Monday, February 4, 2019
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WHAT TO WATCH
The economic data that was postponed due to the partial government shutdown has yet to be released, and most of the backlog is scheduled to be released within the coming weeks. But no official dates have been set.
Meanwhile, earnings season is more than halfway through with 60% of the S&P 500 stocks having already reported earnings, and the names bringing good news are being rewarded by investors.
Tech titan Alphabet (GOOGL) reports earnings after the bell Monday, and analysts surveyed by Bloomberg are expecting earnings of $13.04 per share on $31.32 billion in revenue.
TOP NEWS
Bud Light gets earful from corn lobby after Super Bowl ad: Bud Light’s Super Bowl campaign is calling out competitors that use corn syrup — and the corn lobby is not happy about it. In Anheuser-Busch InBev’s (BUD ads, a medieval crew delivers a cask of unwanted corn syrup to Miller Lite and Coors Light. [Bloomberg]
POT ticker jumps as WHO softens stance on marijuana: Little illustrates the mania for cannabis investments better than the unprecedented demand over the stock symbol POT, but new recommendations from the World Health Organization suggest some of that frenzy may not be unwarranted. [Bloomberg]
Starboard Value to take stake in Bristol-Myers Squibb: Starboard Value has taken a stake in Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), the pharmaceutical giant that agreed to acquire Celgene Corp. in a record $74 billion deal last month, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The size of the stake and any plans that Jeff Smith’s activist hedge fund might have for its investment in the $81 billion drugmaker couldn’t immediately be learned. [Bloomberg]
Goldman Sachs and HSBC invest $20M in fintech startup: A group of top global banks including Goldman Sachs (GS) and HSBC (HSBA.L) have invested $20 million (￡15.3m) in Bud, a London startup working on so-called “open banking” technology. [Yahoo Finance UK]
SoftBank pumps $37M into robot dog company: Japanese investment and telecoms giant SoftBank ploughed $37 million into next generation robotics company Boston Dynamics after it bought the business from Google, accounts show. [Yahoo Finance UK]
Former AOL exec Jean Case faults tech giants: Big tech companies have bullied competitors and outrun ethical standards in an effort to “own the world,” Jean Case, the CEO of the Case Foundation and a former senior executive at AOL, told Yahoo Finance this week. [Yahoo Finance]
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Visa aims for a cashless Super Bowl by 2025
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