The pickleball wars appear to be escalating.
The sport, often described as a cross between tennis and ping pong, has exploded in popularity over the past few years. Nearly 9 million Americans are now playing the game, the Sports & Fitness Industry Association reports — a year-over-year increase of 85.7%. Many towns across the U.S. are allocating federal COVID-19 aid to build pickleball courts. And the Wichita City Council recently voted to spend over $6 million on a pickleball complex.
Players…
A U.K. regulator made the surprising decision Wednesday to block Microsoft Corp.’s deal for Activision Blizzard Inc. in a further sign of resistance to the power of Big Tech.
The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority announced Wednesday that it would prohibit the $69 billion deal as the merger could hurt competition in the nascent market for cloud gaming. The decision comes after the agency said in late March that it no longer thought the deal would threaten console gaming, which is a vastly larger and more established…
Shares of PacWest Bancorp were shooting 15% higher in Tuesday’s aftermarket trading after the regional bank disclosed a rise in deposits in recent weeks.
PacWest PACW said alongside its first-quarter earnings report that total deposits rose to $28.2 billion as of March 31 from $27.1 billion when the company provided a March 20 investor update. The company saw deposit balances grow by an additional $700 million or so as of April 24.
The…
Shares of Enphase Energy Inc. ENPH dropped more than 15% in the extended session Tuesday after the energy technology company reported first-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street expectations but called for lower-than-expected revenue in the current quarter. Enphase earned $146.9 million, or $1.02 a share, in the first quarter, compared with $52 million, or 37 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted for one-time items, the company earned $1.37 a share. Revenue rose to $726 million from $441 million a year ago. FactSet consensus called for adjusted EPS of $1.21 on sales of $724 million in the quarter. Enphase guided…
Alphabet Inc.’s stock rose 1.4% in extended trading Tuesday after Google’s parent company reported quarterly results that slightly topped analysts’ revenue and earnings estimates.
Alphabet also said its board of directors authorized $70 billion in share repurchases.
“Resilience in Search and momentum in Cloud resulted in Q1 consolidated revenues…
Microsoft Corp. shares headed toward their highest prices in more than year in Tuesday’s extended session, after the software giant reported better-then-expected profit and revenue and guided for continued strong results in an uncertain economy.
Microsoft MSFT reported fiscal third-quarter profit of $18.3 billion, or $2.45 a share, up from $2.22 a share a year ago. Revenue grew to $52.86 billion from $49.36 billion in the same quarter last year. Analysts on average were expecting earnings of $2.24 a share on sales of $51.02…
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday it has granted accelerated approval to Biogen Inc.’s torferson, a treatment for a rare form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.
The accelerated program is used to approve drugs for serious conditions that have an unmet medical need, where a drug is shown to have an effect on an endpoint that is reasonably likely to predict a clinical benefit to patients.
In…
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday warned of severe economic consequences if Congress does not address the debt ceiling, as Republicans were readying a House vote on the matter.
“It is unlikely that the federal government would be able to issue payments to millions of Americans, including our military families and seniors who rely on Social Security,” she said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.
“In…
The numbers: A survey of consumer confidence fell in April to a nine-month low of 101.3, reflecting nagging worries about a possible recession and a softening labor market.
The closely followed index dropped 2.7 points from a revised 104 in the prior month, the Conference Board said Tuesday. The level of confidence in April was the lowest since July 2022.
Consumer…
Shares of 3M Co. MMM were moving about 2% higher in premarket trading Tuesday after the company saw its profit for the latest quarter fall but top expectations. 3M also announced a restructuring that comes with 6,000 more job cuts. The company generated net income of $976 million, or $1.76 a share, compared with $1.30 billion, or $2.26 a share, in the year-before quarter. On an adjusted basis, 3M logged $1.97 in earnings per share, compared with $2.63 a year before, while analysts tracked by FactSet were modeling $1.58. Revenue slipped to $8.03 billion from $8.83 billion, while analysts were looking for $7.49 billion….
UBS Group AG said Tuesday that earnings declined in the first quarter, hurt by litigation, but that the bank drew in billions in net new money at its global wealth-management business following the news of its acquisition of Credit Suisse Group AG.
The Swiss bank UBS CH:UBSG said its result was affected by $665 million in provisions related to U.S. residential mortgage-backed securities litigation.
UBS…
Popular crypto exchange Coinbase
COIN,
late Monday asked a federal court to force the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to respond yes or no to its petition from July 2022 to make formal rules around digital-asset regulation.
Coinbase’s petition requested that the “Commission propose and adopt rules to govern the regulation of securities that are offered and traded via digitally native methods, including potential rules to identify which digital assets are securities.”
In March, Coinbase was hit with a Wells notice from the SEC, identifying potential violations of securities laws that might spur it to take legal action. The notice came after nine months of back-and-forth between the SEC and Coinbase, CEO Brian Armstrong said in March.
Coinbase was expected to respond to the notice by the end of April, but Monday’s filing reveals that Coinbase believes the SEC’s approach doesn’t provide enough regulatory guidance for crypto companies in the U.S. to operate.
“The SEC at a minimum must set forth how those inapt and inapposite requirements are to be adapted to digital assets. But the SEC has refused to do even that,” the filing says. “It has not conducted any rulemaking to provide the regulatory clarity and process that companies need to determine which digital asset products and services to register and how to make the registration that the SEC now demands.”
Coinbase shares slid more than 7% on Monday but are up 55% year to date. Still, the stock is down nearly 60% over the past 12 months. In comparison, the S&P 500
SPX,
is up nearly 8% in 2023 and has declined almost 4% over the past year.
Bed Bath & Beyond went from homeware powerhouse to the retail doghouse over the course of the last decade.
But its final push into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Sunday resulted from a mix of bad decisions and forces beyond its control, the company explained in a new court filing. In the 93-page document, Holly Etlin, chief restructuring officer and chief financial officer of Bed Bath & Beyond BBBY, tried to explain how things went so wrong. Here are the top five choices and moments that ultimately spelled the retailer’s…
When is it a good time to buy stocks? Some investors would say the current negativity dominating the financial media means you are better off sitting on the sidelines. Others would say it is always a good time to buy stocks, provided you can get them for good prices.
Count John Buckingham, editor of the Prudent Speculator, in the latter camp. He is a value investor with decades of experience. During an interview, he emphasized the importance of remaining disciplined through all market conditions. While he favors the value…
Tucker Carlson is leaving Fox News, according to a statement from the network on Monday that sent Fox shares down 4%.
“FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” the company said in a terse statement. “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.”
Carlson’s last program at the…
A record share price for LVMH FR:MC alongside a strengthening euro pushed the luxury goods company to a market capitalization of $500 billion on Monday, the first European company to reach that landmark.
LVMH stock touched a fresh high of €904.60, valuing the group at €454.2 billion. With the euro EURUSD at one point edging up to $1.1020, this equated to $500.5 billion.
The…
Credit Suisse Group AG swung to a net profit on Monday, overturning five consecutive straight quarterly losses, reflecting the write-down of billions in AT1 capital notes relating to its takeover by UBS Group AG.
The Swiss lender said its made 12.43 billion Swiss francs in quarterly income ($13.93 billion), compared with a loss of CHF273 million in the same period of 2022, on revenue that more than tripled to CHF18.47 billion.
The…
Seemingly every day, U.S. investors are being buffeted by a flurry of sometimes conflicting economic data.
Take this past week, for example: the U.S. leading economic index sank 1.2% in March, its biggest decline in three years. The indicator has now declined for 12 straight months.
Then, one day later on Friday, investors received readings…
Jeff Shell, chief executive of Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal, abruptly left the company Sunday following an investigation into a complaint of inappropriate conduct.
“We are disappointed to share this news with you,” Comcast CMCSA CEO Brian Roberts and President Mike Cavanaugh said in a statement. “We built this company on a culture of integrity. Nothing is more important than how we treat each other. You should count on your leaders to create a safe and respectful workplace. When our principles and policies are violated, we…
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday preserved women’s access to a drug used in the most common method of abortion, rejecting lower-court restrictions while a lawsuit continues.
The justices granted emergency requests from the Biden administration and New York–based Danco Laboratories, maker of the drug, called mifepristone. They are appealing a lower-court ruling that would roll back Food and Drug Administration approval of mifepristone.
The drug has been approved for use in the U.S. since 2000 and more than 5 million people have used it. Mifepristone is used in combination with a second drug, misoprostol, in more than half of all abortions in the U.S.
The court faced a self-imposed Friday night deadline to decide whether women’s access to a widely used abortion pill would remain unchanged or be restricted while a legal challenge to its Food and Drug Administration approval goes on.
The justices have been weighing arguments that allowing restrictions contained in lower-court rulings to take effect would severely disrupt the availability of the drug, mifepristone, which is used in the most common abortion method in the United States.
It has repeatedly been found to be safe and effective, and has been used by more than 5 million women in the U.S. since the FDA approved it in 2000.
The Supreme Court had initially said it would decide by Wednesday whether the restrictions could take effect while the case continues. A one-sentence order signed by Justice Samuel Alito on Wednesday gave the justices two additional days, without explanation.
Abortion opponents filed suit in Texas in November, asserting that FDA’s original approval of mifepristone 23 years ago and subsequent changes were flawed.
Senate Judiciary Committee/AP
Further context (March 2023): Trump appointee in single-judge federal district in Texas could bar nationwide access to the abortifacient mifepristone
Also (April 2023): Access to abortion pill in limbo after competing rulings in Texas and Washington
They won a ruling on April 7 by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, revoking FDA approval of mifepristone. The judge, the lone judge in his Amarillo, Texas, federal district, gave the Biden administration and Danco a week to appeal and seek to keep his ruling on hold.
Responding to a quick appeal, two more Trump appointees on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the FDA’s original approval would stand for now. But Judges Andrew Oldham and Kurt Englehardt said most of the rest of Kacsmaryk’s ruling could take effect while the case winds through federal courts.
MarketWatch contributed.