Toshiba Corp shareholders agreed to split off its prized NAND flash memory unit on Thursday, paving the way for a sale to raise at least $9 billion to cover U.S. nuclear unit charges that threaten the conglomerate’s future. “How can something that was supposed to be a pillar turn into a hole,” said the shareholder, asking Tsunakawa about the company’s nuclear business. Those suitors include Western Digital Corp which operates a chip plant with Toshiba in Japan, Micron Technology, South Korean ch

Akamai CEO: Lot of access rules will go away Wednesday, 8 Feb 2017 | 8:34 AM ET | 02:38Akamai CFO Jim Benson said Thursday that the firm’s interim earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) margin targets of 37 to 39 percent could last one to two years longer than expected, StreetAccount said. In the fourth quarter, the adjusted EBITDA margin came in at 40 percent, down 1 point from the same period last year, Akamai said. The online and mobile solutions company said af

Senator Marco Rubio said during a Senate intelligence hearing on Thursday that unsuccessful cyber attacks from Russia targeted former members of his presidential campaign staff in July 2016 and within the past 24 hours. Rubio said he would not comment on a remark earlier in the hearing by Clinton Watts, a cybersecurity expert, that Rubio may have been victimized by Russian activity during his unsuccessful campaign for the 2016 Republican nomination against President Donald Trump. The cyber attac

A daily morning look at the financial stories you need to know to start the day. We get GDP data today and weekly jobless claims numbers. TRUMP’S FIRST 100 DAYS-Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet with President Donald Trump in Florida on April 6th and 7th. And Russian President Vladimir Putin sayshe’s ready to meetwith President Trump at a possible summit in Finland. OIL/ENERGY-U.S. crude prices are a bit lower, but still holding at the $49 a barrel level.

Goldman Sachs lowered its rating for Goodyear Tire & Rubber to neutral from buy, saying the company will have difficulty passing along its tire price increases to consumers this year. The firm also removed the tiremaker from its Americas buy list. “We see near-term pricing uncertainty, … our channel checks pointing to increasing rebate activity, we are cautious on the potential stickiness of recently announced price increases,” analyst David Tamberrino wrote in a note to clients Thursday.

Investors should buy Qorvo shares because its earnings next year will come in above Wall Street’s expectations, according to JPMorgan, which reiterated its overweight rating on the smartphone chipmaker. “Qorvo remains on track to deliver double-digit revenue growth with a strong design win pipeline,” analyst Bill Peterson wrote in a note to clients Thursday. “Looking to 2H17 and into 2018, Qorvo should especially benefit from the next-generation iPhone from both an increased in RF dollar content

Investors should buy energy stocks due to the sector’s cheap valuation and improving sales growth this year, according to Jefferies, which raised its rating on the sector to overweight from market weight. The S&P Energy Select Sector index and oil prices are down 7 percent this year as of midday Thursday. But WTI crude did jump back above $50 a barrel in trading Thursday following a more than 4 percent comeback this week. “OPEC continues to indicate that they are going to hold to production cuts

CFRA told clients the market may decline this summer as Wall Street reduces its corporate earnings estimates in the coming months. The S&P 500 is up 10 percent since the Nov. 8 election through Wednesday. “Our concern is that the earnings estimates move lower, and not higher near term, which could be a challenge for the market during the seasonally soft summer months (frequently referred to as the ‘sell in May’ period),” investment strategist Lindsey Bell wrote in a note to clients Thursday.

The stock market’s honeymoon with President Donald Trump may be over, said BMO Capital Markets, suggesting that a good bet to ride out any volatility may be growth stocks. “We believe one strategy that works quite well in this sort of environment is a portfolio barbell where investors balance aggressive and defensive positioning,” Brian Belski, chief investment strategist at BMO Capital, said in a note Thursday. He recommended stocks that show “growth at a reasonable price, or GARP” and that hav

Little is more satisfying than cracking open a vintage Sears, Roebuck & Co catalog and marveling at the breadth of its offerings, dated illustrations and all. The more enduring legacy of Sears, however, which published its first catalog back when Grover Cleveland was president, can be glimpsed deep within the nearly half-century-old edition. Sears Holding, the retailer, looks to be rapidly hurtling toward bankruptcy under the stewardship of hedge-fund boss Eddie Lampert. Sears set its Hometown a

Microsoft failed its own attempt to sell smartphones, but it’s not entirely out of the smartphone game. In fact, a free app named “Arrow” from Microsoft, available for Android smartphones, is just one example of how Microsoft continues to operate in the mobile space. Don’t worry, you’ll be an Arrow expert in just a few minutes. Arrow is an Android launcher, or a totally custom skin that changes how you interact with and use some of Android’s home screen and main functions. It recently received a

There’s no question America has a skills gap. Now a range of start-ups are trying to help train the next generation of workers, transforming education from a onetime event into a lifelong process. Two Disruptor 50 companies are leading the charge: Coursera and Udacity. “Many jobs requiring middle- or high-level skills go vacant, even while many people are unemployed or underemployed,” says Rick Levin, CEO of online education company Coursera, which has raised $146 million from venture backers. ”

The foreign mistresses, SWAT operations and a bed made of banknotes appearing in Chinese television series “In the Name of the People” would not be out of place in an American political drama like “House of Cards.” What truly raises eyebrows, however, could be that the show’s main antagonist is a high-ranking government official. The show, which debuted in China on March 28 on Hunan Television, is the first drama series to feature high-level government corruption as a central theme since 2004. I

Now, the 76-year-old Mr de Lacharrière has been reluctantly drawn into another example, courtesy of another political friend — the centre-right presidential candidate François Fillon. Mr Fillon is being formally investigated for possible embezzlement over allegations that he used state money to give his wife and family fake jobs. ENA contemporaries included Jacques Attali, later a special adviser to President Mitterrand, and the late Philippe Séguin, Gaullist minister and mentor to Mr Fillon, wh

Jeff Bezos is now the second richest man on the planet Thursday, 30 Mar 2017 | 1:19 PM ET | 00:43Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO, is now the second-richest person on the planet, besting Warren Buffett of Omaha-based investment conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway. Bezos’ wealth climbed to $75.6 billion on Wednesday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Forget it, even with VPNSamsung unveils mesh router to rival eeroAnatomy of a SpaceX launchHelping Bezos get to the No. 2 perch: A ra

Debt and deficits set to spiral Thursday, 30 Mar 2017 | 10:36 AM ET | 00:43Government debt and budget deficits are both set to spiral higher in the coming three decades if current patterns hold, according to new projections released Thursday by the Congressional Budget Office. The report warns that the rising debt and deficits risk another crisis. Due largely to increases in Medicare and Social Security costs, the federal debt will reach 150 percent of gross domestic product in 2047, the CBO rep

ConocoPhillips shares soared Thursday after the energy giant said it will sell its oil sands and natural gas holdings in Canada to Cenovus Energy. Cenovus share price dropped more than 13 percent Thursday. ConocoPhillips will also receive $2.7 billion in shares of Canada-based Cenovus. “This is a significant, win-win opportunity for ConocoPhillips and Cenovus,” ConocoPhillips CEO and chairman Ryan Lance said in a statement Wednesday. ConocoPhillips shares 5-day performanceCenovus shares 5-day pe

A nice little rally is in store for the S&P 500, predicts Evercore ISI technical analyst Rich Ross. With the S&P 500 climbing for the third straight day on Thursday, Ross believes the recent move up in the SPY, the S&P-tracking ETF, points to more upside ahead. For Ross, the 50-day moving average serves as a key indicator for the SPY. From this point, Ross sees SPY moving up to $247 or even $249 in the next few months. As the level Ross is looking at translates to a roughly 2,470 level for the S

The beaten-down S&P 500 energy sector may see further pain ahead, according to some strategists who see crude oil, a commodity to which the sector’s performance is closely tethered, heading lower. Natural gas, too, faces rising production. The United States will become the world’s third-largest exporter of liquefied natural gas in 2018, according to a Reuters analysis. Natural gas is down 14 percent year to date. The Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF, the XLE, is stuck in a “tremendous” downward slo

The dollar fell slightly on Friday as a Federal Reserve official’s seemingly dovish remarks and uninspiring data on the U.S. economy doused the sanguine mood from earlier this week. The euro rebounded from a two-week trough, and the dollar fell to its low on the day against the Japanese yen after comments from New York Fed President William Dudley. Seen as one of the most important members of the Fed’s rate-setting committee, Dudley said the central bank was in no rush to tighten monetary policy