With Record in View, Aging US Bull Market May Still Be Frisky-
BRUSSELS—German industrial gases group Linde and U.S. rival Praxair secured conditional EU antitrust approval on Aug. 20 for their $82 billion merger but still have to clear a major hurdle with U.S. enforcers. The deal, announced in June last year, would put the merged entity ahead of French competitor Air Liquide in gas distribution. The […] -
NEW YORK—Why settle for nine-and-a-half years when you can do an even 10 or better? That’s the thinking of a lot of investors measuring whether a historically long run in U.S. stocks still has legs. This Wednesday (Aug. 22), the S&P 500’s bull-market run will turn 3,453 days old, which in some market watchers’ eyes […]
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JERUSALEM/LONDON—PepsiCo will buy carbonated drink-machine maker SodaStream for $3.2 billion as it battles Coca-Cola for an edge in the health-conscious beverage market. Founded in Britain in 1903, SodaStream was a coveted device in British kitchens in the 1970s and 80s, allowing people to create fizzy drinks by adding flavored syrups to carbonated tap water, but […]
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SAN FRANCISCO—The U.S. government is trying to force Facebook Inc. to break the encryption in its popular Messenger app so law enforcement may listen to a suspect’s voice conversations in a criminal probe, three people briefed on the case said, resurrecting the issue of whether companies can be compelled to alter their products to enable […]
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NEW YORK/WASHINGTON—U.S. President Donald Trump asked securities regulators to explore replacing quarterly reporting requirements with half-yearly filings at the urging of executives including PepsiCo Chief Executive Indra Nooyi, reigniting a debate about how often companies should give financial updates to investors. Such a switch would mark a huge change in the U.S. Securities and Exchange […]
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SAO PAULO—Fears of e-commerce taking off in Brazil have sunk shares of the country’s big mall operators this year, but industry executives expressed confidence that local shopping habits, the reputation of malls as public spaces safe from crime and other factors will help them avoid the shakeout that has hit their U.S. peers. The optimism […]
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Nvidia Corp. shares fell as much as 5 percent in after-hours trading on Aug. 16 after the chip maker said cryptocurrency-fueled demand had dried up and it forecast sales below Wall Street targets, overshadowing quarterly results that otherwise beat expectations. The company’s bleak outlook for cryptocurrency chips was a sharp reversal from the prior fiscal […]
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WASHINGTON—A company owned by Elon Musk that is trying to lower the cost of building high-speed transit tunnels has asked the Trump administration to exempt it from tariffs for some Chinese-made tunnel boring machine components, warning the tariffs could significantly delay a planned tunnel between New York and Washington. In a July 31 letter posted […]
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NEW YORK—Federal regulators are alleging that Facebook’s advertising tools allow landlords and real estate brokers to engage in housing discrimination. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said in an administrative complaint this week that Facebook violated the Fair Housing Act because its targeting systems allow advertisers to exclude certain audiences, such as families […]
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Nvidia Corp shares fell as much as 5 percent in after-hours trading on Thursday after the chip maker said cryptocurrency-fueled demand had dried up and it forecast sales below Wall Street targets, overshadowing quarterly results that otherwise beat expectations. The company’s bleak outlook for cryptocurrency chips was a sharp reversal from the prior fiscal quarter, […]
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What do you do when your CEO confesses that he’s cracking under the stress of his job? That’s the question that the nine board members of electric car and solar panel maker Tesla Inc. must answer after Elon Musk, the company’s impulsive leader, admitted to The New York Times that work is rattling his nerves […]
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NEW YORK—A federal judge on Aug. 14 said Goldman Sachs Group Inc. shareholders may again pursue class-action claims that the bank concealed conflicts of interest when creating risky subprime securities before the 2008 financial crisis. U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty in Manhattan said shareholders could sue as a group because Goldman had not shown it […]
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HONG KONG—U.S. private equity firm Blackstone Group LP has signed a deal to invest $400 million in Hong Kong-listed YiChang HEC Changjiang Pharmaceutical Co. via convertible bonds, HEC said Aug. 15. The H share convertible bonds will bear an interest rate of 3 percent per annum if issued, at an initial conversion price of HK$38 […]
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SYDNEY/SAN FRANCISCO—Apple Inc said on Aug. 17 that no customer data was compromised after Australian media reported a teenager had pleaded guilty to hacking into its main computer network, downloading internal files and accessing customer accounts. The boy, 16, from the southern city of Melbourne, broke into the U.S. computer giant’s mainframe from his suburban […]
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LONDON—Amazon.com Inc is sounding out some of Europe’s top insurance firms to see if they would contribute products to a UK price comparison website in what would be a major foray by the U.S. online retail giant into the region’s financial services. Three industry executives told Reuters they had held talks with Amazon about the […]
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SAN FRANCISCO—More than a thousand Google employees have signed a letter protesting the company’s secretive plan to build a search engine that would comply with Chinese censorship. The letter calls on executives to review ethics and transparency at the company. The letter’s contents were confirmed by a Google employee who helped organize it but who […]
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Takahiro Hayashi won his first nationwide title in shogi—Japanese chess—while still in high school, and by the age of 22, he was the world amateur champion. His coaches were urging him to turn pro. But Hayashi wanted to be an entrepreneur, not a chess player. And so, in 2009, he found himself in a room […]
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Kroger Co. is bringing self-driving grocery delivery to Arizona. The largest grocery chain in the U.S. will start delivering groceries in autonomous-capable Toyota Prius cars starting Aug. 16 at a Fry’s Food Stores location it owns in Scottsdale. To start, there will be a driver in the vehicle, though the second phase of the test—slated […]
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NEW YORK—Walmart Inc. posted its best quarterly U.S. sales growth in a decade and upped full-year sales and profit outlooks on Aug. 16, sending shares surging as a jump in online and grocery purchases showed it can hold its own against Amazon.com Inc. The world’s largest retailer is known for its sprawling stores, a factor […]
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WASHINGTON—White House counsel Don McGahn called the head of Federal Communications Commission in July to ask about the status of Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc.’s now abandoned $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Media Co. FCC chairman Ajit Pai disclosed the call in testimony on Aug. 16 before a U.S. Senate panel. Pai said the call from […]
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J.C. Penney Co Inc. shares sank below $2 for the first time on Aug. 16 after it said it had alienated core middle-aged customers while chasing millennial buyers, and the venerable brand forecast an unexpectedly large loss. The company’s shares fell more than 27 percent to $1.75 in morning trading, the lowest since it listed […]
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CHICAGO—America’s two biggest independent seed sellers, Beck’s Hybrids and Stine Seed said they are pushing U.S. environmental regulators to bar farmers from spraying dicamba weed killer during upcoming summers in a potential blow to Bayer AG’s Monsanto Co. Limiting spraying of the chemical to the spring season, before crops are planted, would prevent farmers from […]
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NEW YORK—U.S. entrepreneur and cryptocurrency investor Michael Terpin filed a $224 million lawsuit on Aug. 15 against telecommunications company AT&T, accusing it of fraud and gross negligence in connection with the theft of digital currency tokens from his personal account. In a 69-page complaint filed with the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Terpin alleged […]
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NEW YORK—Walmart Inc reported quarterly earnings and sales that topped estimates on Thursday, driven by strong grocery sales and a revamped website that boosted online purchases, and the company’s shares soared over 10 percent in early trade. The world’s largest retailer also raised its sales and earnings outlook for the full year, excluding any impact […]
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Tesla Inc. has been served with a subpoena from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, adding further scrutiny of CEO Elon Musk’s plans to take the company private. The subpoena came after Musk’s tweet, “funding secured.” According to The Wall Street Journal, the subpoena demands information from each of Tesla’s nine directors. It isn’t known what information is […]
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WASHINGTON—Ford Motor Co disclosed Aug. 14 it will spend $740 million on a project to revamp Michigan Central Station, Detroit’s historic but dilapidated former rail station, as well as other neighborhood sites. Ford aims to turn the building into a campus of offices for up to 5,000 tech workers and software engineers focused on self-driving […]
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Canadian grocery giant Metro Inc. is already facing pressure from suppliers to accept higher prices in light of a recent tariff war with the United States, and consumers should expect slightly higher food bills in the future, its CEO said on Aug. 15. “We’re starting to get demands from some suppliers who are, whose products […]
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