May arabica coffee (KCK26 ) today is up +3.40 (+1.16%), and May ICE robusta coffee (RMK26 ) is up +77 (+2.25%). Coffee prices are moving sharply higher today as a rally in the Brazilian real (^USDBRL ) to a 1.5-week high has sparked short covering in coffee futures. The stronger...
May arabica coffee (KCK26 ) today is up +3.40 (+1.16%), and May ICE robusta coffee (RMK26 ) is up +77 (+2.25%). Coffee prices are moving sharply higher today as a rally in the Brazilian real (^USDBRL ) to a 1.5-week high has sparked short covering in coffee futures. The stronger...
The German chancellor has drawn condemnation from NGOs and members of his own government Friedrich Merz has drawn condemnation from NGOs and members of his own government after he called for the vast majority of Syrians living in Germany to “go back to their homeland.” The German chancellor, who was elected last year after promising a tough line on immigration in a bid to beat the far right, made ...
The German chancellor has drawn condemnation from NGOs and members of his own government Friedrich Merz has drawn condemnation from NGOs and members of his own government after he called for the vast majority of Syrians living in Germany to “go back to their homeland.” The German chancellor, who was elected last year after promising a tough line on immigration in a bid to beat the far right, made the remarks during a visit to Berlin on Monday by the interim Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa . Continue reading...
This ‘growth-led separation’ is an awkward, sprawling deal, far from the clean break some may have wished for If Unilever shareholders thought the era of management-speak twaddle ended a few chief executives ago, say hello to their new partner in the food game. Brendan Foley, the boss of US spice and condiments firm McCormick, ran through the menu as he presented his big grab for Unilever’s Hellma...
This ‘growth-led separation’ is an awkward, sprawling deal, far from the clean break some may have wished for If Unilever shareholders thought the era of management-speak twaddle ended a few chief executives ago, say hello to their new partner in the food game. Brendan Foley, the boss of US spice and condiments firm McCormick, ran through the menu as he presented his big grab for Unilever’s Hellman’s-to-Knorr-to-Marmite food division . The logic, he explained, is all about “maximal adjacency”, “actionable growth levers” and “end-to-end flavour experiences”. From the point of view of Unilever’s investors, the guff wouldn’t matter if McCormick were paying a fat price in a cash deal. But this $44.8bn transaction is not like that. Unilever will extract $15.7bn in cash but the bulk of the value is represented by the equity element. Unilever’s shareholders will end up owning 55% of an expanded McCormick and Unilever itself will have 10%. It is a very long way from being a clean break. In effect, the FTSE 100 firm is merging its food business with a smaller US firm that will take on oodles of debt to step up several leagues. Continue reading...
Today on the Big Take podcast, Chris Palmeri and Lucas Shaw join Sarah Holder to look inside Paramount’s quest to win Warner Bros., and the hurdles it will face to combine these two big movie studios. (Source: Bloomberg)
Today on the Big Take podcast, Chris Palmeri and Lucas Shaw join Sarah Holder to look inside Paramount’s quest to win Warner Bros., and the hurdles it will face to combine these two big movie studios. (Source: Bloomberg)
hapabapa/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Amazon ( AMZN ) on Tuesday said it is transitioning its small business credit cards to U.S. Bank, a unit of U.S. Bancorp ( USB ), and Mastercard ( MA ). Amazon announced a new Prime Business Card and a new Amazon Business Card, which will be issued by U.S. Bank as part of the Mastercard network. The cards will come this spring. The Prime Business Card off...
hapabapa/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Amazon ( AMZN ) on Tuesday said it is transitioning its small business credit cards to U.S. Bank, a unit of U.S. Bancorp ( USB ), and Mastercard ( MA ). Amazon announced a new Prime Business Card and a new Amazon Business Card, which will be issued by U.S. Bank as part of the Mastercard network. The cards will come this spring. The Prime Business Card offers Prime members 5% back on Amazon purchases, while the Amazon Business Card offers 3% back for customers without a Prime membership. " Small businesses told us they wanted more ways to earn rewards wherever they shop and better tools to manage cash flow. We partnered with U.S. Bank and Mastercard to build a card program that delivers exactly that," said Tai Koottatep, director and general manager of Worldwide B2B Payments & Lending at Amazon. More on related tickers Amazon: This Is Worse Than You Think Amazon: Short-Term Pressure, Long-Term Opportunity Amazon's Bears Watch FCF Go Negative But Miss CEO's Lion's Share View UK regulator to probe Microsoft's business software ecosystem Loop Capital initiates coverage of seven fintech payment stocks
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Tuesday that they would target leading US technology firms like Apple, Google and Meta if more Iranian leaders were killed in “targeted assassinations”. “These companies, starting from 8pm Tehran time on Wednesday, April 1, should expect the destruction of their relevant units in exchange for every assassination in Iran,” the Guards said in a statement listing t...
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Tuesday that they would target leading US technology firms like Apple, Google and Meta if more Iranian leaders were killed in “targeted assassinations”. “These companies, starting from 8pm Tehran time on Wednesday, April 1, should expect the destruction of their relevant units in exchange for every assassination in Iran,” the Guards said in a statement listing the names of 18 companies it alleged were complicit in the killing of officials. “We advise the...
Among the underlying components of the S&P 500 index, we saw noteworthy options trading volume today in United Rentals Inc (Symbol: URI), where a total of 3,111 contracts have traded so far, representing approximately 311,100 underlying shares. That amounts to about 49.9% o
Among the underlying components of the S&P 500 index, we saw noteworthy options trading volume today in United Rentals Inc (Symbol: URI), where a total of 3,111 contracts have traded so far, representing approximately 311,100 underlying shares. That amounts to about 49.9% o
Introduction Newell Brands ( NWL ), a diversified consumer goods company that markets and sells its broad product portfolio (see image below to get a better sense of its product categories) in over 150 countries across the globe (although over 60% of sales are still in the U.S.), has proven to be a source of wealth destruction for investors for a while now. Product categories table (NWL filing) Fo...
Introduction Newell Brands ( NWL ), a diversified consumer goods company that markets and sells its broad product portfolio (see image below to get a better sense of its product categories) in over 150 countries across the globe (although over 60% of sales are still in the U.S.), has proven to be a source of wealth destruction for investors for a while now. Product categories table (NWL filing) For instance, over the past year, other consumer discretionary stocks have at least managed positive returns of single digits (on average), and other small caps have fared even better. But NWL, which currently has a market cap of less than $1.5B, has lost almost half its value. Total return comparison (YCharts) Is there hope for this beleaguered entity, which houses some storied consumer brands like Rubbermaid , Graco , and Coleman (among others), to turn things around, or is the distressing status quo likely to persist? Business Growth Will Likely Get Worse Before It Gets Better If some passive observers of NWL are wondering why the stock has taken such a beating, they may want to first start with looking at the company’s topline backdrop, where it has failed to post any positive annual growth for 15 straight quarters on the trot (that’s almost 4 years of revenue attrition)! Revenue YoY growth (YCharts) Against this very low bar, one would hope that NWL can eke out some positive growth soon enough, and it appears that we will finally get that this year, but not until the seasonally weakest Q1 is out of the way and potentially even Q2 (last year’s Q1, which is the base period, had also benefited from 1-2% of positive pre-buying due to impending tariff pressures further in the year). To shed more insight, note that revenue growth in Q1-26 is expected to worsen by -3 to -5% YoY (consensus is budgeting for a figure of -3.99%) from the -2.6% run rate in Q4-25. Consensus revenue estimates (Seeking Alpha) Now the expectation in February was that Q2-26 would finally mark an inflecti...
The SPDR S&P Telecom ETF is seeing unusually high volume in afternoon trading Tuesday, with over 213,000 shares traded versus three month average volume of about 38,000. Shares of XTL were up about 1.1% on the day. Components of that ETF with the highest volume on Tuesday
The SPDR S&P Telecom ETF is seeing unusually high volume in afternoon trading Tuesday, with over 213,000 shares traded versus three month average volume of about 38,000. Shares of XTL were up about 1.1% on the day. Components of that ETF with the highest volume on Tuesday
On Tuesday, Google unveiled Veo 3.1 Lite, its most cost-effective AI video model, and announced plans to cut prices of Veo 3.1 Fast. Shares of Google jumped about 5% on Tuesday. The Alphabet ( GOOG ) ( GOOGL ) unit said that this model empowers developers to build high-volume video applications at less than 50% of the cost of Veo 3.1 Fast, but with the same speed. This rounds out the Veo 3.1 model...
On Tuesday, Google unveiled Veo 3.1 Lite, its most cost-effective AI video model, and announced plans to cut prices of Veo 3.1 Fast. Shares of Google jumped about 5% on Tuesday. The Alphabet ( GOOG ) ( GOOGL ) unit said that this model empowers developers to build high-volume video applications at less than 50% of the cost of Veo 3.1 Fast, but with the same speed. This rounds out the Veo 3.1 model family, giving developers flexibility based on needs, according to the company. The U.S. tech giant also said that on April 7, it will also reduce the pricing for Veo 3.1 Fast, allowing for even more developers to integrate video generation into their products. Veo 3.1 Lite supports text-to-video and image-to-video. It offers flexible framing for landscape (16:9) and portrait (9:16) ratios and 720p and 1080p video resolutions. Developers can also customize the duration to four, six, or eight seconds, with the cost adjusting accordingly. The model is rolling out today, and people can access the model through paid tiers on the Gemini API and Google AI Studio. Last week, OpenAI ( OPENAI ) said it plans to discontinue offering its AI-powered short video generation app Sora. "As we focus and compute demand grows, the Sora research team continues to focus on world simulation research to advance robotics that will help people solve real-world, physical tasks," an OpenAI spokesperson had told Seeking Alpha in an email. More on Alphabet Alphabet: The Social Media Lawsuit Is Not A Long-Term Risk Alphabet: Bulls Are Ignoring The Biggest Red Flag Alphabet: I'm Finally Getting Very Excited Again (Upgrade) Seagate, Sandisk, WDC provide entry points after TurboQuant prompts plunge: Bernstein Australia weighs legal action against Meta, Snapchat, others over teen ban breaches
jetcityimage The Japanese unit of Wendy's Company ( WEN ) is in play, according to Bloomberg. Investment firm Longreach Group is reportedly considering offers. "Private equity is always looking for any overlooked, undervalued asset class, and certainly the restaurant industry has been that," stated Wendy's Japan Chairman Ernie Higa on the development. Wendy's ( WEN ) entered Japan in 1980 through ...
jetcityimage The Japanese unit of Wendy's Company ( WEN ) is in play, according to Bloomberg. Investment firm Longreach Group is reportedly considering offers. "Private equity is always looking for any overlooked, undervalued asset class, and certainly the restaurant industry has been that," stated Wendy's Japan Chairman Ernie Higa on the development. Wendy's ( WEN ) entered Japan in 1980 through a franchise deal with Daiei Group, but the brand never gained the scale or market fit it needed in the highly competitive fast-food environment. The chain struggled for years against more established U.S. rivals such as McDonald’s, and by 2009 Wendy’s ended its first Japan run after the franchise agreement lapsed. Wendy's ( WEN ) returned to Japan in 2011 under a new arrangement tied to Ernest Higa and Higa Industries, but the comeback was initially small and slow, with only a few stores open in the early years. To strengthen the business, Wendy’s Japan later acquired First Kitchen in 2016 and created the hybrid "Wendy’s First Kitchen" concept, aiming to blend Wendy’s ( WEN ) brand with a more localized menu and restaurant style. Since then, the Japan business has focused on a premium, fast-casual positioning rather than a pure U.S.-style burger rollout. Shares of Wendy's ( WEN ) were up 0.9% in Tuesday afternoon trading. More on Wendy's Wendy's: The Market Hates The Reset - I'm Buying It Wendy's: Struggles In A McValue World Wendy's: Falling Sharply Behind In Fast Food Wars (Rating Downgrade) Top-yielding consumer discretionary stocks amid war-driven global energy shock Wendy's plans 60 new restaurants in Mexico through partnerships
Poll of 10,000 teachers also finds ‘overwhelming’ exam anxiety and rising absenteeism linked to poor mental health Almost half of primary school teachers are seeing pupils with eating disorders “at least occasionally”, rising to four in five at secondary level, according to a survey by the UK’s largest education union. The findings emerged in a poll of 10,000 teachers in English state schools abou...
Poll of 10,000 teachers also finds ‘overwhelming’ exam anxiety and rising absenteeism linked to poor mental health Almost half of primary school teachers are seeing pupils with eating disorders “at least occasionally”, rising to four in five at secondary level, according to a survey by the UK’s largest education union. The findings emerged in a poll of 10,000 teachers in English state schools about pupils’ mental health, which also revealed “overwhelming” exam anxiety in secondaries and dwindling numbers of counsellors to support students. Continue reading...