Apple didn’t have many nice things to say about last quarter. So the company spent a bunch of the $225 billion in cash it had lying around to appease investors.
It spent $27 billion on dividends and its own shares last quarter. And to sweeten the deal, Apple’s board approved another $75 billion in share repurchases and upped the company’s dividend 5%.
There’s nothing quite like a giant buyback and a dividend increase to make investors forget that sales fell 5% and profit fell 16% last quarter. IPhone sales fell 17%.
Yet Apple’s (AAPL) stock soared 5% in after-hours trading.
Eric Schmidt, the former CEO and executive chairman of Google, will not seek re-election to the board of its parent company, Alphabet.
Schmidt had served on the board for more than 18 years — most of Google’s history. He will stay on as a technical advisor to Alphabet.
John Hennessy, Alphabet’s chairman of the board, announced the move on Tuesday. “Eric has made an extraordinary contribution to Google and Alphabet as CEO, Chairman, and Board member,” he said. “We are extremely grateful for his guidance and leadership over many years.”
Tuesday’s trading day is over and we got yet another record close from the S&P 500 – its fourth in this recent winning streak. Here’s what investors will focus on next.
US stocks were mixed for much of today, but the S&P 500 managed to eke out a fresh all-time closing high.
Tech companies suffered big losses today, led by Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL), which reported earnings late Monday. Its shares closed 7.5% lower, marking their worst one-day percentage drop since October 2012.
Apple (AAPL) earnings are due after the bell today. Its shares closed down 1.9%.
On the other end of the spectrum, data storage company Seagate (STX) was the top performer in the S&P, climbing 7.5%.
Pfizer (PFE) and Merck (MRK) were the biggest gainers in the Dow after posting positive results this morning, up 2.6% and 2.5%, respectively.
The Milken Institute’s conference over in Los Angeles started yesterday. CNN Business’ own Danielle Wiener-Bronner and Lydia DePillis are closely following what’s going.
Here are today’s highlights, so far:
Both China and the United States, the world’s two largest economies, registered more GDP growth than expected in the first three months of the year. It seems the worries about the health of the global economies were either unfounded or overplayed.
Not so fast, cautions HSBC global chief economist Janet Henry.
Import demand from Beijing and Washington is still low and that means the export-reliant economies of the world are still struggling. Who are we talking about? Europe, for one. The European economy, in particular its biggest contributor Germany, are highly reliant on exports. In Asia, so is South Korea.
And those sectors are also the growth engines of Germany and South Korea.
So beware the headline numbers.
Without a broad-based growth, including healthy imports, we might have to wait just a little longer for the global economy to pick up steam, while export-oriented economies continue to be helped along by fiscal stimulus.
In the second half of the trading day, stocks remain lower as big tech continues to trend lower.
The S&P is being dragged lower by Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL), which dropped 8.4% after last night’s earnings.
Apple (AAPL) remains the biggest looser in the Dow, down 2.1%, ahead of its earnings after the bell.
April has been a ridiculously good month for Disney (DIS). Shares have surged nearly 25%, making it easily the Dow’s best performer for the month.
Scrooge McDuck would be pleased. The only two stocks in the S&P 500 that have done better are Anadarko Petroleum (APC) and Qualcomm (QCOM).
Analysts are raving about Disney’s plans to undercut Netflix (NFLX) and other streaming rivals by rolling out the Disney+ streaming service at the impossibly low price of $6.99 a month.
Then there’s the amazing box office performance of “Avengers: Endgame.” The Marvel movie grossed $1.2 billion globally in its first weekend and got rave reviews.
To top it all off, Disney unveiled the first trailer for “Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker” this month. When that film releases in December, it will wrap up what’s likely to be a very dominant 2019 at the box office for Disney. Live-action versions of “The Lion King” and “Aladdin,” as well as “Toy Story 4” and “Frozen 2,” are due out later this year.
The Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision is a day away, and investors are getting ready to hear what Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will say.
When the central bank decidedly took its foot off the gas in January, saying it could afford to be patient with further rate hikes, it sent financial markets into a frenzy.
Basically, nobody is expecting the sentiment in the Federal Open Market Committee to have changed by Wednesday. CME Fed funds futures predict a 97% chance that rates will remain unchanged in the range of 2.25%-2.50%.
But when it comes to future Fed meetings, this conviction wanes. By September — only four meetings away — the likelihood rates will go unchanged is below 50%. Instead, chances of a rate cut are rising.
High-flying Pinterest (PINS) is having a bad day, according to our Paul R. La Monica:
About an hour into trading, the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite are all solidly in the red, unimpressed by better-than-expected April consumer confidence numbers.
Apple (AAPL) is the biggest loser in the Dow; its shares are down about 2%. The company reports earnings after the bell.
Meanwhile, Chevron (CVX) is performing the best, climbing nearly 3%. The oil giant could lose out to Occidental Petroleum (OXY) on its bid for Anadarko Petroleum (APC).
In the S&P, Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) is one of the worst performers, falling more than 8%. So far, it’s the company’s worst single-day performance since October 2012. Ouch.
Glass and materials producer Corning (GLW) is the only stock in the S&P that is worse off than Google. Its shares are down 8.8%.
Alphabet (GOOGL) shares are down nearly 8% in early trading, marking its worst percentage drop since October 2012:
Warren Buffett is picking sides in the biggest oil industry bidding war in recent memory.
The legendary investor’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) plans to invest $10 billion in Occidental Petroleum (OXY) if the oil company successfully acquires Anadarko Petroleum (APC).
The vote of confidence from Buffett adds to the tug-of-war over Anadarko, which is fielding competing bids between Occidental and oil giant Chevron (CVX).
Read the full story about Buffett’s Anadarko investment here.
US stocks were mixed at the open. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite pulled back after both closed at an all-time high Monday.
GE (GE) shares were up some 7.7% after the company posted better-than-expected first quarter earnings. General Motors (GM), meanwhile slipped 2.7% on the back of its earnings report.
Google (GOOGL), which reported late Monday, was down 8.2%.
US oil prices briefly jumped as much as 2% on Tuesday on concerns about the escalating crisis in Venezuela.
Crude hit a high of nearly $64.75 a barrel as TV images showed an attempted coup underway in Venezuela, which was once a major oil supplier to the United States.
But the rally was fleeting, and crude is now only trading up about 1%.
A CNN crew on the ground heard gunshots outside the Caracas air base where opposition leaders Juan Guaido and Leopoldo Lopez gathered supporters. They have called for President Nicolas Maduro to step down.
Oil analysts said that a resolution could ease pressure on oil prices by paving the way for Venezuela’s production to recover.
Oil prices were also lifted by Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih, who told Russia’s RIA news agency that OPEC production cuts could be extended to the end of 2019.
That’s a surprise given the recent rise in oil prices and President Donald Trump’s calls for OPEC to ramp up production.
Broken records. Literally.
It won’t take much to set the fourth record high for major US stock market averages in a little over a week. With half of earnings season is behind us, economic data remains strong, top US officials are in Beijing for trade talks, and the first day of a two-day Fed meeting gets underway.
Plus, a new wrinkle in the investment landscape is a potential infrastructure bipartisanship. Congressional Democrats head to the White House Tuesday morning to make fixing America’s aging bridges, roads, dams and waterways a priority.
The US Chamber of Commerce says infrastructure spending will super-charge the economy and the Business Roundtable estimates every dollar in additional spending will generate $3.70 in economic activity over the next 20 years.
How much and how to pay for it are the sticking points, but both Democrats and Republicans drive over the same aging bridges and pock-marked roads.
It’s a rare policy effort that both sides agree on.
JPMorgan once again landed in the No. 1 spot in ratings agency S&P’s ranking of largest US banks by assets.
The top five was unchanged this year.
New to the ranking is the combination of BB&T Corp (BBT) and SunTrust Banks (STI) at No. 8. The banks, formerly ranked #15 and #16 in size, agreed to merge in February, but the deal has not yet closed.
China issued not one but two manufacturing reports during the Asian trading session, both casting doubts over the health of Beijing’s economy.
China’s official producer manufacturing index for for April came in at 50.1, lower than expectations of 50.5. The private Caixin manufacturing PMI for the same month read 50.2, down from 50.8 before. For PMI, more than 50 denotes an economic expansion, while less than 50 means a contraction.
Alongside better-than-expected Eurozone GDP reported earlier, the overall view of the global economy is mixed today.
The Shanghai Composite Index closed 0.5% higher on Tuesday and the CSI 300 index eked out a 0.3% gain. In Hong Kong, the Heng Seng Index finished 0.7% lower.
There’s apparently a healthy appetite for Beyond Meat’s upcoming initial public offering.
The company, which sells protein that is designed to look, taste and cook like beef, pork and poultry, boosted its expected price range and valuation in an updated regulatory filing.
Beyond Meat plans to increase the number of shares it’s offering to 9.6 million — up from 8.75 million shares. It also boosted its offer price to $23 to $25 per share, up from $19 to $21 per share.
If it sells at the high-end, the company could be valued as much as $1.5 billion.
Beyond Meat plans to start trading in early May on the Nasdaq with the ticker “BYND.”
Two large drug manufacturers just posted strong earnings reports:
