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Missouri firefighters push man home after electric wheelchair breaks, video shows

A group of firefighters in Missouri were recently caught on tape lending a helping hand to an individual whose electric wheelchair gave out.

A video of the kind gesture, which appeared to be shot from inside a vehicle following behind, was shared on Facebook Tuesday by the Raytown Fire Protection District and showed the responders pushing the wheelchair down the road.

FLORIDA FIREFIGHTERS PAINT HOME OF BLIND WORLD WAR II VETERAN, 89

“What happens when a Fire Truck comes upon a citizen who’s electric wheelchair has stopped working. You get out and help them home,” the post said.

The man, who is a veteran, received the assistance after his chair got caught in the ground while he was visiting a pond in the area, Deputy Chief Mike Hunley told The Kansas City Star. Attempts by people on the scene to help him were reportedly unsuccessful so the fire department was called.

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“Our guys responded out there and basically lifted a wheelchair with him in it up out of the rut he was stuck in,” Hunley said. “He apparently had been trying to get himself out with the wheelchair and had expended the battery so it was pretty drained.”

The firefighters were reportedly able to get the man home so he could power up his wheelchair.

Source: Fox News National

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China central bank to encourage innovation in financial markets this year

FILE PHOTO: Woman walks past the headquarters of the PBOC in Beijing
FILE PHOTO: A woman walks past the headquarters of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, in Beijing, June 21, 2013. REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo

February 26, 2019

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s central bank said on Tuesday that it will give guidance on macro-credit policy this year and encourage financial market innovation to boost the economy.

The role of the bond market in replenishing banks’ capital will be strengthened while bond financing by private and small firms will also be encouraged, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC)said in a statement on its website.

Fending off financial risk is still a difficult task, said the PBOC, adding that it will seek to step up risk controls over property financing, the gold market and commercial bill market.

(Reporting by Stella Qiu and Beijing Monitoring Desk; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: OANN

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How Capitalists — Unlike Environmentalists — Make Life Easier for the Disabled

When I was a kid in the 1980s, Velcro shoes hit the stores in force.

Although Puma first started using the fasteners in 1968, it was not until the 1980s that the shoes became commonplace on the street and at retail outlets.

At the time, many of us mocked the idea. “Who is so lazy he can’t tie shoelaces?” we snickered. We were all sure we were quite superior in our willingness to tie our own shoelaces. Years later, I noticed that quite a few elderly people — and others with reduced mobility or disabilities such as severe arthritis or cerebral palsy, often wore shoes fastened with Velcro. At that point, my playground cleverness didn’t seem quite so clever anymore.

Velcro shoes, of course, aren’t the only product that might strike us as only for lazy people.

The Huffington Post has mocked tomato slicers and corn “kernelers,” to name just two examples among the plethora of “useless” products marketed by greedy capitalists who will sell anything to make a buck.

Many of these products, however, aren’t pointless at all. While everyday tasks like slicing a tomato may be easy for those of us with normally functioning bodies, that’s not necessarily the case for everyone.

In Vox last year, responding to criticisms of allegedly useless products like the “Sock Slider,” author s.e. smith [sic] writes :

“If I didn’t have that silly piece of plastic with ropes, I wouldn’t be able to put socks on,” says Emily Ladau, a disabled advocate, writer, and speaker with Larsen syndrome , a congenital skeletal disorder.  Ladau, who uses a wheelchair for mobility, cannot bend over to put on socks. Without a “sock putter-onner,” as she calls it, she would be forced to rely on the assistance of a personal care attendant (PCA) to put her socks on every morning. “Something that people think is a silly piece of plastic is one of the reasons I don’t need a PCA when I travel.”

Environmentalists to the Disabled: Screw You

The daily hassles faced by the disabled, though, appear to have gone quite unnoticed by environmentalists who have taken to attacking useless products as not only silly, but as morally objectionable. These products, we are told, are environmentally damaging.

One example is a case of Twitter-manufactured outrage over “wasteful” packaging of pre-peeled oranges at Whole Foods. In 2016, an apparently non-disabled woman posted a photo of the oranges on the shelf and complained — with the usual level of tiresome snark we’ve come to expect on Twitter — “If only nature would find a way to cover these oranges so we didn’t need to waste so much plastic on them.”

As of this writing, the comment has over 104,000 likes, and Whole Foods eventually responded, saying “Definitely our mistake. These have been pulled. We hear you, and we will leave them in their natural packaging: the peel.”

That comment received over 750 likes.

What received far fewer likes was a comment from another user, who wrote:

I’m so sorry you’ve decided to do that. I have rheumatoid disease and it’s often impossible to peel an orange.

This, however, was apparently not very convincing to the Environmental Justice Warriors. One dismissively told the woman claiming to have rheumatoid disease to buy an orange peeler, which earned the response “If I could handle that, I could handle an orange. 🙂 It’s really no different from baby carrots in a bag or getting a pizza delivery.” To that, the Enlightened Environmentalist essentially responded “tough luck, there’s too much plastic in the ocean.”

Another environmentalist posted in response to the photo of the pre-peeled oranges:

Fu—ing hell. That makes me unbelievably angry actually. Talk about necessarily contributing to plastic taking over the planet.

When confronted with the idea that “not everyone is physically able to peel an orange,” she retorted “You know, as well as i do, that that is NOT who that is marketed towards.”

By this way of thinking, products that help the disabled are only to be tolerated if their packaging is emblazoned with phrases like “great for cripples!” or “designed for invalids!” All other products that aren’t obviously aids for disabled people shall be mocked as “useless,” and “wasteful” or perhaps banned under force of law.

The environmentalists’ war against the disabled perhaps reached a fever pitch in 2018 when activists throughout the wealthy West began demanding that small business remove all plastic straws from their stores, and that governments even outlaw them.

Some advocates for the disabled noted that plastic straws as essential in allowing many disabled people to enjoy the products and services many other people take for granted. One of these advocates, Alice Wong, explained at eater.com:

Plastic is seen as cheap, “anti-luxury,” wasteful, and harmful to the environment. All true. Plastic is also an essential part of my health and wellness. With my neuromuscular disability, plastic straws are necessary tools for my hydration and nutrition.

This argument didn’t get much of a better hearing than the orange-peel argument. Many social media readers suggested that disabled people should just carry their own straws everywhere. And after all, what’s the big deal? What did disabled people do before straws anyway?

 

Entrepreneurs vs. Consumers

There are many unpleasant lessons we could learn from these exchanges about the problems that come with being smug and self-centered.

But as this is an economics site, I’d like to focus here on what the “useless products” debate illustrates about the difference between consumers and entrepreneurs.

The lack of sensitivity we encounter with the anti-plastic environmentalists isn’t only a product of a single-minded ideology. It’s also the result of the narrow-mindedness that comes from thinking primarily as a consumer and lacking the broader mindset of an entrepreneur.

For example, in order to consume, one needs to think only in terms of himself and others like him. “I don’t need a tomato slicer,” the thinking goes, “so it’s safe to say that no one else needs one either.”

The entrepreneur, on the other hand, approaches things far differently. He (or she) thinks in terms of changing the status quo. The entrepreneur thinks in terms of meeting an unmet need.

Whether or not the entrepreneur thinks explicitly in terms of meeting the needs of disabled people is, of course, completely beside the point. The fact is that many new products created by entrepreneurs end up helping disabled people, and that’s now a common outcome in a marketplace. It’s to be expected in a marketplace where entrepreneurs think constantly in terms of expanding the world of products and services available to a large number of consumers.

So, as the universe of consumer goods expands to include Sock Sliders and tomato peelers and plastic straws, the market also expands to meet the unmet needs of more and more people.

Also irrelevant is the fact that many entrepreneurs and inventors of various products may have no idea of how these products might be used ahead of time. Entrepreneurs are partly in the business of guessing what new products and services people want. But since those products and services don’t exist already in the marketplace, they can’t know for sure.

Some products may, at first, appear to be useless. It may be the inventor of the Sock Slider didn’t set out to invent a “sock-putter-onner”  at all. The inventor may have simply been toying around with a variety of different ideas, as is suggested by inventor Simone Giertz:

The true beauty of making useless things [is] this acknowledgment that you don’t always know what the best answer is … It turns off that voice in your head that tells you that you know exactly how the world works.

Giertz is summarizing what many entrepreneurs also ready know: they can’t be sure about “exactly how the world works.” But, they are willing to try to deliver new products and services that the world might be willing to pay for. They often fail to guess properly. But they also sometimes succeed. The question is always this: can I meet an unmet need at a cost below the price people are willing to pay?” When the answer is “yes,” the world often gets new and better products — and many of them improve the lives of the disabled.

The consumer who wants to ban plastic straws and “useless” products for “lazy” people thinks in an entirely different way. These people already consider themselves experts on what everyone needs. They think they know exactly “how the world works” and they’re itching to pass laws and shame others to make sure the world fits their vision. Rather than expanding the world of new products and services, these consumers want to shrink it — to keep it in line with their personal needs, and to reflect what they themselves consider to be important.

While the consumer thinks “nobody needs that!” the entrepreneur thinks “I wonder if someone needs that.” These are two very different ways of looking at the world. Only one of them helps disabled people live easier lives.



Will Johnson presents a video and breaks down how a female was attacked by a leftist simply for wearing her ‘Make America Great Again’ hat.

Source: InfoWars

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Risk of U.S. ‘profit recession’ eases as results beat forecasts

FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor at the NYSE in New York
FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., April 8, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

April 18, 2019

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The initial earnings results of this reporting period are beating expectations by a wide margin, suggesting to some investors that the S&P 500 may be able to avoid a so-called “profit recession” this year because predicted economic bad news has failed to materialize.

That is a reversal of the view from a few months ago, when the 2019 profit outlook appeared to be getting worse. Earnings already faced tough comparisons with last year, when the U.S. tax code overhaul provided a big boost.

The quarter could be the trough for “this mini down cycle,” said Keith Lerner, chief market strategist at SunTrust Advisory Services in Atlanta. “The market is now expecting to see earnings stabilize. Eventually, if the global story gets better as we expect, earnings will help propel the market higher later this year.”

Though it is still early in the season, the aggregate profit forecast has improved from an estimated year-over-year decline of 2.5% a week ago to an expected decline of just 1.7% as of Thursday, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

The average earnings surprise so far is higher than what is typical. Nick Raich, CEO of The Earnings Scout, said based on his data, the earnings surprise factor for the 77 S&P 500 companies that have reported is 6.1%, the highest in at least three years.

The average earnings surprise for an entire earnings period since 1994 is 3.2%, based on Refinitiv’s data.

Moreover, 78% of the companies reporting have beaten estimates on earnings per share, above the amount at the same time last quarter.

The data underscores the view that S&P 500 companies will end up posting an increase in year-over-year earnings for the first quarter, and that a profit recession – defined as two straight quarters of year-over-year earnings declines – is much less likely in 2019. That, in turn, could support the argument that a long bull market in stocks could get longer still since earnings drive stock prices.

The last S&P 500 earnings recession ran from July 2015 to June of 2016.

“Numbers were slashed significantly going into this reporting period,” said Lindsey Bell, investment strategist at CFRA Research in New York. “I think we are going to end up seeing flat to positive growth for the quarter when it is all said and done.”

To be sure, the earnings season is just getting going, and corporate earnings face a number a headwinds: costs are rising because of tensions with U.S. trading partners, a stronger dollar diminishes the value of overseas sales, and technology companies in aggregate are looking at a likely profit decline in the first quarter.

Analysts began to cut earnings forecasts for 2019 in the fourth quarter and the market sold off as worries increased over the interest rate and economic outlook, and as the United States’ trade conflict with China seemed far from over.

But those fears have eased since then, and the S&P 500 index has risen sharply since late December.

Profit forecasts for the second quarter and beyond have steadied as well.

“We have actually seen some signs of life as companies are starting to report first-quarter earnings slightly better than expected,” BlackRock Inc’s chief equity strategist, Kate Moore, said during the asset manager’s quarterly U.S. wealth advisory event on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak and Saqib Iqbal Ahmed; editing by Alden Bentley and Nick Zieminski)

Source: OANN

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Louisiana man beats woman to death with hammer during dispute, police say

A Louisiana man confessed to beating a woman to death with a hammer after they had a dispute while smoking crack cocaine Monday, police said.

Willie Joseph III, 63, is facing a second-degree murder charge after confessing to killing an unidentified victim, according to WAFB.

Joseph -- who recently served 26 years in prison for rape -- admitted to smoking crack cocaine with the woman before they began to argue and she threatened him with a hammer, WAFB reported.

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Joseph reportedly told police that, after wrestling the tool away, he “lost it” and struck her at least three times on the head, according to an arrest report. He then covered her face with a plastic bag to “finish off,” officials said.

Police found the woman, who Joseph was reportedly dating, wrapped in a bedspread in a neighboring trailer.

After killing the woman, Joseph continued to smoke before turning himself in, according to WAFB.

Fox News' Michael Sinkewicz contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News National

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Italy's checking if NKorean envoy's daughter was forced back

Italy's foreign minister says Italy is investigating whether the daughter of a former North Korean diplomat was forcibly returned to Pyongyang as her parents apparently tried to defect.

Enzo Moavero Milanesi was responding Wednesday to demands by Italian lawmakers to know the fate of the 17-year-old girl.

Her father, Jo Song Gil, had been serving as North Korea's acting ambassador to Italy. Last month, South Korea's spy agency told South Korean lawmakers that Jo went into hiding with his wife in Nov. 2018, just as his posting to Italy was ending.

Jo's disappearance raised the possibility of the defection of a senior North Korean official. His whereabouts are unknown and Italy has only said that Jo hadn't requested asylum.

South Korean media have reported Jo was under Italian government protection.

Source: Fox News World

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Supreme Court conservatives signal possible support for census citizenship question

The Supreme Court’s conservative justices signaled possible support Tuesday for the Trump administration’s bid to ask about citizenship on the 2020 census, during a high-stakes argument where partisan lines were quickly drawn.

While the liberal justice peppered the government with questions about the plan, the conservative justices were mostly silent during arguments, in a sign the conservative majority could hold in the administration's favor in the closely watched case.

NAPOLITANO ON CENSUS: ‘THE ONLY QUESTION YOU ARE OBLIGED TO ANSWER IS THE TOTAL NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO LIVE THERE’ 

At issue is the level of discretion Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross -- who oversees the U.S. Census Bureau -- has to change information contained in the once-a-decade population count.

Three federal courts have blocked the Commerce Department from adding the citizenship question, ruling that Ross violated federal law in the way he went about trying to include the question for the first time since 1950.

It is a major fight over executive power with stark implications for the fight over immigration, and for national elections. Critics say adding the question would discourage many immigrants from being counted. How the justices rule could affect how many seats states have in the House of Representatives and their share of federal dollars over the next 10 years.

The 85-minute oral argument Tuesday grew testy at times, with several on the bench interrupting counsel repeatedly, and others offering lengthy explanations of their legal positions.

The four left-leaning justices pressed the solicitor general for the Justice Department to explain the reasoning behind the citizenship question, noting experts at the Census Bureau have said the citizenship question could lead to an undercount of as many as 6.5 million, especially in urban areas.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said there was "no doubt" many in the immigrant community would be discouraged from participating, and that the result "is about 100-percent that people will answer less."

But several justices on the right questioned whether the citizenship question alone would cause an inaccurate census, saying the survey routinely asks a range of questions on the form, beyond the number of people in a household.

Chief Justice John Roberts noted a person's sex and age are also included.

A coalition of states led by New York, along with several cities, and civil liberties groups brought the legal challenge before the high court, and federal judges around the country have ruled against the administration.

TRUMP RIPS 'RADICAL' DEMOCRATS, SAYS CENSUS 'MEANINGLESS' WITHOUT CITIZENSHIP QUESTION

The federal government and 17 other states say it is needed to help enforce the Voting Rights Act.

One of the foundational requirements of the federal democracy, the census holds enormous political, social, and economic weight. The makeup of Congress and other elected offices, as well as the distribution of taxpayer funds are directly determined by the population count, and the numbers offer a broad canvas into the nation's racial, regional, and cultural identity.

The Constitution's Article I, Section II requires a count of the population every 10 years, "in such Manner as they [Congress] shall by Law direct."

The case is Department of Commerce v. New York (18-966). A ruling is due by late June, and the deadline is tight, to ensure the census forms--whether amended or not-- are printed and distributed in time.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Source: Fox News Politics

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A worker walks on the roof of a new home under construction in Carlsbad
FILE PHOTO: A worker walks on the roof of a new home under construction in Carlsbad, California September 22, 2014. REUTERS/Mike Blake

April 26, 2019

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. economy is growing at a 2.08% annualized pace in the second quarter based on upbeat data on durable goods orders and new home sales in March, the New York Federal Reserve’s Nowcast model showed on Friday.

This was faster than the 1.92% growth rate calculated by the N.Y. Fed model the week before.

(Reporting by Richard Leong; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

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Extraordinary European Union leaders summit in Brussels
FILE PHOTO: Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte arrives at an extraordinary European Union leaders summit to discuss Brexit, in Brussels, Belgium April 10, 2019. REUTERS/Yves Herman

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Friday he had assured China’s Huawei Technologies that it would not face discrimination in the rollout of Italy’s 5G telecoms network.

Conte was speaking on a visit to China where he said he met Huawei’s chief executive, Ren Zhengfei. The prime minister’s comments were carried in Italy by TV broadcaster Sky Italia.

“I told him that we have adopted some precautions, some measures to protect our interests that demand very high levels of security … not only from Huawei but any company entering into the 5G arena,” he said.

Huawei, the world’s biggest producer of telecoms equipment, is under intense scrutiny after the United States told allies not to use its technology because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has categorically denied this.

(Writing by by Mark Bendeich; Editing by Angelo Amante)

Source: OANN

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U.S. President Trump departs for travel to Indianapolis from the White House in Washington
U.S. President Donald Trump talks to reporters as he departs for travel to Indianapolis, Indiana from the White House in Washington, U.S., April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

April 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Friday was expected to announce his intention to revoke the United States’ status as a signatory of the Arms Trade Treaty, which was signed in 2013 by then-President Barack Obama but never ratified by Congress, two U.S. officials said.

Trump was expected to announce the decision in a speech in Indianapolis, to the National Rifle Association, the officials said. The NRA, a powerful gun lobby group, has long been opposed to the treaty, which was negotiated at the United Nations.

(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Bill Trott)

Source: OANN

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A remote controlled robot for the 'Isotopium: Chernobyl' game is seen at the game's location in Brovary
A remote controlled robot for the ‘Isotopium: Chernobyl’ game is seen at the game’s location in Brovary, Ukraine April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

April 26, 2019

By Margaryta Chornokondratenko

KIEV (Reuters) – A Ukrainian computer game that brings to life a town abandoned after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster may not sound like everyone’s idea of fun but has attracted 60,000 people globally since its launch in October.

Players of “Isotopium: Chernobyl” drive tanks around the ghost town of Prypyat near Chernobyl, knocking out competitors as they search for an energy source called isotopium and collecting points every time they find some.

While the game takes its theme from the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in northern Ukraine, which marked its 33rd anniversary on Friday, it was also inspired by the 2009 science fiction film “Avatar”.

Newcomers to the game think they have entered a virtual world when in fact they are controlling a real robot, equipped with a camera and computer, which makes its way around a model of the town rendered down to the tiniest detail.

“When playing our game, for the first 5-10 minutes many players don’t understand that it is not fictional,” said the game’s co-founder Sergey Beskrestnov. “They message us saying: ‘You have cool texture, you have good graphics, your designer is good, well done. You have a cool operating system.’

“People then reply: ‘It is not an operating system, it is real,’ and the player can’t believe it is real,” said Beskrestnov, speaking mid-game from Prypyat city square as he towers over surrounding five-storey buildings.

Kiev-born Beskrestnov was just 12 years old when on April 26, 1986 a botched test at the nuclear plant in the then Soviet Union sent clouds of smoldering nuclear material across large swathes of Europe, forced over 50,000 people, including Beskrestnov’s family, to evacuate and poisoned unknown numbers of workers involved in its clean-up.

Beskrestnov and his partner Alexey Fateyev used Google maps and hundreds of pictures from the Chernobyl area to recreate Prypyat landmarks, including residential buildings, a hotel, concert hall, amusement park and a stadium.

The game’s real-scale model occupies a 180 square meter (1,938 sq. ft) basement of a residential building in the Ukraine city of Brovary, just 150 km (93 miles) from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and 30 km east of Kiev.

Miniature radioactivity warning signs, graffiti on the walls of abandoned buildings and tables and chairs left scattered inside a small cafe all add to the creepy atmosphere of a once lively town.

“It’s a really neat concept …,” Shaun Prescott wrote in a review of the game published by PC Gamer magazine in January. “Controlling the tanks is kinda cumbersome, but they are tanks, after all.”

An attentive player will notice at least one inaccuracy – the real Chernobyl nuclear power plant is not located in town as it is in the game.

It costs $9 to immerse in the atmosphere of a post-apocalyptic town for an hour but only 20 people at a time can play simultaneously. Beskrestnov’s company, Remote Games, said 62,615 people around the world have registered to play the game, including around 15,000 in France and 10,000 in the United States.

A camera fixed on top of a moving tank broadcasts high quality signal in real time, allowing players from as far apart as Australia and Canada enjoy the game without facing any time delay in delivering video signals.

Its creators next ambition is to devise a game featuring the colonization of Mars in which 1,000 people will be able to simultaneously control robots on different missions involved in the operation.

“Many people advise us to contact Elon Musk directly because it resonates his dreams and ideas,” Beskrestnov jokes.    

(Editing by Susan Fenton)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: A Starbucks sign is show on one of the companies stores in Los Angeles, California
FILE PHOTO: A Starbucks sign is show on one of the companies stores in Los Angeles, California, U.S. October 19,2018. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Initial optimism over first-quarter results from Starbucks Corp was waning fast on Wall Street on Friday, as analysts questioned the longer-term prospects of its new sales push given subdued overall customer traffic numbers especially in China.

The company on Thursday beat brokerage estimates for quarterly same-store sales on the back of demand for its new Cloud Macchiato, Matcha tea and cold brews in the United States.

However, BTIG’s Peter Saleh was one of a number of sector analysts who said while customers forking out for higher-priced new drinks had helped drive growth in same-store sales, “anemic” traffic at cafes remained a concern.

He and others pointed to a 1 percent decline in footfall at cafes in the Chinese market, viewed as crucial to the chain’s growth for the foreseeable future.

More broadly, transaction numbers, the substitute analysts use for customer traffic, were unchanged in all three of the company’s global regions.

Shares in the company, which hit a record high after the results on Thursday, fell 1 percent in morning trade.

“We remain cautious given near-term headwinds surrounding China, including cannibalization, increasing competition (and) a slowing economy,” Wedbush analyst Nick Setyan said.

Starbucks has also poured money into beefing up its delivery network in China as it battles with local startup Luckin Coffee, whose speedy growth led it to file for an IPO in the United States earlier this week.

New menu items and partnerships with delivery services, the heart of the company’s strategy to win back customers lost to artisanal coffee shops and cheaper fast-food rivals, did help Starbucks’ sales in its home market.

However, analysts said growth in China may continue to be subdued.

Wells Fargo analyst Bonnie Herzog said she expects store expansion in China to take priority over comparable sales growth.

She downgraded her rating on Starbucks’ to “market perform” from “outperform”, arguing that the company facing tough sales comparisons later on in 2019 from last year and the current rich valuation of shares meant the stock had limited room to rise.

“Investors will be hesitant to invest new money in a stock with a topline that, while still strong, is unlikely to meaningfully accelerate,” Herzog said.

Still, the company’s solid same-store growth in the United States, improving profit margins and a lower tax rate for the rest of the year led at least 6 Wall Street brokerages to raise their price targets on the stock to as high as $81.

11 of 29 brokerages rate Starbucks “buy” or higher, 17 “hold” and 1 “sell” or lower. Their median price target is $75.

(Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru)

Source: OANN

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