- Appeals court says Biden admin likely violated First Amendment but narrows order blocking officials from communicating with social media companies CNN
- Appeals Court Rules White House Overstepped 1st Amendment on Social Media The New York Times
- 5th Circuit rules Biden administration violated First Amendment The Washington Post
- Appeals court scales back order squelching Biden administration contact with social media platforms ABC News
- Biden administration violated First Amendment over COVID-19 content on social media, court of appeals rules Fox News
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: narrows
Warner Bros. Discovery Narrows Streaming Loss to $3M, Posts Sub Drop Amid Max Rebrand, Ups Post-Merger Cost Savings Target to $5B-Plus – Hollywood Reporter
- Warner Bros. Discovery Narrows Streaming Loss to $3M, Posts Sub Drop Amid Max Rebrand, Ups Post-Merger Cost Savings Target to $5B-Plus Hollywood Reporter
- Warner Bros. Discovery Misses Q2 Expectations, Loses 1.8 Million Subscribers in Max Rebrand Yahoo Entertainment
- Warner Bros. Discovery loses subscribers after Max launch, but makes headway on debt paydown CNBC
- Warner Bros. Discovery trims costs and losses but misses forecasts CNN
- Warner Bros. Discovery Q2 earnings miss estimates but free cash flow improves Yahoo Finance
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Musk Narrows Voting on Twitter Policy to Blue Members After Poll
(Bloomberg) — Twitter Inc. will restrict voting on major policy decisions to paying Twitter Blue subscribers, company owner Elon Musk said in one of his first tweets following a poll calling for him to step down.
Most Read from Bloomberg
Responding to a Blue member going by the name Unfiltered Boss, Musk agreed with the suggestion that only subscribers should have a voice in future policy and said, “Twitter will make that change.” A day earlier, the billionaire chief pledged to submit all future policy decisions to a vote and offered Twitter users a choice on leadership, asking them if he should step down.
More than 10 million, or 57.5% of the vote, were in favor of Musk relinquishing his role as head of Twitter. He committed to abide by the result when asking for the vote, but nearly a day later, he had tweeted more than 10 times without directly addressing the outcome. Musk responded to a tweet suggesting the poll may have been manipulated by bots with a single word: “interesting.”
Musk’s dramatic offer to step down came shortly after he attended the World Cup final match in Qatar, triggering a wave of trending topics such as “VOTE YES” and “CEO of Twitter.” He didn’t identify an alternative leader and went so far as to say anyone capable of doing the job wouldn’t want it.
Musk has warned that Twitter is at risk of bankruptcy and instituted a “hardcore” work environment for the remaining workers after a drastic cutback in staff. In his less than two months at the helm, he has spooked advertisers, alienated Twitter’s most ardent creators and turned the service from a reflection of the news of the day into the main topic.
After losing the initial poll, Musk, who’s also chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., retweeted promotional material for the car company and for Twitter’s Blue for Business service. He also responded to an article about rival Toyota Motor Corp.’s criticism of electric vehicles with a simple “Wow.”
The stock of Tesla, by far Musk’s most valuable holding, has plummeted since the Twitter acquisition and critics have argued he’s spending too much time on the social media company.
(Updates with latest tweets from Musk in third paragraph)
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek
©2022 Bloomberg L.P.
War narrows the divides between east and west in Ukraine
Vakhrushev’s brief conversations often included the same exchange.
“Hello, everything okay?” he would ask.
“All’s fine,” his employee would answer.
“Did you hear that?” he’d ask. “Where was it?”
“Then let’s go,” he’d say. “And God willing, everything will be fine.”
The front line was roughly 20 miles from the factory where his Temp Ukraine manufactured building and paving materials, and Russian-launched missiles and bombs sometimes landed close enough to shatter glass. Even as they did, Vakhrushev and his team kept going. But their work quickly changed: Piece by piece, they loaded the firm’s equipment and production onto trucks for shipment to the safety of Ilnytsya, a town 800 miles away near the Hungarian and Romanian borders.
With Moscow continuing to wage scorched-earth campaigns in the east and south, Ukrainians have abandoned their homes in droves. According to the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration, more than 6 million people are now displaced within Ukraine, in addition to the nearly 5 million who have fled the country entirely.
Along with them have gone businesses and workplaces. Many, like Vakhrushev’s company and more than a dozen of its employees, have headed to areas in western Ukraine where fighting and missile attacks have been minimal. Their journey represents a massive and very fluid demographic shift taking place within the country — one that is altering it economically and possibly changing Ukrainians’ own perception of one another.
East and west are growing closer, Vakhrushev believes. “We teach them, and they teach us,” he explained.
In Transcarpathia, the agricultural region where Ilnytsya is located, Gov. Viktor Mykyta estimates that the population of 1 million has increased by at least a third. The sudden influx of people has strained local infrastructure. Many of the displaced are being housed in school buildings, and officials are scrambling to find them new accommodations before classes resume in the fall. Still, Mykyta stresses, everyone is being taken care of. “Transcarpathians are very hospitable people,” he said.
The upheaval has also meant other changes, which may be much more lasting. More than 350 companies have relocated to Transcarpathia, bringing with them new knowledge, new business know-how and new ways of doing things. Temp Ukraine, for one, is the first company here to recycle plastic waste as part of its manufacturing process — a welcome service in a tourism-dependent region that wants to keep its landscape pristine.
And with the number of computer specialists skyrocketing from about 2,000 before the war to nearly 35,000 today, Mykyta and his staff hope to turn the region into a tech hub. They are starting to work with IT companies interested in moving to the region and plan to add computer programming courses at the local schools.
But the shift of people and resources goes beyond economic benefits. The demographic changes — even those that are temporary — are helping to transform the country’s social fabric.
The divisions in Ukrainian society are often overstated, but differences among the country’s regions do exist. Ukraine’s west is mostly rural, Ukrainian-speaking and infused with Central European culture. The east and south are largely Russian speaking, with a cultural sense that, at least before the war, also felt more Russian. Many of the country’s largest cities are in the east and south, as was much of its heavy industry before the Russian invasion.
The stereotypes that the various regions held about one another are softening as they interact, according to Viktoria Sereda, a professor of sociology at Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, and Ukrainian identity is increasingly tied to a shared sense of civic belonging. The “fault line” in how Ukrainians define themselves is now whether “they defend their country in all possible ways,” she said.
“When people are living in this small proximity or in the same community, they are sharing their personal stories,” Sereda noted. “They have a possibility to see that it’s not how it was portrayed in media or by some politicians for the purposes of political mobilization.”
Amid the winding streets in the old town of Uzhhorod, Transcarpathia’s regional capital, the House of Bread cafe is a magnet for some of this sharing.
The cafe is the only local establishment serving Middle Eastern and Jewish food — pita sandwiches, falafel, salads, hummus and chopped herring. Its owners, Vadim Bespalov and Ella Kirilyuk, fled here from Kyiv and Odessa in the war’s first weeks and met in a religious service at a local church.
Before World War II, Uzhhorod was about a third Jewish. The Holocaust and postwar emigration decimated that population. Bespalov and Kirilyuk are both of Jewish descent and discovered that they shared a dream of opening a restaurant serving traditional foods. They rented an abandoned space on a small side street in what was once Uzhhorod’s Jewish quarter and opened at the end of June. A large menorah stands in the front window.
The cafe’s five tables were full during lunchtime on a recent afternoon, occupied by a mix of locals and those displaced by the war. Dima Halin, a videographer from Kyiv, discovered the cafe by chance. “It’s important that this place exists,” he said. “People need to meet, and food and culture is a good place to start.”
“This is a big cocktail that we call Ukraine,” Bespalov chimed in. “It’s all being mixed up.”
In Ilnytsya, the process of assimilation has gone a bit slowly for the workers of Temp Ukraine. The move itself was major: A couple of trucks hired in Kharkiv evacuated the company, making the two-day drive 20 times over a month and a half.
“Getting gas was the biggest problem,” Vakhrushev said. “That, and finding trucks and drivers willing to make the trip.”
Vakhrushev relocated with 37 people in all — his younger brother, Serhii, who also works at the company, their employees and members of their families. Their new home, a sleepy hamlet of 12,000 people that is nestled in the Carpathian foothills, is about as far as one can be from war-torn Kharkiv — geographically as well as psychologically — and still remain in Ukraine.
“The question isn’t where the firm is located. We still pay taxes in a single country, Ukraine,” Vakhrushev said from the company’s new facility on property that the regional administration helped him find. “The question is [whether] people can work safely, feel safe with the money they earn.”
The lack of industry and development in Transcarpathia was like going “back in time” to the 1990s, right after the breakup of the Soviet Union, when “everything was abandoned,” Vakhrushev said. Attitudes toward work also were quite different from those in hard-charging Kharkiv. Businesses close on Sundays, and laborers clock off exactly when the workday ends.
Yet things are going well enough that Vakhrushev now hopes to increase production and send more exports to the European Union next door. Bags of shredded plastic are piled up at the company’s new site, and newly pressed manhole covers lay stacked to one side. Serhii Vakhrushev praises the generosity of locals, who helped the company in getting set up and finding housing for workers. “They help us, and we help them,” he said.
Sometimes, though, it’s not the mileage from Kharkiv that underscores the distance everyone has traveled. It’s the small details, said worker Oleksiy Taranenko. After 70 days of shelling in the east, the silence of the countryside was “unnerving.”
“A completely different world,” he said. “Here everything is quiet. Birds are singing.”
Increasingly bitter race to replace UK PM Johnson narrows to four
LONDON, July 18 (Reuters) – Britain’s former finance minister Rishi Sunak held onto his lead in the race to become Britain’s next prime minister on Monday as another hopeful was knocked out, leaving four candidates in an increasingly bitter contest to replace Boris Johnson.
Sunak got 115 votes in the third ballot of Conservative lawmakers on Monday, ahead of former defence minister Penny Mordaunt on 82 and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on 71.
Since Johnson said he would resign earlier this month after his scandal-ridden administration lost the support of many in his ruling Conservative Party, the race to replace him has taken an ugly turn with several contenders turning their fire on the frontrunner Sunak.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
He has faced criticism on everything from his record in government to the wealth of his wife by those vying to make it to a run-off between the final two candidates, with foreign secretary Truss and Mordaunt, currently a junior trade minister, his most likely opponents.
The chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee Tom Tugendhat, a former soldier and Johnson critic who has never had a role in government, was eliminated from the leadership contest on Monday, after securing the fewest votes with 31.
Former equalities minister Kemi Badenoch came fourth in the ballot with 58 votes.
The governing Conservative Party’s 358 lawmakers will whittle the field down to the final two this week, eliminating the candidate with the fewest votes each time. The results of the next ballot are due at 1400 GMT on Tuesday.
A new prime minister will then be announced on Sept. 5, after the Conservative Party’s 200,000 members cast postal ballots over the summer.
VIGOROUS DEBATE
The race has become focused on pledges, or non-pledges, to cut taxes, at a time when Britain’s economy is beset with spiralling inflation, high debt and low growth that have left people with the tightest squeeze on their finances in decades.
Truss has also come under fire for saying she would change the Bank of England’s mandate. read more
At a televised debate on Sunday, candidates attacked each other over their records, and Truss and Sunak pulled out of a planned third debate on Tuesday, amid concern among Conservatives about candidates attacking their party colleagues. read more
“The nature of the Conservative Party is to have vigorous debate and then coalesce once a new leader is selected. I have no doubt that the same will happen on this occasion,” Conservative former minister David Jones told Reuters.
Sunak extended his lead over Mordaunt, who lost support and registered one fewer vote than she had in round two.
Bookmaker Ladbrokes said on Monday Truss, who got seven more votes in round three than she had in round two, was now the second favourite, ahead of Mordaunt but behind Sunak.
Truss’s campaign tried to buttress their argument for lower taxes by citing a report by The Centre for Economic and Business Research, a private sector think tank, showing there was more room for manoeuvre from higher tax receipts.
But a top Bank of England official, Michael Saunders, pushed back at her suggestion the government should set a “clear direction of travel” for monetary policy, saying the foundations of Britain’s framework were best left untouched. read more
“The government very clearly does not set the direction of travel for monetary policy,” Saunders, one of nine members of the interest rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee, said at a Resolution Foundation event in London.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Reporting by Elizabeth Piper, Kylie MacLellan, Alistair Smout, David Milliken and Andy Bruce, Editing by Hugh Lawson, William James and Toby Chopra
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Russia, Ukraine Talks Falter as Scope for Diplomatic Solution Narrows
KYIV, Ukraine—Russian and Ukrainian negotiators said they failed to reach an agreement after nine hours of talks in Berlin on Thursday over ways to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region and resolve the monthslong crisis triggered by Russia’s troop buildup along Ukrainian borders.
Dmitry Kozak,
the Russian representative at the talks involving France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine, said the gap between the parties was such that they couldn’t even agree on a joint statement.
He said the talks would likely continue among more junior officials until sufficient progress could be made to work toward a summit of the countries’ leaders, a goal he said was unrealistic at present.
“The Ukrainians presented a very hard position,” Mr. Kozak said. He praised earlier efforts by Western leaders such as French President
Emmanuel Macron,
who visited his Russian counterpart
Vladimir Putin
on Monday, but said that the Ukrainian delegation was unwilling to repeat the language of the 2015 Minsk-2 accord that stopped most of the hostilities in its Donbas region.
“My impression was that the Western diplomacy had no impact on the Ukrainian position in the talks,” said Mr. Kozak, who is deputy head of the presidential administration of the Kremlin.
He said the Ukrainian side asked for a break in the talks to consider their position. The French and German representatives, who sponsor the negotiations in the so-called Normandy format, agreed to work toward a relaunch of the talks.
Andriy Yermak,
Kyiv’s representative at the talks, said, “There are major differences. But there’s a willingness to continue talking.”
Mr. Yermak said future discussions would likely focus on prisoner exchanges between Kyiv and Russian-backed separatists and the reopening of crossings between Ukraine and the territories under rebel control.
The talks come amid rising tensions on Ukraine’s borders. Russia and ally Belarus are conducting joint military exercises that Russia’s Defense Ministry has described as training to repel “foreign aggression.” Ukraine’s armed forces began their own drills along the Russian and Belarusian borders in response.
In a sign of the gulf that still separates the West and Russia, Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov
was critical of the conversation when he emerged from a meeting with his British counterpart on Thursday.
Moscow wanted “not just excuses, but a concrete response from the West to our proposals, which presuppose the inadmissibility of strengthening someone’s security at the expense of someone else’s security,” Mr. Lavrov said. “I cannot say that we have any points of contact here.”
In Brussels, U.K. Prime Minister
Boris Johnson
told reporters after meeting with NATO Secretary-General
Jens Stoltenberg
on Thursday that a war in Ukraine would be “pointless, tragic and vastly economically costly to Russia.”
Thursday’s Berlin meeting was a follow-up to talks in Paris last month that sought to revive the 2015 Minsk-2 agreement, which was never implemented because Moscow and Kyiv diverged over what its clauses meant and the sequence in which they should be applied.
In Moscow’s reading, the Minsk-2 accord could give Russian proxies a say, if not outright veto power, over the policies of a newly federalized Ukraine, potentially precluding the country from joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union in the future. That is something Ukraine opposes.
Mr. Macron has been the leading force pushing for the revival of the Minsk-2 agreement, traveling to Moscow and Kyiv this week. French officials see it as a promising path to de-escalation as Moscow pushes broader security demands viewed as untenable by the U.S. and its allies.
While Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky
has limited room to make unpopular concessions, Ukraine’s key goal is to make sure these negotiations go on, averting the possible breakout of hostilities.
The Minsk-2 agreement, which calls for decentralizing political power in Ukraine and constitutional changes in coordination with the representatives of Donbas areas that are occupied by Russia, is unpopular in Ukraine. Previous attempts to pass legislation implementing parts of the agreement sparked deadly clashes outside the Ukrainian parliament and waves of protests.
Fifty-four percent of respondents to a December survey conducted by Ukrainian pollster Rating supported the negotiation of new terms with Russia with the help of international mediators. Twelve percent said Kyiv should comply with the terms of the agreements.
Kyiv has denied that it is under pressure from Western allies to implement Minsk-2, and it has refused to engage in direct talks with Russian-installed authorities in Donbas.
Asked during a joint press conference with Mr. Macron on Monday whether the Minsk-2 agreement had a chance of surviving, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine’s government was dragging its feet and would have to accept its terms.
Previous Normandy-format talks in Paris lasted for eight hours and involved Mr. Yermak, who heads Mr. Zelensky’s office, and Mr. Kozak, who is Russia’s point person on Ukraine. At the time, unlike now, the delegations agreed on a joint statement that called for an unconditional cessation of violence in Donbas.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Polish President Andrzej Duda and French President Emmanuel Macron, left to right, ahead of talks on the Ukraine crisis.
Photo:
Hannibal Hanschke/Zuma Press
—Ann M. Simmons in Moscow, Noemie Bisserbe in Paris and James Marson in Brussels contributed to this article.
Write to Bojan Pancevski at bojan.pancevski@wsj.com
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Astronomer responsible for demoting Pluto narrows search for hypothetical ‘Planet Nine’
In the continued search for the hypothetical ninth planet in our Solar System, Michael Brown, the CalTech astronomer who led the demotion of Pluto to a dwarf planet in 2006, has co-written a new study that claims to have narrowed the region the potential new planet could be located.
The study, in conjunction with astrophysicist Konstantin Batygin, proposes “Planet Nine” exists beyond Neptune and is six times the mass of Earth, according to reports.
The scientists first proposed Pluto had a replacement in a controversial study that came out in 2016 that said the clustering of asteroids and comets and other objects that orbit the sun in the Kuiper Belt suggests the existence of a large planet, National Geographic reported.
While some astronomers said the clustering reported in the 2016 study could be a fluke or actually a black hole since Planet Nine has never been seen, Brown and Batygin determined in the study, published last month in the Astronomical Journal, that the clustering is not a coincidence with 99.6% confidence.
An artist rendering of the proposed Planet Nine that may orbit the sun beyond Neptune.
(CALTECH/R. HURT (IPAC))
The new study also includes a “treasure map” of the planet’s likely orbit that the scientists said lasts around 7,400 Earth years and is closer to the Sun than the 2016 study found, according to Extreme Tech.
A closer orbit to the Sun would make the planet brighter and easier to see, according to Mashable India.
Planet Nine would probably be cold gas giant like Neptune, the farthest known planet in a Solar System from the Sun. Neptune has a nonsolid surface made up mostly of hydrogen, helium, and methane, according to NASA.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The pair hope to view the first glimpse of the planet within the next few years, possibly with the new large telescope at the Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile, set to be operational in two years, according to National Geographic.
Dow Jones Futures: Nvidia, Microsoft, Adobe Lead But Market Rally Narrows; Tesla AI Day On Tap
Dow Jones futures were little changed Thursday night, along with S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures. The stock market rally closed narrowly mixed Thursday after some notable swings. Big-cap techs and medical stocks rebounded while real economy sectors continued to sell off amid Federal Reserve bond taper fears. AMAT stock headlined earnings movers late, while Tesla (TSLA) holds its AI Day event tonight.
X
There was some positive action under the surface. Nvidia (NVDA) cleared an early entry of 197.80 as it rebounded from its 50-day line on strong earnings. Still, while Nvidia rose 4% to 197.98, that was well off intraday highs of 204.95. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) edged higher, while Marvell Technology (MRVL) rose 2%, rallying off its 50-day line.
Microsoft (MSFT) and Adobe (ADBE) powered up about 2% to new highs and Netflix (NFLX) rallied 4.2%. After the close, Adobe said it would buy Frame.io, a leading cloud-based video collaboration platform, for $1.275 billion. ADBE stock was not active in overnight trade.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) rebounded from morning lows to rally to a two-year high following earnings. CSCO stock climbed 3.8% to 57.27, back above a 55.45 buy point.
InMode (INMD) popped 3.9%, hitting a new high as it extended a strong rebound. Idexx Labs (IDXX) and HCA Healthcare (HCA) also rose on a solid day for medical stocks. Macy’s (M) broke out on strong earnings, guidance and more, surging nearly 20%. Kohl’s (KSS) made a strong move.
But cyclical sectors came under pressure as crude oil and copper prices sold off and Treasury yields came down. Miners and energy stocks are breaking down. Steelmakers are wiping out much of their big recent gains. Many financials have pulled back to buy points. Industrials have retreated after flirting with breakouts. Shipping companies sold off after recent gains.
Meanwhile, U.S.-listed China internets and stocks generally sold off amid economic and regulatory fears there.
Overall, market breadth remains woeful.
Catch The Next Big Winning Stock With MarketSmith
Key Earnings
Applied Materials (AMAT) and Ross Stores (ROST) reported earnings after the close.
Applied Materials beat fiscal Q3 views and guided modestly higher for the current Q4. AMAT stock lost 1% in extended trade. Shares rose 1.4% to 129.20 on Thursday, but have been stuck below their 50-day line for several sessions. Applied Materials and several other memory-exposed chip plays sold off last week on forecasts of weak DRAM memory pricing.
Ross Stores beat Q2 views easily, but the off-price apparel chain guided light on earnings. ROST stock fell 4% overnight. Shares advanced 2% to 126.58 on Thursday, close to resistance areas above 127. One could view ROST stock as having a double-bottom base with a 127.68 buy point.
Deere (DE) earnings are on tap Friday morning. DE stock has a cup-with-handle base, but has been falling toward its 50-day line this week. Deere slid 3.4% to 358.98 on Thursday.
Why This IBD Tool Simplifies The Search For Top Stocks
Tesla AI Day
Tesla AI Day is “solely” about recruiting AI and robotics experts to work on the company’s artificial intelligence efforts, according to CEO Elon Musk. But the livestream event, set to start at 8 p.m. ET is clearly aimed at investors and analysts as well. Expect fresh updates on Full Self-Driving Beta and Elon Musk showing off supercomputers and expounding on what Tesla (TSLA) hopes to achieve with AI.
It’ll be interesting to hear what outside AI experts have to say regarding Tesla’s AI claims and ambitions.
Keep in mind that Tesla’s big idea events don’t necessarily translate into real-world reality. Tesla Battery Day in late 2020 touted big battery tech improvements, revolutionary lithium mining and more. But the 4680 battery cells — seen as crucial for the delayed Semi and Cybertruck — are still in pilot stage amid some technical challenges, with no sign that mass production is close.
Tesla Autonomy Day in 2019 claimed the company was on the cusp of full autonomy, but its driver-assist systems remain at Level 2 while several rivals test driverless L4 systems.
On Monday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Agency opened a Tesla Autopilot probe related to crashes into emergency vehicles on the side of roads. The announcement included language suggesting a tougher approach than previously.
Tesla Stock
Tesla AI Day won’t take place until after-hours trading concludes, so TSLA stock investors won’t have a chance to weigh in until Friday morning.
Tesla stock sank 2.25% to 673.47, reflecting the broad market weakness. Shares bounced 3.8% on Wednesday from their 50-day and 200-day moving averages.
Award-Winning Stocks
Tesla, Nvidia, Adobe, Microsoft and InMode stock are on IBD Leaderboard. Nvidia stock is on SwingTrader and the IBD 50 — and was Thursday’s IBD Stock Of The Day. Microsoft and Adobe stock are on IBD Long-Term Leaders.
The video embedded in this article analyzed Nvidia and MRVL stock, as well as Macy’s.
Dow Jones Futures Today
Dow Jones futures were unchanged vs. fair value. S&P 500 futures edged lower. Nasdaq 100 futures rose slightly.
Remember that overnight action in Dow futures and elsewhere doesn’t necessarily translate into actual trading in the next regular stock market session.
Join IBD experts as they analyze actionable stocks in the stock market rally on IBD Live
Stock Market Rally
The stock market rally opened solidly lower Thursday morning, extending Wednesday’s late-afternoon sell-off on the Fed minutes release. Commodity prices and Treasury yields fell sharply, as investors continued to mull the news that several Fed policymakers favor starting to taper bond buys by year-end. But tech giants rebounded, lifting the Nasdaq and S&P 500, though they pared gains as well.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2% in Thursday’s stock market trading. The S&P 500 index climbed 0.1%. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.1% after being down 0.7% and up 0.6% intraday. The small-cap Russell 2000 slumped 1.2%.
Apple stock, Microsoft and the much-smaller Cisco are members of the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite.
U.S. crude oil prices fell 2.7% to $63.69 a barrel, their sixth straight decline and the lowest level since May. Copper prices also have weakened substantially.
Among the best ETFs, the Innovator IBD 50 ETF (FFTY) fell 1%, while the Innovator IBD Breakout Opportunities ETF (BOUT) sank 1.5%. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) climbed 0.7%, with MSFT stock and Adobe two major components. The VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF (SMH) rose 0.9%. Nvidia and AMAT stock are key SMH components, with MRVL stock also a holding.
SPDR S&P Metals & Mining ETF (XME) tumbled 3.9% and Global X U.S. Infrastructure Development ETF (PAVE) sank 1.1%. U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS) descended 1.9%. SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (XHB) dipped 0.4%. The Energy Select SPDR ETF (XLE) slumped 2.6% and the Financial Select SPDR ETF (XLF) retreated 0.7%.
Reflecting more-speculative story stocks, ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) retreated 1.7% to a two-month closing low. ARK Genomics ETF (ARKG) slid 1.8%, hitting a three-month low. Tesla stock is the No. 1 holding across the ARK Invest ETFs.
Five Best Chinese Stocks To Watch Now
Market Rally Analysis
The stock market rally rebounded from or back above key levels Thursday, but indexes also fell off their intraday highs. The Dow Jones found support at its 50-day line while the S&P 500 rallied from just above that key level.
The Nasdaq composite rallied above its 50-day intraday but closed just below that key level, despite gains from Microsoft, Adobe, Netflix and Nvidia. The Nasdaq 100 popped 0.5% after finding support near its 50-day line.
But outside of Nvidia and its data-center and gaming chip peers, semiconductors were ho-hum. Likewise, software was mixed beyond Microsoft stock and Adobe.
Macy’s stock skyrocketed. Lululemon (LULU) is acting well, bouncing from 10-week line support. But it wasn’t a broad-based retail advance either.
Overall, the expanding market leadership has narrowed once again. Steel stocks have given up most of their recent quick gains. Industrial and housing-related stocks have largely pulled back from buy areas. Financials are testing buy points.
Thursday’s losers trumped winners by more than 2-to-1 on the Nasdaq and on the NYSE. The Nasdaq advance/decline already is at 2021 lows. The Russell 2000 is below its 200-day line for the first time since September.
Time The Market With IBD’s ETF Market Strategy
What To Do Now
The major indexes are holding key support, but market breadth is narrowing overall and for leading stocks. If more than two stocks are falling for every winner, the odds aren’t in your favor. So while it remains a confirmed stock market rally, investors should be cautious about near-term buys and especially adding to exposure. If you take a new position, such as in Nvidia stock, that could be offset by exiting other positions.
The Nasdaq pullback in the past few weeks is planting the seeds of future buying opportunities, but it’s an open question whether growth stocks rise or fall in the next few weeks.
Keep working on your watchlists. New potential setups will show up on screens, while others may drop off.
Don’t get locked into a particular stock or a bullish or bearish mindset. The market rally is at a key point and could quickly strengthen or deteriorate from these levels. So stay flexible and alert.
Read The Big Picture every day to stay in sync with the market direction and leading stocks and sectors.
Please follow Ed Carson on Twitter at @IBD_ECarson for stock market updates and more.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE:
Best Growth Stocks To Buy And Watch
IBD Digital: Unlock IBD’s Premium Stock Lists, Tools And Analysis Today
The 200-Day Average: The Last Line Of Support?
Catch The Next Big Winning Stock With MarketSmith
United Airlines (UAL) 2Q 21 narrows losses
A United Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft lands at San Francisco International Airport on March 13, 2019 in Burlingame, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
United Airlines on Tuesday reported higher second-quarter revenue and narrowed its losses thanks to a resurgence in air travel, the latest carrier to issue a brightening outlook for one of the pandemic’s most battered sectors.
The Chicago-based airline said it expects to generate positive adjusted pretax income for the third and fourth quarters and that it plans to ramp up flying in response to higher travel demand. Delta Air Lines and American Airlines last week also said they have seen an improvement in bookings and financial results.
United’s revenue of $5.47 billion for the three months ended June 30, was down by more than 50% from the same quarter of 2019 but up nearly 70% from the first quarter of the year as U.S. officials rolled out Covid vaccines broadly this spring, attractions reopened and more customers returned to air travel.
However, United still posted a net loss of $434 million, its sixth consecutive quarterly loss, in the three months ended June 30. In the first three months of 2021, United lost nearly $1.4 billion. The airline said it recorded $1.1 billion in income from a federal payroll grant, part of the $54 billion Congress set aside for U.S. airlines since March 2020.
Here’s how United performed in the second quarter compared with what Wall Street expected, based on average estimates compiled by Refinitiv:
- Adjusted results per share: a loss of $3.91, in line with expectations.
- Total revenue: $5.47 billion versus expected $5.37 billion in revenue.
United’s shares were down more than 1% in afterhours trading.
The airline said it ended the second quarter with about $23 billion in available liquidity.
Adjusting for one-time items, United posted a per-share loss of $3.91, in line with analysts’ estimates.
United said its capacity for the current quarter will be down 26% from 2019 levels. In the second quarter, it flew 46% less than in 2019. It said its cost per seat mile, excluding fuel and other special charges, will likely be up 17% over the third quarter of 2019, partly due to flying shorter routes than usual and using smaller planes.
Fuel costs have also climbed. United said it paid an average of $1.97 a gallon for jet fuel in the second quarter, up nearly 67% from a year ago.
Airlines have reported a surge in bookings since this spring as vaccines rolled broadly, Covid cases fell and officials dropped pandemic-era restrictions.
United executives are scheduled to discuss the results and provide a more in-depth outlook on a 10:30 a.m. ET call Wednesday.
Analysts are expected to quiz airline management about trends in international and business travel bookings, two pillars of United’s business before the pandemic. The fast-spreading delta variant has raised concerns about renewed limits on travel.
On Monday, the State Department and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised against travel to the U.K. because of rising case counts.
But United and other airlines have been upbeat about the demand recovery. United last month said it plans to buy 270 Boeing and Airbus narrow-body jets, its largest aircraft order ever, to replace older planes and grow the carrier over the next several years.
Democrats may consider minimum wage compromise as opportunity narrows
The debate over a $15 minimum wage
With millions around the country calling for a $15 minimum wage, small business owners fear their businesses will be crippled while minimum wage workers have hope for better days ahead.
Is any increase better than no increase?
That may be the question some Senate Democrats are asking themselves as they try to pass a $15-an-hour minimum wage hike inside the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package that seems to be almost impossible.
Democrats have made it clear that they want to increase the federal minimum wage to that number, but last week were dealt an almost fatal blow when the Senate’s parliamentarian ruled that the hike should not be included in the measure.
There also seems to be no serious hope that the Senate will eliminate the filibuster. Politico reported Monday that the party “could be at risk of getting nothing unless it engages with Republicans.”
Democrats have a 10-vote edge in the House and are tied in the Senate 50-50. Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have voiced opposition to the minimum wage hike in the relief bill, and other moderates have expressed concerns, too.
In order for the Senate to pass the bill—with the wage hike included— it would need every Democrat and win over 10 Republicans to hit the 60-vote threshold. The number is impossible with the minimum wage addition the way it is currently written. But some Republicans seem willing to negotiate.
Sens. Tom Cotton and Mitt Romney wrote on FoxNews.com on Monday that it is time for an increase to the minimum wage.
GET THE FOX NEWS APP
But they wrote, “Many Democrats are hung up on an unserious scheme to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Their plan doesn’t have the votes to pass, and even if it did, a $15 minimum wage would destroy 1.4 million jobs, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).”
REP. KEVIN McCARTHY: DEMS’ $1.9 TRILLION COVID BILL IS NOT RESCUE OR RELIEF PLAN, IT’S A PELOSI PAYOFF
Their bill, which is called, the Higher Wages for American Workers Act, “would raise the federal minimum wage to $10 an hour over time and make sure all the gains go to legal workers, not illegal immigrants.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE OPINION NEWSLETTER
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who is considered a moderate, told Politico that she does not understand the “all-or-nothing approach.”
“Going from $7.25 to 10 dollars an hour … is a substantial and long-overdue increase. So why would the progressives to whom [Sen.] Chuck [Schumer] is clearly listening be opposed to that? It sounds like Chuck wants an issue, not a solution.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report