from analysts toward fast food stock Wendy's Company (NASDAQ:WEN), and that trend has continued in the subsequent weeks. Specifically, WEN was upgraded at UBS back on March 1, and Mizuho a couple weeks later initiated coverage with a "buy" rating. Today, it's...Read More
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior U.S. Republican senator said on Wednesday he would strongly oppose any plan to make permanent the temporary individual tax cuts that are included in a tax overhaul recently passed by Congress.“It’s transparently political and bad for our nation,” Senator Bob Corker told reporters at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. He called...Read More