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Exclusive: Telecom equipment provider Avaya considers leveraged buyout – sources

The sign at Avaya Inc. offices and lab in Westminster, Colorado is seen
The sign at Avaya Inc. offices and lab in Westminster, Colorado is seen January 23, 2007. Avaya Inc., an Internet telephone equipment supplier, on Tuesday posted a quarterly profit that was ahead of analyst estimates even as its revenue missed expectations. REUTERS/Rick Wilking (UNITED STATES)

March 24, 2019

By Liana B. Baker

(Reuters) – Telecommunications equipment and software vendor Avaya Holdings Corp is considering a leveraged buyout offer from a private equity firm that values it at more than $5 billion, including debt, people familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

The acquisition offer comes 15 months after Avaya emerged from bankruptcy protection, the legacy of a previous leveraged buyout, its $8.3 billion sale to private equity firms TPG Capital and Silver Lake in 2007.

Avaya’s board of directors is evaluating an offer from a private equity firm that values it at more than $20 per share, the sources said. Avaya shares ended trading on Friday at $13.21, giving it a market capitalization of $1.5 billion. The company also had $3.2 billion in debt as of the end of December.

The identity of the private equity firm making the offer could not immediately be learned. Avaya has attracted acquisition interest from private equity firms over the last few months, and there is no certainty the latest offer will result in a deal, the sources said.

The sources asked not to be identified because the matter is confidential. Avaya did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Based in Santa Clara, California, Avaya is one of the world’s largest providers of telephony systems. It was spun off from Lucent Technologies Inc in 2000, which used to be part of AT&T Inc.

Avaya, which competes with Microsoft Corp and Cisco Systems Inc, has been trying to boost its business of providing communications software to companies, as its hardware business became more commoditized and dated. It has also been seeking to broaden its offerings of cloud-based communications solutions.

Software and services accounted for 83 percent of Avaya’s revenue of $738 million in the three months to the end of December. That was down from $752 million in the year-ago period. The company blamed currency exchange rates and the U.S. federal government partial shutdown for the weaker earnings.

Operating income was $50 million, up from $38 million a year ago.

Avaya’s contact center business, which powers the customer care and sales operations of some of the world’s biggest companies, has also attracted acquisition interest in the past from private equity firms, including Clayton Dubilier & Rice LLC, Hellman & Friedman LLC and Permira Advisers LLP. Hellman & Friedman and Permira own Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Inc, a U.S. provider of call center software.

(Reporting by Liana B. Baker in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Source: OANN

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Trump accuses Dems of blocking relief aid to Hurricane Michael victims: report

President Trump on Wednesday said Democrats have largely given up on the Southeast and are deliberately stalling relief efforts for farmers and other residents who were affected by Hurricane Michael in October.

“The Democrats don’t care about Georgia. They don’t care about Alabama,” Trump said during a brief appearance at an opioid abuse summit in Atlanta. “They don’t care about numerous other states.”

TRUMP TOUTS SUCCESS IN BATTLING OPIOID EPIDEMIC DURING ATLANTA SPEECH

Georgia lawmakers have proposed a $14 billion relief package for victims of Hurricane Michael, which also devastated the Florida Panhandle in October. But efforts to put legislation forward have stalled in Washington amid infighting.

Democrats, in turn, have accused Trump of neglecting Puerto Rico, the U.S. territory that was devastated by a pair of hurricanes in late 2017, in favor of Georgia.

“Pitting Americans in Georgia against Americans in Puerto Rico is fundamentally wrong and wholly unnecessary,” said former Georgia House Minority Leader and Senate candidate Stacey Abrams. “Georgia families and farmers deserve better leadership, and they deserve real relief now.”

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, meanwhile, has called Washington’s inability to reach a consensus on the matter “a low point as a nation,” according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

PUERTO RICO GOV SLAMS TRUMP, SEEKS SWIFTER STORM RECOVERY

“It continues to be beyond me, when we have over a dozen states affected by this storm, we cannot get this done,” Kemp, a Republican, said. “Our folks in South Georgia feel like we’ve forgotten them. I can assure them we have not.”

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Trump called Democrats' inability to pass disaster relief aid a “terrible thing,” but expressed confidence that “we’re going to get it done, and a lot of that money goes to farmers, and that’s what we’re doing.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Video: Proof Modern Liberals Have Aligned With The KKK

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Yemenis bury children killed in Hajjah air strikes

Mourners carry a coffin during a funeral of people killed by an air strike last week in the northwestern province of Hajja, in Sanaa
Mourners carry a coffin during a funeral of people killed by an air strike last week in the northwestern province of Hajja, in Sanaa, Yemen March 14, 2019. REUTERS/Mohamed al-Sayaghi

March 14, 2019

By Abdulrahman Al-Ansi

SANAA (Reuters) – Hundreds of mourners in northern Yemen on Thursday buried 17 civilians, including nine children, killed in air strikes last week as Western pressure increased on the warring parties to end the devastating four-year war.

A Saudi-led coalition backing the internationally recognized government has been providing air support to tribes in Hajjah province battling the Iran-backed Houthi group. Last week, air strikes on Kushar district killed 10 women and 12 children and wounded 30 people, including 14 under the age of 18.

The coalition blamed the deaths on shelling by Houthi fighters that struck the houses of tribesmen.

Many of those killed and wounded were transported to the Houthi-held capital Sanaa. On Thursday, mourners carried wooden coffins, painted green, to the Grand Mosque for prayers.

Eleven victims were from the same family, residents said.

A procession weaved through Sanaa’s dusty streets as Houthi activists with megaphones denounced the “Saudi aggression”. “Death to America, death to Israel!” the crowd chanted.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict that pits the Houthis against the Saudi-backed government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The Sunni Muslim alliance intervened in the war in March 2015 in support of Hadi after his government was driven out of Sanaa by Houthi forces in late 2014.

Coalition leaders Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are under pressure from Western nations, some of which supply arms and intelligence to the alliance, to end a war that has pushed the poorest Arab state to the brink of famine.

HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS DISPLACED

UNICEF said in a statement that since the beginning of March more than 37,000 people had been displaced within Hajjah province – around half of them children.

“The situation is difficult with the air strikes and the tank fire. Some people lost their children, houses were destroyed. We rescued whoever we could and we left the dead,” Mohammed Sagheer, one of the displaced, told Reuters.

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said fighting over the past six months has forced over 203,000 people to flee to safety in Hajjah, almost doubling the number of displaced people in the northern governorate to 420,000.

“Whilst the eyes of the world are on Hodeidah, air strikes and shells continue to rain down on civilians in other parts of Yemen, killing with impunity,” Nigel Tricks, NRC’s East Africa and Yemen Regional Director, said in a statement this week.

The warring sides reached a deal at U.N.-led peace talks last December, the first significant breakthrough in more than four years, for a ceasefire and troop withdrawal from the main port city of Hodeidah on the Red Sea.

The truce has largely held but the troop withdrawal has stalled due to deep mistrust among the parties, risking U.N. efforts to hold another round of talks to agree a framework for political negotiations to end the war.

The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council said on Tuesday they were “extremely concerned” about the lack of progress and urged both sides to implement the pact.

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday approved a resolution seeking to end U.S. support for the coalition, in a strong message to Riyadh over the Yemen war and the murder of a Saudi journalist at the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate last year.

The conflict is widely seen in the region as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Houthis deny they are puppets of Tehran and say their revolution is against corruption.

(Additional reporting by Reuters team in Yemen; Writing by Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by Ghaida Ghantous and Mark Heinrich)

Source: OANN

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London underground station attack leads to murder charges for 2 men, police say

Two men were arrested and charged with murder in connection with an alleged assault at an underground station in northwest London Sunday, British Transport Police (BTP) said in a statement.

The two 23-year-old men had an alleged altercation at the Queensbury London Underground station around 12:30 a.m.

MAN CHARGED WITH EGG ASSAULT ON UK OPPOSITION LEADER

Florin Pitic, 20, suffered a serious injury during the confrontation, according to BTP, and later died at the hospital.

The details of the alleged assault were unclear.

The suspects, Ciprian Mandachi and Alin Mihai, have both been charged with murder and common assault. They are in police custody and are scheduled to appear in court Wednesday morning, the BTP statement said.

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All three men were from northwest London.

Source: Fox News World

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Iran’s oil exports fall in March even before further U.S. clampdown: sources

FILE PHOTO: A gas flare on an oil production platform in the Soroush oil fields is seen alongside an Iranian flag in the Persian Gulf
FILE PHOTO: A gas flare on an oil production platform in the Soroush oil fields is seen alongside an Iranian flag in the Persian Gulf, Iran, July 25, 2005. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi

March 21, 2019

By Alex Lawler

LONDON (Reuters) – Iran’s oil exports have dropped in March to their lowest daily level this year, according to tanker data and industry sources, even before Washington formally requires importing countries to reduce purchases to avoid infringing U.S. sanctions.

Shipments are averaging between 1.0 and 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) so far this month, according to Refinitiv Eikon data and three other companies that track Iranian exports. That’s lower than February, when shipments were at least 1.3 million bpd.

Shipments have dropped from at least 2.5 million bpd in April 2018, the month before U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and reimposed sanctions, fueling a year of economic crisis in the country.

Tehran has vowed to keep exporting oil despite U.S. efforts to reduce its shipments to zero, but the export decline could be another indicator of economic pressure from the embargo.

In a new year speech on Thursday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the Islamic Republic had resisted U.S. sanctions and called on the government to boost national production to face enemy pressures.

For the oil market, the drop in Iranian shipments will add to an OPEC-led oil supply cut and comes ahead of U.S. plans to clamp down further on Iranian exports from May, after ending of the current round of fairly generous waivers from sanctions.

Still, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, which began cutting production from Jan. 1 to bolster prices, are unlikely to be in a rush to change course, analysts say, without concrete signs of a shortage.

“We do expect less Iranian oil exports after May,” said Sara Vakhshouri of energy consultant SVB Energy International.

“However, we don’t think that OPEC will increase its production in anticipation of lower Iranian oil exports, but only if there are clear signs of further Iran and/or Venezuelan export cuts in the market,” Vakhshouri said.

Venezuela, an OPEC member, is also under U.S. sanctions which have curbed its exports.

Iran’s export levels have become more opaque since U.S. sanctions on the country’s oil sector took effect in November, although estimates of March supplies are falling into a narrower range than in previous months.

Kpler, a company that tracks oil flows, said Iranian shipments so far in March had dropped sharply to 1.03 million bps from 1.44 million bpd in February.

“Iranian crude loadings have struggled through the first half of March,” Kpler said in a report, although it said exports would rise closer to 1.3 million bpd in the rest of March.

(Editing by David Holmes)

Source: OANN

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Turkish lira tumbles 5 percent, central bank acts on swap limits

A man sits in front of a currency exchange office in Izmir
A man sits in front of a currency exchange office in Izmir, Turkey August 18, 2018. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

March 28, 2019

By Nevzat Devranoglu and Behiye Selin Taner

ANKARA (Reuters) – The Turkish lira plunged as much as 5 percent against the dollar on Thursday as investors continued to fret about moves by Turkish authorities to withhold lira liquidity from the London market.

The central bank has made a series of moves to underpin the lira this week and bankers said it took a fresh step on Thursday, raising its total lira swap sale limit to 30 percent from 20 percent for swap transactions that have not matured.

It had raised the limit to 20 percent on Monday from 10 percent in a move aimed at increasing the bank’s forex reserves, which fell sharply in the first two weeks of March.

Those falls have raised uncomfortable questions about Turkey’s balance of payments and its ability to roll over foreign loans – and how and from whom it would seek emergency reserves if necessary.

The lira weakened as far as 5.6465 against the U.S. currency from 5.33 on Wednesday. Last year, it plunged almost 30 percent against the dollar.

Brokerage Integral Yatirim said volatility was likely to continue until the elections, making it difficult to identify a clear direction.

The London overnight swap rate plunged to 180 percent on Thursday, Refinitiv Eikon data showed.

On Wednesday it had surged as high as 1,200 percent in what was a stop-gap measure to bolster the lira. That was by far its highest on record, and economists said that level was no longer based on actual trading.

Such rates are a huge hurdle to foreign investors looking to bet against the lira, to hedge or close out positions. They have thus sold off holdings in Turkish stocks and bonds which have came under heavy pressure this week.

The cost of Turkey’s debt rose, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year bond climbing to 19.12 percent from 18.21 percent on Wednesday. It has risen 2.5 points since the end of last week.

The main Istanbul share index, which weakened more than 12 percent in the week to Wednesday’s close, rose 0.75 percent on Thursday morning.

The head of the Turkish banking association, in a statement to Reuters on Wednesday, said lira swap rates were not surging due to banks withholding liquidity from foreign banks.

(Additional reporting by Nevzat Devranoglu and Behiye Selin Taner; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: An aerial photo looking north shows shipping containers at the Port of Seattle and the Elliott Bay waterfront in Seattle
FILE PHOTO: An aerial photo looking north shows shipping containers at the Port of Seattle and the Elliott Bay waterfront in Seattle, Washington, U.S. March 21, 2019. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson/File Photo

April 26, 2019

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. economic growth is running at a 1.1% pace in the second quarter as the gains in exports and inventories recorded in the first quarter are expected to reverse, Morgan Stanley economists said on Friday.

“Our preliminary expectations for growth in the second quarter sees large drags from net exports and inventories after their contributions in 1Q,” they wrote in a research note.

Gross domestic product increased at a 3.2% annualized rate in the first three months of the year, driven by a smaller trade deficit and the largest accumulation of unsold merchandise since 2015, the Commerce Department said earlier Friday.

(Reporting by Richard Leong)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The Deutsche Bank headquarters are pictured in Frankfurt
FILE PHOTO: The Deutsche Bank headquarters are pictured in Frankfurt, Germany, April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Tom Sims

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Within hours of the collapse of merger talks with Commerzbank, Christian Sewing scrambled to convince investors and employees that Deutsche Bank can stand on its own two feet.

The Deutsche Bank chief executive told staff, many of whom opposed a merger because of significant job losses, that while he had not been “skeptical” about the Commerzbank talks, he was cautious about the chances of success from the start.

And another top Deutsche Bank executive said on Friday that it had been Commerzbank that initiated the talks, suggesting there was no desperation on their part for a deal.

Commerzbank denied that version of events, ending the apparent truce between the normally highly competitive cross-town Frankfurt rivals over the past six weeks.

German hopes of creating a national banking champion able to challenge global competitors were finally dashed on Thursday when Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank ended their talks due to the risks of doing a deal, restructuring costs and capital demands.

For Sewing, the failure to clinch a deal has left the 49-year-old chief executive of Germany’s largest bank, who took over just over a year ago, with his back to the wall.

Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s, which downgraded Deutsche Bank last year, said on Friday that Deutsche Bank “will remain under strain”, adding that it “seems to have acknowledged the need to adjust its strategy”.

Under Sewing, a new leadership has tried to revive Deutsche Bank’s fortunes, but it has faced money laundering allegations and failed stress tests, as well as ratings downgrades.

At the heart of the debate over its future is whether it should focus its business on Germany and draw a line under its costly global ambitions to take on Wall Street’s big guns.

“MARKET PLAY”

Without a deal, Deutsche Bank now finds itself back at the mercy of equity and debt markets, with UBS analysts warning that in a “stress scenario” it could again “be forced into a ‘debt-driven capital increase’ even with solid capital ratios”.

“Deutsche remains a levered market play vulnerable to external events,” the UBS analysts said in a note.

Sewing, along with many analysts, believes Deutsche Bank can go it alone in the short-term, but will be counting on a turnaround in market conditions to do so in the long-run given its dependence on volatile investment bank earnings.

“To reach our return objective, we also need to see a revenue recovery in our more market-sensitive business,” Sewing said on Friday after reporting results.

“These revenues are available to us in better market conditions given our leading positions in many of these businesses, but we need to capture them,” he added.

Revenue at Deutsche Bank’s bond trading division fell 19 percent in the first quarter, it said on Friday, underscoring weakness at its investment bank.

If those earnings do not improve, Berlin’s desire to keep its biggest bank out of foreign hands may start to wane.

“Germany’s globally active companies need competitive financial institutions that can support them around the world,” German finance minister Olaf Scholz said on Thursday.

(Writing by Alexander Smith; Editing by Keith Weir)

Source: OANN

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Panama's former president Ricardo Martinelli yells to the media while arriving to the Electoral Court in Panama City
Panama’s former president Ricardo Martinelli reacts to the media while arriving to the Electoral Court in Panama City, Panama April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Erick Marciscano

April 26, 2019

PANAMA CITY (Reuters) – Panama’s electoral tribunal has ruled that former President Ricardo Martinelli, who is awaiting trial on wiretapping charges, cannot take part in elections on May 5 in which he was running for mayor of Panama City and a seat in Congress, a spokesman for Martinelli said on Friday.

“The ruling of the electoral tribunal has disqualified him as candidate,” said the spokesman, Eduardo Camacho, calling the court’s ruling a “political decision.”

Officials at the tribunal did not immediately confirm the ruling, which also was reported in local media in Panama.

Martinelli, a supermarket tycoon who ran the Central American country from 2009 to 2014, was extradited to Panama last June from the United States and charged with spying on 150 people, including politicians, union leaders and journalists.

A judge had previously cleared Martinelli to run for mayor of the capital. His critics vowed to appeal that decision.

(Reporting by Elida Moreno and Stefanie Eschenbacher; Editing by Bill Trott)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Amazon boxes are seen stacked for delivery in the Manhattan borough of New York City
FILE PHOTO: Amazon boxes are seen stacked for delivery in the Manhattan borough of New York City, January 29, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Shares of Walmart, Target and other U.S. retailers fell on Friday as Amazon.com Inc unveiled a one-day delivery plan for its Prime members in a move to further disrupt the fiercely competitive retail landscape.

The e-commerce giant’s announcement on Thursday could cause other brands, manufacturers, retailers, and logistics companies to have to invest more aggressively to compete with Amazon and its delivery, analysts said.

Retailers in recent years have poured billions into ecommerce and faster shipping options and are trying to close the gap with Amazon.

“This is about making it more expensive to catch up and affirms our world view that only the largest and smartest will survive,” Bernstein analyst Brandon Fletcher said.

The move is expected to heighten consumer expectations on e-commerce delivery just like Amazon did with its two-day shipping option for members of its loyalty club Prime, noted analysts.

“The faster you ship, the more people buy,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney said.

The challenge for non-Amazon players was that very few of the existing logistics and parcel delivery players now have the ability to do nationwide one-day delivery, Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak said.

“And even fewer can do it at the vast scale and reasonable cost that AMZN would need for Prime delivery,” Nowak said in a note.

Walmart Inc’s shares fell about 3 percent, while Target Corp dropped about 5 percent in morning trade.

Shares of Kohl’s Corp, Macy’s Inc and Nordstrom Inc fell about 1 percent. Grocer Kroger Co was nearly 3 percent lower, while consumer electronics retailer Best Buy Inc dropped 2.1 percent.

(Reporting by Soundarya J and Akanksha Rana in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)

Source: OANN

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A Chinese woman adjusts a Chinese national flag next to U.S. national flags before a Strategic Dialogue expanded meeting, part of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) in Beijing
A Chinese woman adjusts a Chinese national flag next to U.S. national flags before a Strategic Dialogue expanded meeting, part of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) held at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, July 10, 2014. REUTERS/Ng Han Guan/Pool (CHINA – Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS)

April 26, 2019

By April Joyner

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Even as the lift from optimism over prospects for U.S.-China trade detente shows signs of wearing off for the wider U.S. stock market, upbeat sentiment around China’s economy could bolster shares of materials companies.

Shares of S&P 500 industrial and technology companies, which were buffeted by last year’s tit-for-tat tariffs as well as slowing global demand, have been very responsive to progress in U.S.-China trade relations and a strengthening Chinese economy. This year, those sectors have outpaced the ascent in the S&P 500, which reached a record closing high on Tuesday.

Materials stocks have not been as sensitive, however, even though they also stand to benefit as a stronger Chinese economy lifts global consumption and industrial output. As China has taken measures to stimulate its economy, its economic data have turned more upbeat. That in turn could aid global growth, which has flagged as a result of China’s cooldown.

“What we’re seeing is China spending more on stimulus: fiscal stimulus and monetary stimulus,” said Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist at Invesco in New York. “That’s likely to be a positive for materials.”

The People’s Bank of China has cut banks’ reserve requirement ratio five times over the past year and is widely expected to ease policy further to spur lending and reduce borrowing costs. The stimulus appears to have boosted Chinese economic data, with factory activity growing in March for the first time in four months.

Yet so far in 2019, the S&P 500 materials index has underperformed the S&P 500 at large, rising just 11.9% compared with 16.7% for the benchmark index. Moreover, it is among the biggest decliners in the period since the S&P’s previous record closing level on Sept. 20. The materials index has fallen 7% over those seven months, versus a 5.2% gain for technology and a 3% loss for industrials. Only the energy index has dropped more over that period.

A trade agreement could serve as a catalyst for a bump in materials shares as a drag on China’s economy is lifted, some market strategists say. Some commodity prices, including those for copper and oil, have ascended this year as the prospects for the global economy have somewhat brightened.

“It all goes back to the global growth outlook,” said Andrea DiCenso, portfolio manager for alpha strategies at Loomis Sayles in Boston. “With the front run in hard data, we’re beginning to see a pretty significant rally.”

Additionally, a trade agreement is expected to include commitments from China to purchase higher quantities of U.S. products such as soybeans, which could benefit companies that make agricultural chemicals, including DowDuPont Inc and CF Industries Holdings Inc.

CF Industries is scheduled to report quarterly results after the bell on Wednesday, and DowDuPont is scheduled to report before the market open on Thursday.

To be sure, even with a trade agreement, some materials companies could face price pressures. Shares of Freeport-McMoRan Inc fell 10.1% on Thursday after the copper mining company posted a lower-than-expected profit as its production slipped and its costs rose.

A rollback of tariffs on Chinese imports, particularly aluminum and steel, would likely prompt a fall in some commodity prices, which could hurt prospects for certain materials companies, said Gene Goldman, chief investment officer at Cetera Investment Management in El Segundo, California.

Even so, those drawbacks may be outweighed by the support for global demand fostered by a U.S.-China trade agreement.

“You could see a number of companies with lowered expectations bring them back up as they talk favorably about the impact that a trade deal would have on them,” said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment strategist at Inverness Counsel in New York.

(Reporting by April Joyner; additional reporting by Sinéad Carew; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Source: OANN

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