Today’s Stock Market News

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Stocks or companies mentioned: SPOT, Impossible Foods, PFE, AMZN, FB, EFX, QCOM, AAPL, AMD, and HEXO Spotify slips after not adding as many paid subscribers as hoped SPOT (Spotify Technology S.A.) | AOL Spotify reported second-quarter earnings Wednesday that beat on revenue but missed analyst expectations for subscriber growth. The streaming service said that premium subscribers grew 30% from a year earlier, but the now-108 million subscribers fell slightly short of analyst expectations. Monthly active users also grew 29% year over year, but fell short of analyst expectations for the company. Analysts, however, expected that the streaming service would end the second quarter with 242 million monthly active users. When Apple announced that it would fund its own podcasts exclusive to its audio service, Spotify fell 3%. Read More Beyond Meat competitor Impossible Foods receives FDA approval Impossible Foods Inc | Reuters The U.S. ...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Stocks or companies mentioned: AAPL, UA, Angang Steel Company, GOOG, AMZN, BYND, PG, BABA, AMD, and Dynatrace Holdings Apple put an iPhone in everybody's pocket — now its growth depends on putting devices all over our bodies AAPL (Apple Inc.) | CNBC Apple is often referred to as the "iPhone company," because that's the product that's driven the majority of Apple's sales for years. But that streak broke when Apple reported earnings on Tuesday — instead, Apple's biggest product only accounted for 48% of total sales, and iPhone sales were actually down 12% from last year. The main product category picking up the slack? What Apple calls "wearables" — the category including Apple Watch, AirPods wireless earbuds, and Beats headphones. Apple CEO Tim Cook called it a "blowout quarter" for its wearables product category and said there was "phenomenal demand" for the $159 AirPods. Read M...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Stocks or companies mentioned: BYND, AAPL, SBUX, QCOM, AMZN, MCD, GE, GOOG, C, and KO Beyond Meat Q2 Sales Quadruples, But Replacing Meat? That’s A Different Story BYND (Beyond Meat, Inc.) | Forbes Dunkin' Donuts recently joined other chain restaurants including Carl's Jr. to feature Beyond Meat products, driving growth for the plant-based meat company. Beyond Meat said Monday sales in the quarter that ended June 29 jumped 287% to a better-than-expected $67.3 million. Its study also echoed other findings that meat eaters are the main buyers of plant-based meat as only 5% of U.S. households are vegan or vegetarian. But here’s the interesting contrast: some 98% of plant-based meat buyers also buy meat, and they actually spend more on meat than the average meat buyer, $486 vs. $478 a year, Nielsen data shows. Nielsen data also showed that at supermarkets, plant-based meat costs 10 cents per gram, more than double 4 cents for beef an...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Stocks or companies mentioned: SBUX, EFX, AAPL, AMZN, Boring Co, FB, GOOG, LUV, MSFT, and GM Every Starbucks growth strategy is working SBUX (Starbucks Corporation) | CNN Starbucks has put several plans in place to accelerate growth, and they all seem to be working. The tactics are paying off: Sales at cafes open at least a year grew 6% globally in the third quarter, Starbucks announced Thursday. Net sales grew 8.1% to an all-time high of $6.8 billion. Because of the successful quarter, Starbucks improved its financial outlook for the year. One strategy is adding more stores: In the third quarter, the company opened 442 net new stores, one third of them in China. Read More Why People Are Getting Money From the Equifax Deal But Not the Facebook Settlement EFX (Equifax Inc.) | Time Why are consumers getting money in the Equifax settlement and not in the Facebook deal? It has to do with federal law, and who lost what in each situati...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Stocks or companies mentioned: SoftBank, TSLA, MSFT, CRM, Wanda Sports, FB, DB, V, Huawei, and GOOG SoftBank to commit $40 bln to second Vision Fund SoftBank Group Corp | Financial Post Tech conglomerate SoftBank Group Corp will invest $40 billion in its forthcoming second Vision Fund, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. While the first, $100 billion Vision Fund launched with $60 billion in backing from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, SoftBank has pledged to launch its second even without such support as it markets the fund to potential investors. The second fund has secured investment from Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Standard Chartered Plc, WSJ said. Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund will also invest, the WSJ said. While PIF is among existing investors in talks with SoftBank, any decision to invest in the second fund will be made only after assessing a formal proposal, a source familiar with the talk...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Stocks or companies mentioned: WeWork, CMG, KO, HAS, FB, CHWY, TSLA, AAL, UPS and BABA WeWork accelerates IPO plans, plots September listing WeWork Companies Inc. | Tech Crunch The business, now known as The We Company, has accelerated its plans to go public, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. The New York-based company, valued at $47 billion earlier this year, has long been rumored to be plotting a massive IPO. WeWork disclosed massive 2018 net losses of $1.9 billion in March on revenue of $1.8 billion. To convince Wall Street it’s a business worthy of their investment will be a challenge, to say the least. Neumann, for his part, has reportedly cashed out of more than $700 million from his company ahead of the IPO. Read More Chipotle earnings delivered, but its stock is starting to look like a high-priced menu item CMG (Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc.) | CNBC Chipotle Mexican Grill was back even before its big T...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Stocks or companies mentioned: AAPL, BP, HAS, ETSY, EFX, MSFT, INTC, WHR, NFLX, and F Apple's Fancy Photo Relighting Option Could Soon Be a Feature On Even the Cheapest Smartphones AAPL (Apple Inc.) | Gizmodo The iPhone’s Portrait Mode is a good example, letting you tweak the lighting of a photo after you snap it, but it’s a feature limited to Apple’s high-end handsets. Researchers from Google and the University of California, San Diego have found a way to recreate this feature, with even better results, on even the most basic camera-equipped phones. But it also allows iOS’ Portrait Lighting to distinguish features on a person’s face so that lighting adjustments, which are completely faked, look as natural and genuine as possible. For comparison, Apple’s Portrait Lighting feature will only offer six different relighting options when iOS 13 arrives in the Fall. Not exactly real-time, and the research team doesn’t detail what kind of pr...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Stocks or companies mentioned: DIS, MCD, AAPL, BA, MSFT, VMW, GPRO, T, NFLX and CMG Tensions Between Disney And Its Heiress Continue To Heat Up DIS (The Walt Disney Company) | Yahoo Finance Abigail Disney, the heir to the Disney fortune, has been speaking out lately against income inequality, and today the Walt Disney Co. clapped back. Abigail Disney recently visited the Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California to observe the working conditions of employees. Disney didn’t brush her claims off, calling them “a gross and unfair exaggeration” in a public statement. This is far from the first time that the heiress has spoken out about the Disney corporation. She has spoken to Congress about the need for a wealth tax to alleviate economic inequality. Read More McDonald's Announces Quarterly Cash Dividend MCD (McDonald's Corporation) | PR Newswire Today, McDonald's Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend ...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Stocks or companies mentioned: NFLX, EBAY, MSFT, DPZ, IBM, T, SBUX, AAPL, RBGLY, and SMME Netflix lost US subscribers for the first time ever NFLX (Netflix Inc) | Quartz Netflix lost 126,000 US subscribers in the second quarter (which ended June 30), the company announced in its earnings report today (July 17). Although subscriber growth has been leveling off in the saturated US market, Netflix had expected to add about 300,000 subscribers in the past quarter. The streaming giant also announced lackluster growth in international subscribers, a number investors have been tracking as a measure of future successes. Although Netflix expected to pick up 5 million total new subscribers in Q2, it actually brought in just 2.7 million. The company recently announced that season three of Stranger Things, which debuted on July 4, had been viewed by over 40 million subscribers in the first week. Read More UPDATE 1-EBay beats estimates as more sh...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Stocks or companies mentioned: BAYRY, GRUB, KMI, UAL, UBER, MCD, FB, GOOG, AMZN, and TSLA Bayer moving 500 jobs from North Carolina to St. Louis BAYRY (Bayer AG ADR) | The Washington Post — German pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG is closing its crop science division headquarters in North Carolina and moving 500 jobs to the St. Louis area, Missouri Gov. Lisa Safarian, Bayer’s commercial operations-North America president, said the company is moving the crop science North American division headquarters from the Raleigh area to the St. Louis suburb of Creve Coeur, Missouri. Salaries for the Missouri jobs will average about $110,000 a year, state economic development officials said. Monsanto, based in St. Louis, is one of the world’s biggest seed companies. It pledged to retain close to 4,400 Missouri jobs as part of the deal. Read More NYC's fight with Grubhub is heating up. Here's what's next GRUB (GrubHub Inc.) | CNBC Sena...