TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian stocks were supported on Thursday by robust corporate earnings that helped Wall Street quell concerns about the surge in U.S. bond yields. However, sagging Chinese shares limited the upside potential of the market.
A jury in Connecticut federal court found a former UBS trader not guilty of market manipulation, dealing a blow to an attempted crackdown on Wall Street.
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank on Thursday announced cuts to its bond and equities trading in a major overhaul of its troubled investment bank after posting a 79 percent drop in net profit in the first quarter.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - China's ZTE Corp held a conference call on Wednesday with major suppliers, during which a company representative suggested the trade dispute with Beijing may have been a factor in last week's U.S. order banning American firms from selling goods to the smartphone maker, according to a person familiar with the call.
Comcast has submitted a $31 billion bid to buy Sky, prompting the European pay-TV operator to drop its backing for a takeover by Fox and setting up a bidding war.
HONG KONG (AP) — Asian share benchmarks were mixed on Thursday as investors digested the latest quarterly corporate earnings.
KEEPING SCORE: Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index climbed 0.5 percent to 22,315.79 and South Korea's Kospi jumped 1.3 percent to 2,481.70 after Samsung reported better than expected earnings. Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.7 percent to 30,108.64 and the Shanghai Composite in mainland China lost 0.9 percent to 3,089.21. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 dipped 0.1 percent to 5,218.70. Markets in Southeast Asia were lower.
EARNINGS: South Korea's Samsung Electronics reported its net income grew 52 percent in the first quarter on robust demand for its memory chips. Earlier, U.S.
Facebook, in its first earnings report after touching off widespread data-privacy concerns, posted soaring revenue and profit that highlighted the company’s central place in the digital economy.
BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China is considering cutting the import duty on passenger cars by about half as part of the country's plan to further open up the automobile market, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The former Fox News star was supposed to bring a bigger audience for “Today.” Instead, ratings declines and high production costs have been a drag on a critical franchise, an expensive reminder of how the heyday of the star network anchor has passed.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Qualcomm Inc's earnings call on Wednesday showed just how far the company is willing to go to preserve one of its core business practices of taking a cut of the selling price of phones.
SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said weakness in the global smartphone market would slow earnings growth, as it reported record quarterly profit on Thursday thanks to strong demand for semiconductors used in servers.
American Express cleared a hurdle in its yearslong effort to operate in China, potentially becoming the first U.S. card network to offer services there.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Samsung Electronics Co. reported better-than-expected financial results Thursday as robust demand from global data centers for its mainstay memory chips earned it another record-high quarterly profit.
The company also forecast the brisk earnings streak from its chip sector will continue through the second quarter as expansion of global data centers in the U.S. and China will keep demand for chips strong.
Despite being one of the most profitable tech companies in history, neither Samsung nor South Koreans are in a celebratory mood.
Tentative indications of slowing growth will probably not cause the European Central Bank to revise its timetable for gently winding down economic stimulus.
Sales of memory chips drove the company’s fourth consecutive quarter of record operating profits, but investors are focused on how long the good times can keep rolling.
Qualcomm said its profit plunged 52% from a year earlier as it dealt with a tangle of challenges, including Apple and Huawei Technologies continuing to withhold royalties.
If you don’t have one of these — or you’ve waited until the options were good enough before investing — now is the time to buy.
The social media service may not be adding new users at much of a clip, but its advertising-driven business seems to have stabilized.
Tourists will be barred from the island of Boracay in what local officials call an overreaction by President Rodrigo Duterte to environmental threats.
(Reuters) - Facebook Inc shares rose on Wednesday after the social network reported a surprisingly strong 63 percent rise in profit and an increase in users, with no sign that business was hurt by a scandal over the mishandling of personal data.
SEOUL (Reuters) - General Motors Co's president said on Thursday that it was very close to a resolution to fix its ailing South Korean unit, as its South Korean union accepted a wage deal.
The Justice Department is probing whether Huawei violated U.S. sanctions related to Iran, opening a new avenue of scrutiny amid national-security concerns over the Chinese technology giant.
A biography of the legendary Italian carmaker shines a light on the man and the automotive empire he built.
The former White House press secretary made an appearance to promote the Madame Tussauds version of the first lady. He has a book coming out in July.
An arbitration panel sided with the company 11 years after Hugo Chávez expropriated several of its oil projects. Now the problem is trying to collect.
DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Ford Motor Co. said Wednesday it will shed most of its North American car lineup as part of broad plan to save money and make the company more competitive in a fast-changing marketplace.
The changes include getting rid of all cars in the region during the next four years except for the Mustang sports car and a compact Focus crossover vehicle, CEO Jim Hackett said as the company released first-quarter earnings.
The decision, which Hackett said was due to declining demand and profitability, means Ford will no longer sell the Fusion midsize car, Taurus large car, CMax hybrid compact and Fiesta subcompact in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Exiting most of the car business comes as the U.S.
A four-way bidding war may break out among water utilities, as SJW had agreed to merge with Connecticut Water, while the firms have since refused offers from California Water and Eversource Energy, respectively.
The automaker is accelerating efforts to slash costs in a bid to turn around its fortunes both at home and abroad.
The social network posted increases in profit and revenue as it deals with a torrent of criticism about its privacy practices and the way it handles user data.
The Facebook chief executive has vowed to clean up the social network, but his company has failed to stop even those impersonating him from swindling people.
Facebook has promised to spend large sums policing its operations. Its first-quarter results indicate it has room to spend more.
NEW YORK (AP) — The new CEO at Chipotle plans to make "simple menu tweaks," redesign its restaurants and expand its delivery service in the coming months.
Another longer-term possibility: drive-thrus, which CEO Brian Niccol said are an "interesting proposition for Chipotle."
Niccol didn't offer specifics on his plans, which he discussed for the first time Wednesday after joining the Denver-based company from Taco Bell last month. Wall Street analysts are eager to see how Niccol will put his stamp on Chipotle, which has long positioned itself as a step above fast food. His main job: bring customers back to Chipotle, which has struggled to regain its momentum after a 2015 E. coli outbreak sent sales plunging.
A $30.7 billion offer for Sky puts the American cable giant in a takeover battle with Rupert Murdoch for control of the British broadcaster.
Mr. Bolloré, called the “King of Africa” for his business dealings there, faces allegations of bribing politicians in exchange for contracts.
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A total of four barrels containing radioactive sludge at an eastern Idaho nuclear site were found to have ruptured, officials said Wednesday, after initially saying earlier this month that one barrel was leaking.
Officials said there were no injuries and no threat to the public, and workers in protective gear have installed a closed-circuit video camera to monitor the situation.
Erik Simpson, a spokesman for U.S. Department of Energy contractor Fluor Idaho, said it appears all four 55-gallon (208-liter) barrels ruptured the same day they had been packed.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Federal regulators say LendingClub failed to properly disclose fees on loans that it advertised as having "no hidden fees," but the company disputes that.
The Federal Trade Commission says the San Francisco-based company often charged hundreds or even thousands of dollars in fees and didn't properly disclose them.
LendingClub says it discloses its origination fees in several places on its website. The company says it received relatively few complaints from customers.
A federal lawsuit was filed against the company in California. LendingClub says it hopes to resolve the issue quickly.
UPS is offering buyouts to some management workers, aiming to reduce payroll as the company ramps up investments to handle the surge in online shopping.
NEW YORK (AP) — Payment processing giant Visa on Wednesday reported a sharp jump in its fiscal second-quarter profits from a year earlier on Wednesday, as more shoppers spent money on Visa's network across all its major markets.
The San Francisco-based company said it earned $2.61 billion in the period ending March 30, or $1.11 a share. The company's net income rose by 26 percent when a one-time charge tied to the purchase of Visa Europe is excluded from the year-ago results.
Visa's profit beat the expectations of analysts, who forecast earnings of $1.01 a share, according to FactSet.
Spending across Visa's namesake network rose 11 percent to $2.716 trillion in the quarter.
(Reuters) - U.S. oil major Chevron Corp has evacuated executives from Venezuela after two of its workers were imprisoned over a contract dispute with state-owned oil company PDVSA, according to four sources familiar with the matter.
The U.S., once the leader in female directors, is lagging Europe where mandates have forced corporations to boost the ratio of women holding board seats.
A small, implantable device made by a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary has been discontinued, with no replacement in sight.
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Facebook advertisers shrug off its privacy scandal
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook's troubles with Russian election meddlers, "fake news" and misused data have dominated headlines globally and caused endless headaches for the social media site. But it's not affecting the site's bottom line, as advertisers continue to flock to Facebook in droves. There is some indication that ad spending actually increased after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Facebook is the second largest digital publisher in the world, behind Google, and raked in $39.94 billion in 2017.
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Comcast challenges Murdoch with rival bid for UK-based Sky
LONDON (AP) — U.S. media giant Comcast on Wednesday offered 22 billion pounds ($30.
Providing one dose every six months saved one in four babies, researchers reported. Now the W.H.O. will consider recommending routine use.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook's troubles with Russian election meddlers , "fake news " and misused data have dominated headlines globally.
But they don't seem to be affecting Facebook's bottom line, so far, as advertisers continue to flock to the service in droves.
Facebook's revenue, which largely derives from ads, soared 49 percent to $12 billion in the first three months of the year, the company announced on Wednesday. Profit jumped 63 percent to $5 billion.
And despite a buzzy "DeleteFacebook" online campaign, both daily and monthly user numbers increased. More than 1.45 billion people check Facebook at least once a day, a 13 percent increase from a year earlier.
Walt Disney Studios hasn’t released a movie that depicts smoking since 2015. Now antismoking activists want that rule extended to all films aimed at young audiences by Fox, which Disney is buying.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump met Wednesday with Apple CEO Tim Cook at the White House to discuss trade as he engages in negotiations around the globe.
Trump tweeted before the meeting that they would be "talking about many things, including how the U.S. has been treated unfairly for many years, by many countries, on trade."
The president met with Cook in the Oval Office a day after the leader of the technology giant attended Trump's state dinner for French President Emmanuel Macron.
Trump has had a fraught relationship with the electronics company, criticizing Apple Inc. on Twitter over its decision not to cooperate with law enforcement on breaching its phone encryption and over the size of the screens on iPhones.
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks that moved substantially or traded heavily Wednesday:
Comcast Corp., up 91 cents to $34.26
The cable company had a solid first quarter and offered to buy U.K. broadcaster Sky for $30 billion.
Texas Instruments Inc., up $4.58 to $103
The chipmaker's profit and revenue came out ahead of Wall Street projections.
Edwards Lifesciences Corp., down $5.15 to $129.52
The medical device maker reported weak sales, and analysts were concerned about sales of a key heart device.
General Dynamics Corp., down $7.49 to $214.53
Defense contractors continued to struggle as investors were worried about their cash flows.
Norfolk Southern Corp., up $10.99 to $145.
U.S. stocks pushed higher Wednesday afternoon and managed a mixed finish after a sharp loss the day before. Indexes had tumbled earlier as investors worried that growing costs for critical materials along with rising interest rates will affect profit growth for companies.
On Wednesday:
The S&P 500 index picked up 4.84 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,639.40.
The Dow Jones industrial average gained 59.70 points, or 0.2 percent, at 24,083.83.
The Nasdaq composite slid 3.61 points, or 0.1 percent, to 7,003.74.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks gave up 2.81 points, or 0.2 percent, to 1,550.47.
For the week:
The S&P is down 30.74 points, or 1.2 percent.
The Dow is down 379.11 points, or 1.5 percent.
The Nasdaq is down 142.
The merger partners will struggle to match Comcast’s offer for Sky, but Disney might conclude it’s crucial to its expansion and Rupert Murdoch will be reluctant to part with a company he spent decades building.
NEW YORK (AP) — The latest on developments in financial markets (all times local):
4 p.m.
It was a mixed finish on Wall Street as large-company stocks eked out modest gains but smaller ones ended lower after a wobbly day of trading.
Big health care, energy and retailing stocks posted gains Wednesday.
Boeing jumped 4.2 percent, helping the Dow Jones industrial average break a five-day losing streak. Exxon Mobil rose 1.5 percent after raising its dividend.
Bond yields rose again, sending the yield on the 10-year Treasury note up to 3.02 percent, its highest level since early 2014.
The S&P 500 index rose 4 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,639.
The Dow rose 59 points, or 0.4 percent, to 24,083. The Nasdaq composite gave up 3 points, or 0.
Winning the contest could mean a steeper increase in local housing costs over the next decade, a study finds. Nashville is already contemplating the impact.
DALLAS (AP) — The desire by people to see the world is giving Boeing a huge lift, and executives at the aircraft maker say travel is a long-term growth industry.
After all, they reason, only about one in five people has ever flown on a plane, so there is plenty of upside to keep building them.
Airline profits remain healthy, and through February passenger traffic was up nearly 6 percent from a year ago, Boeing executives said Wednesday as they announced first-quarter earnings and revenue above Wall Street expectations.
The Chicago company also raised its profit forecast for the full year. Boeing shares were up 12 percent since the start of this year and 79 percent in the past 12 months as of this morning. They climbed another $5.
NEW YORK (AP) — If you can't beat them, join them. Comcast is trying to refigure the traditional cable bundle, adding services like Netflix to its subscription packages and offering internet-only TV streaming.
Comcast, the world's largest cable company, and other cable operators are trying to work out new relationships with once fierce rivals in a changing media landscape.
Comcast and others have been trying to build a business that combine both the "pipes" — the internet services that connect everyone — and the producers of shows, movies, and other video.
Cable operators and internet service providers say this business model is key to their survival, given the inroads companies like Google and Apple have made on their turf.
YouTube is overhauling its kid-focused video app to give parents the option of letting humans, not computer algorithms, select what shows their children can watch.
The updates that begin rolling out Thursday are a response to complaints that the YouTube Kids app has repeatedly failed to filter out disturbing content.
Google-owned YouTube launched the toddler-oriented app in 2015. It has described it as a "safer" experience than the regular YouTube video-sharing service for finding "Peppa Pig" episodes or watching user-generated videos of people unboxing toys, teaching guitar lessons or experimenting with science.
In order to meet U.S. child privacy rules, Google says it bans kids under 13 from using its core video service.
Loot boxes are a substantial revenue stream for the video game industry. But some lawmakers say they constitute gambling and should be regulated.
NEW YORK (AP) — Alexa's new missions: encourage kids to ask questions more politely, and get them to bed on time.
The voice assistant that lives inside Amazon's Echo speakers will soon thank kids for shouting out questions "nicely" if they say "please." The new response is part of a kid-friendly update that's coming next month, giving parents more control over the voice assistant. Adults can set Alexa to go silent at bedtime, block music with explicit lyrics and even call kids down to dinner.
"Gone are the days of shouting up the stairs," Amazon said in a statement Wednesday.
In addition, Amazon will sell an $80 Echo Dot aimed at kids that comes with colorful cases and a 2-year warranty, promising to replace the device if it breaks.
The Trump administration’s proposed tariffs on Chinese imports include a 25% levy on TVs and related components—which two trade groups say could push up overall TV prices in the U.S. by 4%.
Boeing aims to have a new facility in China ready to complete some of its 737 jets by the end of this year, a sign that the aerospace giant is taking trade tensions in stride.
Moves to ease post-crisis rules are spurring lending and risk-taking at a time when the industry is lowering its own standards amid a near-record economic expansion.
LONDON (AP) — U.S. media giant Comcast on Wednesday offered 22 billion pounds ($30.7 billion) for Sky PLC, topping a bid from Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox and setting up a bidding war for Britain's biggest satellite television company.
Comcast said it would pay 12.75 pounds for each Sky share, 16 percent more than Fox's offer. Sky shares rose 3.9 percent to 13.59 pounds as investors bet Fox would sweeten its bid, and Sky withdrew its recommendation that shareholders accept the Fox offer.
Sky is based in London and has pay-TV operations across Europe, offering a platform for U.S. companies like Comcast and Fox to expand abroad.
NEW YORK (AP) — Twitter has remained largely outside of the crosshairs of Congress over the privacy issues that have tripped up Facebook, but it continues to face its own, unique challenges.
The company is wrestling with abuse on its own platform as well as a potential accounting for disinformation campaigns that led up to and followed the 2016 presidential election, though Twitter suspended the accounts of many well-known white nationalists in December.
During a call with analysts Wednesday to discuss first-quarter earnings, CEO Jack Dorsey sought to differentiate Twitter from its social media peers. Twitter, he said, is public, "so all of our data is out in the public, out in the open.
LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. media group Comcast submitted a 22 billion pound($30.7 billion) bid for Sky on Wednesday, prompting the European pay TV group to drop its support for a lower offer from Rupert Murdoch's Twenty-First Century Fox .
LONDON (AP) — Pharmaceutical and consumer goods maker GlaxoSmithKline says first-quarter revenue dropped 2 percent as a stronger pound offset encouraging sales of a new shingles treatment.
The company said in a statement Wednesday that revenue fell to 7.22 billion pounds ($10.1 billion) from 7.38 billion pounds in the same period last year. Net income fell 48 percent to 549 million pounds as GSK took a 495 million pound charge related to the revaluation of the consumer healthcare business after it agreed to acquire full ownership of the joint venture.
Sales of the shingles treatment Shingrix totaled 110 million pounds in its first full quarter on the market.
Americans are the most charitable people in the world. Private philanthropy in the US has the size of around 1.4% of the country’s GDP, which is almost twice as much as the next most charitable country in the world, Canada. 67% of American households donate an average of 4% of their incomes to charity.
photo credit: RunSociety / Flickr
With 71% of total charitable donations, individuals are the biggest charity donors in the country. That is surprising for many reasons, including the fact that charitable giving can come with significant benefits to businesses. If you are a business owner, a CEO, or someone in charge of the development of a brand, here’s how you can leverage charitable activities to further develop your brand.…
Trade disputes and a stronger currency are threatening a hard-fought economic recovery in the 19-nation eurozone, potentially delaying a move by the ECB to follow the Federal Reserve in increasing short-term interest rates.
“Can you adopt ITIL outside of IT” was the first question when I interviewed for a service desk job 4 years ago. “No, ITIL is specifically designed for IT”, was my innocent answer back then. It sounded like a crazy idea, then, when I didn’t have a clear understanding of how businesses run.
My bookish knowledge told me that ITIL was meant only for IT, and other departments probably had their own best practice framework.
How very wrong I was…
I failed to see the similarity between an IT Team and other support functions that provide services to employees. I’ve since learned, the nature of work they do might differ, but the relationship with internal customers is the same.…
Energy firms are balking at a Trump administration proposal to change a part of Nafta that allows a U.S. business to take legal action if a foreign government harms the company’s investment in that country.
Sometimes the best thing that you can do for your business is learning how to focus. Focus on the little things that matter.
Focus on your broader picture in context. Focus on your target audience. Focus on your budget. All of these things can be made better by analytically figuring out what parts are the most important, and then aiming your business trajectory squarely in the middle.
A few examples of things that you can do to supercharge your business focus, regardless of industry, is to get into growth hacking, pay close attention to your budget, narrow down your target audience as tightly as possible, and use specific corporate strategies to gain industry leverage.…
A small retail space is an ideal choice for budget-constrained business owners as they don’t require a significant investment. However, making the most out of the area can be challenging, from making checkout convenient for shoppers to having enough ample space for your items.
The good news is, with some creative hacks, you can make your small retail space look bigger and create unique experiences for the visitors. Below are some ideas.
1. Consider Tablet-Equipped POS
Retail store owners can replace bulky checkout stations with tablet-based POS (point-of-sale) systems to maximize floor space. Freeing up space means shoppers have more inventory to look at, and you have a more significant area to showcase that inventory.…
U.S. new-home sales surged in March, capping off a strong first quarter in a segment of the housing market characterized by solid buyer demand.
Americans’ optimism increased this month, another sign the U.S. economy remains strong.
Web Application Penetration Testing is the procedure which uses penetration testing methods on a web app to find vulnerabilities. The process uses either manual or automated tests to spot any vulnerability, security issues, or threats to web applications. Using any of the known malicious attacks, the tester shows and mimics attacks from the attacker’s point of view — such as using SQL injection testing.
The main result identifies security weaknesses across the entire app and components, including source code and back-end network. The testing assists in prioritizing the known vulnerabilities and threats as well as search for a way to mitigate gaps in security.…
Even though you would probably prefer that your business never gets involved in any lawsuit, there are lots of different instances where it can happen. Sometimes they’re your fault. Sometimes they are not. But, at least having a basic set of information about what lawsuits mean coming from you or going away from you as a business entity makes sense on a practical level.
You need to know about lawsuits on defense and offense. You need to understand how to legally protect your money and assets in the event of issues. And it’s not a bad idea to do a risk assessment if you might end up losing more money than you gain even if your lawsuit is successful.…
As economic growth returns to Greece after a decade of crisis, so are some businesses that once wrote the country off.
When you own a small business, the phrase “home sweet home” can also mean “business sweet business” as everything overlaps. If you have a home-based business or have money tied up in developing your startup, it can be challenging to get a mortgage.
For small business owners, a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan is an alternative option to conventional mortgage plans. Those who don’t qualify for a mortgage may qualify for an fha loan. Here’s what you need to know about this option to determine if it’s the path for you as a small business owner.
What is an FHA Loan?
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The average employee spends more time in the office than they do sleeping or enjoying time with their friends and family. When they spend that much time in the workplace, it is only natural that it is going to impact their mood and willingness to perform efficiently. As a productive worker is the biggest asset you can have as a business owner, finding ways to keep them motivated is a must.
There are plenty of tried and true methods to draw inspiration from, however, these listed below seem to result in the best outcome.
Comfortable Office Setting
The space provided to your employees to work plays a major role in their ability to be productive.…
Traffic providing to the website has become a serious business. A mix of paid and organic traffic is required for promoting the website to achieve the desired results. Page views buying is a common phenomenon followed by the content driven web properties to attract the customers in large numbers. Too many people looking at the same poster is one of the drivers that encourage any random passer-by to stop and take a look at the poster, the same principle is applied to make any concept a success in the online world too.
Traffic buying, therefore, is a marketing approach that helps businesses make impression (a positive one, obviously!) among the prospective buyers.…
A Virtual Address definitely helps you to improve your branding efforts. The toughest part of running a lean SME is that you just can’t budget for an office in a prestigious area of the city. Also, when a business does have a great office location and it comes time to expand into new areas; lease expenses, among other things can become a huge hurdle.
The big issue with leasing costs overall, is that money is robbed from other critical areas of the business that are most hungry for cash, like marketing and recruiting. I haven’t even mentioned the need for office equipment, furniture, utilities and maintenance yet.…
