Category: Markets

The New York Stock Exchange is trying to rebound Friday, but the technology stocks are still down, investors are still concerned about the commercial offensive launched by Donald Trump against China.

The Dow Jones index gained 96.96 points, or 0.4%, to 24,054.85 points after half an hour of trading. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 rose by 0.19% to 2648.59 points, but the NASDAQ Composite lost 0.12% to 7158.10 points.

The semiconductor sector remains in the red and Intel (-1.24%) shows the largest decline in the Dow.

On Thursday, the three major indexes on Wall Street ended on declines of 2.4% to 2.9% after signature by Donald Trump a document that could impose tariffs on up to 60 billion dollars of Chinese imports.

The US president’s decision fueled investors’ fears that the world’s first two economies would engage in a trade war, a risk destabilizing the financial markets, worried about the consequences for global growth.

China ready to fight back

The Chinese authorities were quick to react and announced plans to deal with some $ 3 billion of US imports.

The list unveiled by China, less consistent than that of the United States, “suggests that, perhaps, there will be no real trade war and that there is room for negotiations,” says Robert Pavlik, Head of Investment Strategy at SlateStone Wealth in New York.

At the same time, the US president has provisionally exempted the European Union and six third countries from the tariffs that will apply to imports of steel and aluminum as of this Friday.

At the time of the opening of the American markets, Europe reduced its losses in the wake of Wall Street. The CAC 40 lost 0.98% and the Stoxx 600 yielded 0.5% after dropping to more than 1.6%.

Despite announcing a profit and lower revenues for its most recent quarter, BRP surpassed analysts’ expectations and its stock jumped nearly 10% on Wednesday.

The manufacturer of the Ski-Doo snowmobiles posted a shareholder profit of $115.2 million, or $1.12 per share, for its fourth quarter ended January 31. In comparison, he had earned $136.6 million, or $1.22 a share, for the same quarter a year earlier.

Excluding non-recurring items, BRP’s earnings were $0.96 per share, compared to $1 per share for the same period a year earlier.

Valcourt’s sales reached $1.26 billion in the most recent quarter, up from $1.31 billion a year ago.

Despite the decrease compared to the previous year, these results exceeded analysts’ expectations. These were adjusted earnings per share of $ 0.91 and revenues of $1.24 billion, according to forecasts collected by Thomson Reuters.

Investors welcomed the results and BRP shares gained $4.31, or 9.5 per cent, on the Toronto Stock Exchange, closing at $49.88.

“For fiscal 2019, we continue to aim for rapid growth for seasonal and all-season categories,” BRP President and CEO José Boisjoli said in a statement.

“In the current economic environment, I am confident that we will achieve our objectives for fiscal 2019, including revenue growth of 5-8% and normalized earnings per share of 20-25%. ”

BRP further stated that it would pay a dividend of $0.09 per share, up from $0.01, or 12.5%, compared to the previous dividend.

Facebook lost 6.77% of its value on Wall Street on Monday, two days after reports that an analyst firm has collected private data from 50 million social network users to improve data quality. visibility and effectiveness of Donald Trump’s election campaign.

The group’s market capitalization, which stood at 538 billion US dollars at the closing on Friday, has melted by more than 30 billion dollars on this difficult day for the company.

The stock is down more than 13% from its US $ 195.32 record reached 1 February and more than 3% since the beginning of the year.

Facebook has resulted in Twitter and Snap, the company with the social network Snapchat. NASDAQ, a technology-weighted index, dropped 1.84%.

Investigations in view

The President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, announced on Monday that MEPs would investigate the possible misuse of these data, adding that these allegations constitute “an unacceptable violation of the privacy rights of our citizens”.

In the United States, some members of Congress had already expressed their fears the day before about a possible violation of privacy as a result of this information.

“It’s clear that these platforms do not know how to be self-disciplined,” said Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar on her Twitter account.

On Monday, Republican Senator John Kennedy rallied to his Democratic colleague to call Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify before Congress.

In a joint letter, the two senators asked the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley, to hear Mr. Zuckerberg, as well as the bosses of Google and Twitter, an initiative that reflects the rise of a bipartisan front in Washington on how these companies use private data.

Information of concern

“We think this episode is a new sign of Facebook’s systemic problems,” said Brian Wieser, analyst at Pivotal Research Group.

For Brian Wieser, the risk that regulators will intensify their surveillance increases and the use of data for advertising purposes will become riskier. But he adds that this is unlikely to have a significant impact on the company’s current operations, as advertisers may be reluctant to “suddenly redirect their investments to the platform.”

“This episode is likely to taint the group’s image again and more seriously and could lead regulators to strengthen their monitoring,” said Petr Stabler, an analyst at Wells Fargo.

Daniel Ives, an analyst at GBH Insights, believes that Facebook will ease the concern of regulators by investing in security and improving its algorithms.

Facebook said Friday it was learned in 2015 that a professor of psychology at Cambridge University had lied to the company and violated its rules by transferring data to Cambridge Analytica for an application of psychological tests it had created.

The network suspended the companies and researchers concerned, adding that the data had been misused but not stolen, users having given their consent to their consultation.

Cambridge Analytica and his boss were not available immediately to comment on this information on Monday.

The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said over the weekend that it would include these potential new elements in its own civil and criminal investigation to find out if Facebook data was misused as part of British elections.