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Kamis, 11 April 2019

US producer prices post the biggest increase in 5 months - CNBC

U.S. producer prices increased by the most in five months in March, but underlying wholesale inflation was tame.

The Labor Department said on Thursday its producer price index for final demand rose 0.6 percent last month, lifted by a surge in the cost of gasoline. That was the largest increase since last October and followed a 0.1 percent gain in February.

In the 12 months through March, the PPI rose 2.2 percent after advancing 1.9 percent in February. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the PPI would climb 0.3 percent in March and increase 1.9 percent on a year-on-year basis.

A key gauge of underlying producer price pressures that excludes food, energy and trade services was unchanged last month after ticking up 0.1 percent in February. The so-called core PPI increased 2.0 percent in the 12 months through March. That was the smallest annual increase since August 2017 and followed a 2.3 percent rise in February..

Data on Wednesday showed consumer prices rose by the most in 14 months in March, driven by more expensive gasoline. But core inflation remained muted amid a plunge in the cost of apparel.

Slowing domestic and global growth are keeping inflation contained. Wage inflation has also been moderate despite a tight labor market.

Minutes of the Federal Reserve's March 19-20 policy meeting published on Wednesday described inflation as "muted," though officials expected it to rise to or near the U.S. central bank's 2 percent target. The Fed's preferred inflation measure, the core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, is currently at 1.8 percent.

Last month, wholesale energy prices jumped 5.6 percent, with gasoline prices shooting up 16.0 percent, the most since August 2009. Energy prices rose 1.8 percent in February.

Gasoline accounted for over 60 percent of the 1.0 percent rise in goods prices last month. Goods prices increased 0.4 percent in February.

Wholesale food prices rose 0.3 percent in March, reversing a 0.3 percent drop in the prior month. Core goods prices rose 0.2 percent after edging up 0.1 percent in February.

The cost of services increased 0.3 percent in March after being unchanged in the prior month. Prices for healthcare services fell 0.2 percent last month. There was a sharp drop in the cost of hospital outpatient services. Those healthcare costs feed into the core PCE price index.

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https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/11/producer-price-index-march-2019.html

2019-04-11 12:31:08Z
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Disney streaming; Uber IPO expectations; Brexit delayed (again) - CNN

The entertainment giant is expected to show off its Disney+ streaming service during its investors day on Thursday. It's Disney's answer to the challenge posed by Netflix (NFLX) as well as tech giants like Amazon (AMZN) and Google (GOOGL).

Buying Fox (FOX) will help Disney meet the threat. The deal strengthened what was already the entertainment industry's most enviable array of brands, with Fox's National Geographic among the announced Disney+ elements.

If properties with avid fan bases serve as the linchpin of any subscription-driven service, the industry consensus is that nobody can match the arsenal that Disney possesses.

Yet even that doesn't assure success with such a startup venture.

2. Uber IPO: Uber is expected to file paperwork as soon as Thursday in what is likely to be one of the biggest public offerings ever for a technology company.

The IPO caps off Uber's rapid and very public effort to overhaul its internal culture and move past a long list of scandals that upended the company.

Uber is still facing problems: The company lost $1.8 billion in 2018, an unprecedented sum for a company about to go public.

Lyft (LYFT), its chief US rival, gained market share amid Uber's stumbles. But Lyft shares dropped almost 11% on Wednesday following media reports about the Uber IPO and are now trading more than 16% below their IPO price.

3. Brexit delayed (again): The European Union has granted Britain a six-month delay to Brexit with an option to leave earlier if the UK parliament can agree an exit deal.

The British pound was flat on Thursday, as the news of the delay did not come as a major surprise.

Businesses and investors will be relieved that the United Kingdom has, for now, avoided crashing out of the European Union without a deal. But the delay will prolong the uncertainty that has already damaged the UK economy.

"The situation remains uncomfortable and potentially unstable," said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg bank.

4. Global market overview: US stock futures were pointing lower. European markets opened mixed, following a downbeat trading session in Asia.

Wall Street on Wednesday largely shrugged off minutes from last month's Federal Reserve meeting, which showed the US central bank acknowledged the threat of a global growth slowdown and didn't anticipate an interest rate hike this year. The Dow Jones industrial average closed flat. The S&P 500 added 0.4% and the Nasdaq gained 0.7%.

Before the Bell newsletter: Key market news. In your inbox. Subscribe now!

5. Earnings and economics: Rite Aid (RAD) will release earnings before the open.

The International Energy Agency said Thursday that OPEC crude oil production dropped in March to 30.1 million barrels a day, roughly 3.3 million barrels a day below the cartel's sustainable capacity. Lower supply, which results from deliberate production cuts and sanctions, has helped pushed US oil prices up 50% to $64 per barrel from $42.53 on Christmas Eve.

6. Coming this week:
Thursday — Rite Aid (RAD) earnings; Disney (DIS) investor day; India election polling begins
Friday — JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC) earnings; China export data

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/11/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html

2019-04-11 09:00:00Z
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Growth woes, trade tension douse rally in Asian shares - Investing.com

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A man looks on in front of an electronic board showing stock information at a brokerage house in Nanjing

By Swati Pandey

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian stocks stepped back from near eight-month highs on Thursday and the dollar eased as cautious European and U.S. central banks reinforced investors' worries about the slowing global economy and trade protectionism.

Spreadbetters pointed to a subdued start for Europe, with Eurostoxx 50 futures flat while futures for Germany's and London's opened open lower.

Risky assets have been volatile so far this year while bonds have rallied on fears of a recession in the United States and the possibility of a sharper slowdown in other major economies including the euro zone.

Also weighing on sentiment, U.S. President Donald Trump has escalated trade tensions by threatening new tariffs on goods from the European Union, even as the Sino-U.S. trade dispute remains unresolved.

All those risks pulled down Asian equities on Thursday.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slipped 0.4 percent after four straight days of gains took it to the highest since last August. Japan's reversed early losses to end 0.1 percent higher.

Losses in Asia were led by Chinese shares, with the blue-chip CSI300 index off 1.7 percent while Hong Kong's stumbled 0.7 percent.

Australian shares also lost ground, pressured by political uncertainty after the prime minister called a national election for May 18.

"Traders continue to operate in a ‘wait and watch’ mode as they look for the next opportunity in a cautious market," said Nick Twidale, Sydney-based analyst at Rakuten Securities Australia. "Two big event risks are now behind us with the ECB and Fed."

But, Twidale said, investors were still on the lookout for a trigger that would push markets out of their familiar trading ranges.

On Wednesday, the European Central Bank (ECB) kept its loose policy stance and warned that threats to global economic growth remained. The ECB has already pushed back its first post-crisis interest rate hike, and President Mario Draghi raised the prospect of more support for the struggling euro zone economy if its slowdown persisted.

"If, as we expect, growth in the euro-zone continues to disappoint over the coming months, we think that ECB policymakers will adopt an even more accommodative stance," analysts at Capital Economics wrote in a note.

While easy monetary conditions are generally a boon for equities as investors go hunting for yield, share price performance could take a hit if corporate earnings suffer in a slowing economy.

'GREAT RETREAT'

Separately, data showed U.S. consumer prices increased by the most in 14 months in March but underlying inflation remained benign against a backdrop of slowing global economic growth.

Minutes from a March 19-20 meeting of Federal Reserve policymakers showed they agreed to be patient about any changes to interest rate policy as they saw the U.S. economy weathering a global slowdown without a recession in the next few years.

In currencies, the British pound held on to gains after European leaders agreed to extend the deadline for UK to leave the union to the end of October, averting a potential crash out of the bloc on Friday with no divorce deal but threatening more months of uncertainty.

Sterling has stayed in a triangle holding pattern between $1.2945 and $1.3380 during the past month or so. It was last at $1.3080.

The fell for a fourth straight day to 96.933 against a basket of major currencies. The euro was barely changed at $1.1275 while the Japanese yen was a shade weaker at 111.11 per dollar after three days of gains.

In commodities, futures eased 27 cents to $71.46 a barrel. dipped 30 cents to $64.31.

Gold hovered near a two-week top on Thursday at $1,306.97 an ounce.

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https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/growth-woes-trade-tension-douse-rally-in-asian-shares-1833143

2019-04-11 06:42:00Z
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Rabu, 10 April 2019

T-Mobile officially unveils its home TV service, TVision Home - TechCrunch

T-Mobile today officially unveiled its forthcoming home TV service, which will now be known as TVision Home. The service is the rebranding of Layer3 TV, a company T-Mobile acquired in 2017 to launch what it said would be a “disruptive new TV service” the following year. That launch, of course, had been delayed. Now it has an arrival date: April 14th, 2019.

According to T-Mobile’s new TVision Home website, the service will first be available in Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, L.A., NYC, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington D.C. metro, and Longmont, CO – areas Layer3 had been serving.

The service starts at $100 per month for over 150 channels, minus a $9.99/month discount for T-Mobile customers which will initially be offered to everyone. The channel lineup includes local broadcast stations, regional sports, and other traditional pay TV channels.

The TVision website says the full service has over 275 total channels available.

In addition, TVision Home includes a 400-hour HD DVR (with support for recording multiple programs simultaneously), voice control via either Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, access to Nest security cameras, a range of 4K content, and over 35,000 on-demand movies and shows.

Users will be able to set up profiles, personalize their home screen, and access their own DVR recordings separate from other household members.

Social media content will also be available through the TV, including your Facebook photos and videos and your Twitter feed.

The service itself also includes streaming apps like Pandora, iHeartRadio, XUMO, CuriosityStream, Toon Goggles, and HSN, with plans to add Netflix, YouTube, YouTube Kids, and Amazon Prime Video.

Unlike cable TV which requires running wires in other rooms of the house, TVision will instead offer “Lite Boxes” that connect to the main set-top box over Wi-Fi for $10/month each.

What’s missing, however, is the promised “disruption.”

Even T-Mobile’s own press release says the average cable bill today is $107.30 per month. With a service that starts at $90 per month and then charges for additional TVs and premium channels on top of that, it’s not doing much better – even if it removes the hidden fees like activation or early termination fees. (T-Mobile will also help pay off your satellite TV contract up to $500 if you want to switch over without dealing termination fees.)

However, T-Mobile does promise that its prices won’t increase over time – which is something even the modern-day internet TV providers like Sling TV, DirecTV Now, YouTube TV, and others can’t say, as they’ve all rolled out prices increases in the past year.

But those internet TV services still offer a better deal beyond lower prices – they also let you watch through their app wherever you are, not just inside the home. T-Mobile’s service, meanwhile, will include a companion app for iOS and Android for in-home streaming only. When traveling, you’ll have to use the various channels’ standalone apps to access TV content, after authentication.

That means it’s more like a traditional pay TV provider, as users will be directed to apps – like ABC, HBO Go, NBC, ESPN, Starz, or HGTV, for example – when they want to watch TV on the go.

TVision Home today works over a broadband connection, but is designed for the soon-to-come 5G future where TV can be delivered over a wireless service – like, say, the one offered by the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint.

The company touts the promise of the merger, if approved, saying the combined entity would have the power to bring high-speed broadband via 5G to over half of U.S. households by 2024.

“TVision Home is about so much more than home TV… it’s TV built for the 5G era,” said Mike Sievert, COO and President of T-Mobile, in a statement. “With New T-Mobile, we’ll bring real choice, competition, better service, lower prices and faster speeds…right into your living room. And – speaking of speed – while the Cableopoly innovates at the pace of the cable companies, we’ll innovate at the pace of the internet to give customers more value and more freedom more quickly.”

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https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/10/t-mobile-officially-unveils-its-home-tv-service-tvision-home/

2019-04-10 15:56:10Z
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Lyft takes a big hit after reports Uber is seeking a valuation of up to $100 billion (LYFT) - Business Insider

Noam Galai/Getty

Lyft shares plunged as much as 7.3% on Wednesday after reports that rival Uber was seeking a valuation of between $90 billion and $100 billion.
Lyft shares have dropped 27% from where they opened when the company went public last week.
Watch Lyft trade live.

Lyft shares dropped as much as 7.3% on Wednesday after it was reported its rival, Uber, was seeking a valuation of between $90 billion and $100 billion when it officially files to go public.

Uber plans to sell around $10 billion worth of stock when it officially files to go public on Thursday, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Uber's new projected valuation, according to Reuters, is below that of prior $120 billion estimates. In contrast, Lyft's market cap on Tuesday was just under $20 billion, having raised about $2.69 billion in its IPO last month.

Lyft has traded in a volatile fashion since its debut, which isn't uncommon for newly minted public companies.

The stock priced at $72 a share the evening before its IPO in late March, then officially opened at $87.24 a share, then dropped below its IPO price in its first full day of trading. It's now down about 27% from its opening price, and down 11% from where the stock initially priced.

Lyft analysts are concerned about the company's uncertain path to profitability and a highly competitive ride-hailing space. Regulatory uncertainties may also pose a challenge, some analysts say, while others say the stock is overvalued.

"While we believe the ridesharing market will continue to grow and expect LYFT to be a prime competitor, in our view, current valuations reflect an overly optimistic view of consumer behavior in the US," said Michael Ward, an analyst at Seaport Global, in a note to clients last week.

Now read more about Lyft on Markets Insider:

Lyft shares.Markets Insider

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https://www.businessinsider.com/lyft-stock-price-down-after-reports-of-ubers-expected-valuation-2019-4

2019-04-10 15:30:21Z
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Exclusive: US lawmakers introduce bill to boost electric car tax credits - StreetInsider.com

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https://www.streetinsider.com/Litigation/Exclusive:+U.S.+lawmakers+introduce+bill+to+boost+electric+car+tax+credits/15357994.html

2019-04-10 13:03:00Z
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US lawmakers begin push to expand federal electric vehicle tax credits - CNBC

A bipartisan group of lawmakers plans to introduce a bill to expand federal tax credits for buyers of electric vehicles, in what could be a boon for the growing EV market.

The existing $7,500 tax credit for buyers of EVs phases out over 15 months once an automaker sells 200,000 electric cars. The tax credit for Tesla buyers was halved to $3,750 on Jan. 1; General Motor's tax credit was likewise cut in half starting April 1.

The bill, dubbed the Driving America Forward Act, would grant each automaker a $7,000 tax credit for an additional 400,000 vehicles after it exhausts the first 200,000 vehicles eligible for tax credits. It would shorten the phase-out schedule to nine months. The credits are paid directly to consumers, who can write them off on their tax returns.

"At a time when climate change is having a real effect on Michigan, today's legislation is something we can do now to reduce emissions and combat carbon pollution," Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., one of the sponsors of the legislation, said in a statement. "Our bill will help create American jobs and cement Michigan's status as an advanced manufacturing hub."

Tesla shares rose 1.6 percent in morning trading Wednesday on the news.

Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., signed on to the bill.

Electric vehicles comprise a tiny, but growing, share of the U.S. vehicle market. Support for low- and no-emissions vehicles has grown both in the U.S. and in other major automotive markets, such as China. Though Tesla has been a market leader in EVs, several automakers are planning to release fully electric cars, trucks and SUVs over the next few years.

"This would be a major shot in the arm for Tesla as this could be a much needed potential catalyst for demand in the U.S." said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. "Ultimately, while there are still hurdles to get this legislation passed, it would result in an additional 40,000 Tesla vehicles sold domestically in 2019 based on our estimates. After a tornado of bad news the last few months this would finally be a positive data point for Musk & Co."

— CNBC's Phil LeBeau and Meghan Reeder contributed to this article. Reuters also contributed to this report.

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https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/10/tesla-shares-jump-as-lawmakers-begin-push-to-expand-ev-tax-credits.html

2019-04-10 15:14:05Z
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