Target delivered better-than-expected earnings during the critical holiday sales period as the retailer’s in-house brands and easy delivery options drew its strongest traffic and same-store sales growth in more than a decade. The company’s adjusted earnings per share hit a new record and its digital sales surged more than 25 percent for the fifth year in a row, even as its net income slid 26.5 percent.
New orders for key U.S.-made capital goods unexpectedly fell in December amid declining demand for machinery and primary metals, pointing to a further slowdown in business spending on equipment that could crimp economic growth.
Lyft now expects to be valued at between $20 billion and $25 billion in its IPO, the sources said, adding that the roadshow is expected to last for about two weeks. The sources cautioned that the plans were still subject to change and market conditions.
The talks are aimed at “achieving needed structural changes in China that affect trade between the United States and China. The two sides will also discuss China’s pledge to purchase a substantial amount of goods and services from the United States,” the White House said in a statement.
HSBC Holdings turned in a disappointing annual profit as higher costs and a stocks rout chipped away at its trading businesses, while warning that an economic slowdown in China and Britain would throw up further hurdles this year.
Uber is aiming for an IPO that could value it at as much as $120 billion. Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi has worked to shore up the company’s balance sheet by selling unprofitable units and completing fundraising including investments from SoftBank Group Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. , and a large debt sale.
Farmers are waiting for more clarity on trade deals before buying equipment. The company said Friday that initial orders of tractors, combine harvesters and other equipment were weak, contributing to the lower-than-expected quarterly profits.
The music-streaming company, which is already the second-largest podcasting platform, said it would buy podcast publisher Anchor in a move to increase its presence in other forms of audio. It also said it is buying podcast producer Gimlet Media.
While January is typically a slower month for new-vehicle sales, analysts say the rising stock levels are becoming problematic because car companies will start this year with more unsold inventory than they had three years ago when U.S. auto sales peaked at 17.55 million for the year.
“The hypothetical scenario features the largest unemployment rate change to date,” said Randal Quarles, the Fed’s vice chairman for supervision, in a written statement. “We are confident this scenario will effectively test the resiliency of the nation’s largest banks.”
In a statement published Monday, 11 of the 14 members of the Lima Group called for a “peaceful transition through political and diplomatic means without the use of force.”
The group also underscored the need for an urgent delivery of humanitarian aid and insisted international governments “take measures to prevent the Maduro regime … from doing business in oil, gold and other assets.”
Alphabet Inc., parent company of the Internet search giant, reported mostly strong fourth-quarter results Monday afternoon. Revenue grew 22% year over year to $39.3 billion, beating Wall Street’s forecasts. That was driven by yet another quarter of 20% growth for the company’s colossal advertising business, which now generates more than $116 billion in revenue annually.
On Monday, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s state-owned oil giant in an attempt to prevent the proceeds of crude sales to the U.S. from reaching the government of President Nicolás Maduro.
Hershey said it expects sales to increase by 1% to 3% this year, with earnings per share rising by 5% to 7%—in line with analyst estimates, according to FactSet.
Several utilities urged customers to cut back on power and gas use on Thursday during the brutal freeze blanketing the eastern half of the country after U.S. homes and businesses used record amounts of natural gas for heating on Wednesday
“The case for raising rates has weakened somewhat,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said at a news conference after the central bank’s latest policy meeting
Alibaba’s fiscal third quarter revenue was 117.28 billion yuan ($17.5 billion), compared with 83.03 billion yuan the same period a year before, the company reported Wednesday. Its quarterly net income increased 37% to 33.05 billion yuan, above the 21.430 billion yuan that analysts had expected.
Venezuela has been trying for years to increase its gold reserves by encouraging mining, putting the military in charge of vast territories that yield the precious metal.
With strongman President Nicolas Maduro losing control of the country’s already-scant finances and reserves thanks to U.S. sanctions, who can put his hands on the nation’s estimated 200 tons of gold at home and abroad has become a key question.
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Caterpillar said that lower demand in China is leading to declining sales in Asia and that the company expects the overall market for excavators in China to be largely flat this year.
The federal government shutdown cost the economy $11 billion, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Although most of the damage to the economy will be reversed as the government re-opens and workers return to their jobs, the CBO estimated $3 billion in economic activity is permanently lost.
Stocks around the world are rallying at the fastest pace in months, the latest sign that the fears investors grappled with late last year have largely subsided. But worries remain that markets still aren’t on solid ground.
Google is the latest tech firm to explore using AI in health care. Amazon.com Inc., International Business Machines Corp. and UnitedHealth Group Inc. sell software that mines patients’ records, and IBM developed AI that detects melanoma on images of skin.
Europe has become a key battleground for Huawei, the world’s largest supplier of telecommunications equipment. The region is the company’s second-largest market after China, largely because of lucrative partnerships with carriers that, in addition to Vodafone, include BT Group, Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica.
The online retail giant is asking consumer-goods companies to create brands exclusively for Amazon after finding that developing them on its own is too costly and time-consuming, according to people familiar with the strategy.
In a statement, Facebook said it wanted to “build the best messaging experiences we can; and people want messaging to be fast, simple, reliable and private.” It added: “We’re working on making more of our messaging products end-to-end encrypted and considering ways to make it easier to reach friends and family across networks.”
“2019 is likely a transformational year for Disney. Stepping back from the complexity, it will exit the year in a different place than it begins. Significant investments in content, theme parks, and M&A weigh on near-term earnings, but should set up the business for long-term growth,” Morgan Stanley analyst Benjamin Swinburne wrote Thursday.
“Investors who were already excited about the U.S. chip sector’s earnings the day before got even more reassured after they saw how their stocks moved,” said Shogo Maekawa, a global market strategist at JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) Asset Management.
It wasn’t immediately clear why the search engine became unavailable and whether the Chinese government had blocked it. The Cybersecurity Administration of China didn’t respond to a request for comment. The service interruption comes at a sensitive time for U.S. companies operating in China, as trade disputes between the two countries simmer.
P&G said it expects organic sales growth for the full year of between 2% and 4%, an improvement on its prior projection of 2% to 3%.
An Amazon spokesperson said the company is “always working to develop new, innovative ways to support the small and medium businesses who sell on Amazon, including testing shipping programs that help these businesses get packages to their customers quickly and reliably.”
The stock lost about 30 percent in the six months that followed its Hong Kong debut, the city’s worst-performing initial public offering with a value of at least $3 billion.
Existing home sales, which make up about 90 percent of U.S. home sales, plunged 10.3 percent from a year ago. For all of 2018, sales fell 3.1 percent to 5.34 million units, the weakest since 2015.
