Trading Ideas

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Wednesday it had filed a complaint aimed at forcing Marlboro maker Altria Group to sell its investment in e-cigarette maker JUUL. The FTC has probed Altria’s decision to buy a 35% stake in JUUL, announced in December 2018, for $12.8 billion. The value of the investment has dwindled to $4.2 billion as of late 2019 as a string of vaping-related deaths and potential bans clouded the industry’s prospects. …read more […]

General Electric Co is asking its lenders to replace US$20bn in revolving loans with a new debt package that will come with a smaller size and shorter maturities, sources said. The new loans, that will come at the reduced size of US$15bn, are a testament to a changing bank landscape as firms seek to get better compensated for the risk they take to lend as volatility rattles the markets. JP Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley lead the GE loans. …read more […]

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Deutsche Bank’s Ross Seymore has been reviewing the impact of COVID-19 on the semiconductor industry, and it has become apparent that due to supply chain disruption and “eventual demand delay and destruction,” the sector as a whole will suffer in the near to mid-term. There are certain companies, though, that following the downturn, currently “yield an attractive risk/reward.” Qualcomm (QCOM) is among those.Qualcomm was one of the first companies to warn of the impending impact of the coronavirus. When in early February the chip giant widened the range of its EPS guidance due to the viral outbreak in China, the …read more […]

This might sound really, really strange…
But there’s one company out there right now that might’ve just been “saved” by the coronavirus.
No, the company doesn’t make ventilators.
And no, it hasn’t discovered a vaccine.
But Bloomberg calls it “the next best thing in the COVID-19 pandemic.”
What am I taking about?
The company is Blue Apron (NYSE: APRN) – and its amazing story of “rebirth” is the basis behind today’s Trade of the Day.
So let’s wash our hands and dive in…
Quite simply, Blue Apron operates a direct-to-consumer platform that delivers original recipes and fresh and seasonal ingredients straight to your doorstep.
The company essentially sends you …read more […]

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UPS (NYSE: UPS) has delivered dividends consistently for decades. Except for 2009, when it kept the dividend steady, UPS has lifted the payout to shareholders every year since 1999 – and that includes a 5% increase in February.
But can the package delivery company continue to pay the current quarterly dividend of $1.01 per share?
The numbers say it can’t.
Free cash flow has been inconsistent over the past few years, turning negative in 2017 and dropping precipitously last year.

Both one- and three-year cash flow growth are negative. This year’s projected free cash flow growth is barely above 2016’s.
However, business will certainly be …read more […]

Stock futures opened higher Wednesday evening, recovering some losses as investors braced for extended stay-in-place orders and widespread shutdowns to further batter the economy and corporate profitability. …read more […]

Sources tell Yahoo Finance the Softbank-WeWork deal is off. …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve is trying to call time on a fire sale of Treasuries by foreign governments and central banks.Foreign official holders of Treasuries dumped more than $100 billion in the three weeks to March 25, on course for the biggest monthly drop on record, according to weekly Fed custody data that captures much of the pandemic-fueled turmoil. They joined others seeking to unload government debt globally to raise cash amid the volatility, according to traders and market makers familiar with the transactions. Countries reliant on oil exports and smaller Asian economies have been selling U.S. debt, and …read more […]

The White House promised millions of coronavirus tests that aren’t actually coming. …read more […]

One small startup is stepping up in the fight against COVID-19.
You may have never heard of 20/20 GeneSystems. But members of our First Stage Investor research service have. We recommended they invest in 20/20 back in 2017.
And now 20/20 is doing something we could not have predicted in 2017. This dynamic startup is gearing up to provide COVID-19 tests.
The company’s main business (and why we recommended you invest in it in the first place) is layering artificial intelligence over the top of blood tests to help detect cancer in its earliest stages.
An increasing number of people have used its tests …read more […]

The analysts covering BlackBerry Limited (TSE:BB) delivered a dose of negativity to shareholders today, by making a… …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Oil company executives reeling from a massive drop in prices were set to meet with President Donald Trump Friday as the administration seeks ways to help the beleaguered industry.The meeting, which was confirmed by the American Petroleum Institute comes just as Saudi Arabia unleashes a record volume of crude into the already-glutted global oil market, escalating a price war with Russia. Trump, who once hailed the unprecedented plunge in oil prices as a “tax cut” for American consumers, has stepped up efforts in recent days to intervene as the rout threatens to wipe out tens of thousands of …read more […]

So much for that world where every car was electric. …read more […]