Today’s Stock Market News

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Companies mentioned: TWTR, We Company, AMZN, ATVI, and NFLX Twitter’s political ad ban raises one big issue: what exactly is an ‘issue’? TWTR (Twitter Inc.) | The Verge Twitter is finally doing something popular: banning political ads. But the company already regulates political ads, so it won’t be starting from scratch. In mid-2018, Twitter laid out policies for both direct political campaigning and “issue ads” in the United States. Facebook and Google banned political ads entirely in Washington, thanks to the state’s complex campaign finance laws. Dorsey announced the news just before Facebook’s quarterly earnings call, following a week of furious debate over whether Facebook would ban or fact-check political ads. Read More WeWork and its ousted CEO accused of pregnancy discrimination We Company | CNN The allegations add to a litany of complaints about the company's culture under Neumann's leadership. She said Neuma...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Companies mentioned: TCEHY, AAPL, UBER, BRUB and BIIB Tencent to lead development of blockchain-based invoices TCEHY (Tencent Holdings Ltd) | Coin Geek Chinese messaging and internet giant Tencent has received the green light to lead in the development of the first international standards for blockchain-based invoices. The project was approved by the State Administration of Taxation in China, a report by Chinese outlet Global Times revealed. Named “General Framework for DLT-Based Invoices”, the project reportedly received the support of the U.K., Brazil, Switzerland and Sweden during an international meeting on e-invoice standards. Tencent, which is the parent company of popular messaging platform WeChat, will partner with the taxation bureau in Shenzhen on the project. E-invoicing is an appropriate field for blockchain application probes and trials currently, which could in turn promote tech development. Read More Apple tunes out...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Companies mentioned: TSLA, FB, AMZN, GOOG, SNE, SoftBank, and TWTR Tesla overtakes GM as most valuable U.S. automaker — and short sellers get burned TSLA (Tesla Inc.) | Auto Blog Tesla shares soared 17% on Thursday after the electric carmaker surprised Wall Street by delivering on Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk's promise of a profit in the third quarter, even as doubts remained about its long-term prospects. Trading at $298, Tesla's market capitalization was $53 billion, surpassing General Motors' $51 billion stock market value and making it the United States' most valuable car company. 1 U.S. car company by market cap before, but recently GM has had a substantial lead. Tesla late on Wednesday reported a quarterly profit, citing improvements in operating efficiency and a reduction in manufacturing and material costs. Tesla's shares remain down 10% year to date. Read More Facebook's libra may not be appro...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Companies mentioned: Reckitt, NKE, SNAP, GM, TSLA, and BA New York, states reach $700 mln settlement with Reckitt over opioid probes RBGLY (Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC) | Financial Post New York and other states have reached a $700 million settlement deal with Reckitt Benckiser over allegations that the drug distributor improperly marketed a drug to treat opioid addiction, New York Attorney General Letitia James said on Wednesday. The $700 million settlement amount consists of $500 million for the federal government and as much as $200 million for states that opted into the civil agreement, which did not determine liability. New York’s Medicaid program will receive more than $71.9 million, with more than $39.9 million being returned to New York State, James said. The British drugmaker was indicted in April, accused of deceiving doctors and healthcare benefit programs into believing Suboxone Film, itself a form of opioid, was safer and ...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Companies mentioned: DIS, Softbank, DISCA, FB, CRM, and SNAP Disney and Verizon Team Up to Offer Free Streaming DIS (The Walt Disney Company) | The Motley Fool 1 U.S. wireless carrier and Disney (NYSE:DIS) announced on Tuesday that millions of Verizon's customers would receive 12 months of Disney+ for free. Disney's upcoming streaming service will be made available to all Verizon wireless unlimited, new Fios Home Internet, and new 5G Home Internet customers. The streaming service will allow viewers to watch thousands of movies and TV shows from Disney, Marvel, Pixar, Lucasfilm, National Geographic, and other studios. Moreover, Disney+ will be the only streaming service where viewers can watch the company's new films, such as The Lion King and Avengers: Endgame. It will likely need to aggressively promote its new streaming service if it's to achieve those targets. Read More SoftBank shares fall as it doubles down ...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Companies mentioned: NFLX, We Company, NVDA, TSLA, Teva, and JNJ Netflix reveals how it classifies viewers to track show performance NFLX (Netflix Inc.) | Slash Gear Netflix has detailed how it evaluates the performance of TV shows and movies based on how long the content is watched and, in the case of TV shows, how many episodes are streamed. According to the letter, Netflix splits content up into three categories. In the newly published letter, the public has learned how Netflix evaluates a show or movie’s performance in order to share that information with its partners. The third category is called ‘completers,’ which refers to households that watch 90-percent of a movie or TV show season. These metrics are used in North America and Europe, according to the letter; Netflix states it may share these details with partners in other countries. Read More SoftBank’s WeWork takeover would lead to Adam Neumann’s exit -sources We Comp...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Companies mentioned: FB, JNJ, BA, NFLX and AMZN In a big reversal, Libra reportedly could peg its cryptocurrencies to national currencies FB (Facebook Inc) | Tech Crunch Facebook is willing to reverse course on its plans to tie its digital currency project to a synthetic currency tied to a basket of global currencies. Facebook and its partners had intended to create its cryptocurrency by pegging it to a basket of national currencies whose holdings would be set by the Libra Association. The scrutiny from regulators proved too much for some of Facebook’s largest, and earliest, partners in the Libra Association, whose members would determine how the cryptocurrency would operate. Now, in another strategic reversal, Marcus is conceding the synthetic currency in favor of stablecoins tied to the local currency in each market that Libra would operate. “We could do it differently,” Reuters quoted the Libra Association chief as saying. Read Mor...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Companies mentioned: INTC, GOOG, T, GM, and NTDOY Intel will release data on how much it pays women and employees of color INTC (Intel Corporation) | CNN Intel plans to release data on how much its employees are paid, broken down by gender, race and ethnicity, by the end of this year, the company confirmed to CNN Business on Thursday. The agency will not release companies' data, butsays it will share the data publicly, a move first reported by BloombergThe decision comes as workers in many industries have gotten louder in their calls for increased equity and transparency around the gaps in pay between men, women and people of various racial and ethnic backgrounds. The issue is especially pertinent in the technology industry, which has long been dominated and led by white men. "To see real change across the industry we need to start somewhere," the company said in a statement. "With the requirement to report pay data,...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Companies mentioned: We Company, Pensando, RILY, NFLX, HAS, AAPL, and ATVI WeWork owner creates committee to decide on financing lifeline We Company | Money Control The office-space sharing company is establishing the committee in an effort to ring-fence its financing deliberations from SoftBank's influence, the sources said. The committee will only have two members - both We Company board directors with the task of representing the interests of all investors in the company, the sources said. SoftBank has proposed up to a $5 billion investment in WeWork two of the sources said. WeWork may seek to combine the SoftBank and JPMorgan proposals in some form, according to the sources. It is less common for a private company such as WeWork to form a special committee. Read More Edge computing startup Pensando comes out of stealth mode with a total of $278 million in funding Pensando | Tech Crunch The round was led by Hewlett Pa...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Companies mentioned: CAH, AMZN, NS, MSFT, GOOG, and ROKU 3 Major Drug Distributors Reportedly Negotiating $18B Opioid Settlement CAH (Cardinal Health Inc.) | NPR Three major U.S. drug distributing companies are negotiating a multibillion-dollar settlement to end numerous lawsuits filed by state and local governments seeking compensation for costs associated with the opioid crisis. The drug distributors — Amerisource Bergen, McKesson and Cardinal Health — could pay as much as $18 billion over 18 years, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the discussions. As North Country Public Radio's Brian Mann reported,"A source tells NPR the drug distributors Amerisource Bergen and McKesson have reached a tentative settlement with at least some state attorneys general, as has the drugmaker Teva. In August, Balkman ruled that drugmaker Johnson and Johnson should pay $572 million for contributing to Oklahoma's opioi...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Companies mentioned: AAPL, GM, BA, AMZN and GOOG Few convinced by Apple's case for Hong Kong app removal AAPL (Apple Inc) | BBC “Putting profits above the human rights and dignity of the people of Hong Kong is wrong. This use put the app in violation of Hong Kong law. Charles Mok, a Hong Kong legislator who represents the IT industry in the territory, posted a letter to Mr Cook on Twitter. According to the Wall Street Journal, Hong Kong authorities had contacted Google with concerns about that app - though the company has said it decided to take action before any communication took place. “Epic supports everyone’s right to speak freely,” he wrote on Twitter, in response to a question about gamers voicing support for Hong Kong protesters. Read More GM urges UAW to agree to 'around-the-clock' bargaining GM (General Motors Company) | Nasdaq General Motors Co GM.N late on Thursday urged the United Auto Workers unio...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Companies mentioned: SoftBank, AAL, Royal Dutch Shell, MCD,MA and UBER How The SoftBank Scheme Rips Open The Startup Bubble SFTBY (Softbank Corp Japan) | Seeking Alpha The biggest force behind the startup bubble in the United States has been SoftBank Group, the Japanese publicly traded conglomerate. The biggest force behind the startup bubble in the United States has been SoftBank Group (OTCPK:SFTBY) (OTCPK:SFTBF), the Japanese publicly traded conglomerate. So we'll call this monster the Vision Fund 1 because there is now the Vision Fund 2. S&P and Moody's both rate SoftBank Group one step into junk, and have said they're more likely to downgrade SoftBank than to upgrade it because of its debt. The money SoftBank plowed into Uber may also not be returning anytime soon. Read More American Airlines Says It Expects to Start Flying Troubled Boeing 737 Max Again Next Year AAL (American Airlines Group Inc.) | Gizm...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Companies mentioned: UN, AMZN, SFTBF, BA, and KR Consumer goods giant Unilever vows to slash use of plastic UN (Unilever NV) | New York Post Unilever aims to achieve the goal by reducing its use of all plastics by 100,000 metric tons and using more recycled plastic. The multinational previously pledged to make all its plastic packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025 and to use at least 25% recycled plastic in packaging by that year. The company also said Monday it aims to collect and process more plastic packaging than it sells by 2025. Even so, the Anglo-Dutch company says it produces some 700,000 metric tons of plastic packaging annually. Experts say that some 9 million tons (8 million metric tons) of plastic waste, including plastic bottles, bags, toys and other items, flow annually into the world’s oceans. Read More Amazon’s New Matchmaking Service Connects AWS Customers With Certified Professionals AMZN (Amaz...

* Stories are summarized by an A.I. * Companies mentioned: V, PEP, UBER, We Company, EXPE, and KPELY Facebook’s Pain Could Be Visa and Mastercard’s Gain V (Visa Inc) | Barron’s There’s little reason for PayPal, Mastercard, and Visa to stick around. As for Mastercard and Visa, there are hardly any two more durable earnings machines in global finance. By contrast, the earnings potential of companies like Mastercard, Visa, and PayPal look ever more durable and their relatively pricey valuations look ever more defensible. Shares of Visa trade for 28.1 times 12-month forward earnings, while Mastercard trades at 31.5 times and PayPal trades at 29.9 times. For investors looking to tap into fintech’s vast earnings potential, Mastercard, PayPal, and Visa look as attractive as ever. Read More PepsiCo Is Investing Where It Counts PEP (PepsiCo Inc.) | The Motley Fool Year to date, Pepsi's organic revenue is up 4.6%, which is better than the 3.4% growth reported for the sam...