China has told the Trump administration it warned North Korea it would impose unilateral sanctions should Pyongyang carry out another nuclear test, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Thursday, in possibly China’s toughest threat yet against its defiant neighbor. Tillerson, speaking on Fox News, said China has asked North Korea not to conduct any more nuclear tests. He noted that major commemorations in North had passed in recent days without a feared nuclear test or test of any interc

Fans of Starbucks’ Unicorn Frappuccino should “stay tuned.” The company said same-store sales improved as the second quarter progressed, culminating with 4 percent U.S. same-store sales growth in March, and further acceleration into April. “We will bring at least one new entirely new drink into Happy Hour this year that is going to be as good as U nicorn or better,” CEO Kevin Johnson said. The Unicorn Frappuccino was a precursor to Starbuck’s Frappuccino Happy Hour, which offers half-priced frap

President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that a China trade deal with the U.S. will be better for Beijing if they act on North Korea. As recently as last Friday, Trump tweeted:Beijing does have economic leverage over North Korea as the rogue state’s largest trading partner. In Thursday’s regular news conference, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang reiterated that China is committed to upholding U.N. sanctions on North Korea. After a missile test this February, China suspended coa

A discussion of Honeywell in the letter garnered the most attention from the market, boosting the shares in extended trading. The latter may be inevitable unless management was already planning to spin off its aerospace division, something Loeb called for in the letter. “Spinning off Aerospace would transform Honeywell into an industrial growth company with a focus on automation and productivity.’ The letter also discusses positions in undisclosed “frac sand miners, ” German utility E.On and a r

Just like last year, economic growth in the first quarter looks stagnant, but many economists expect a bounce back in the second quarter. Going into the second quarter, the consumer looks to be picking up, and that should help the economy. “It looks like the second quarter [growth] is over 3 percent, so if you have the two quarters, you get 2 percent growth,” Swonk said. He expects growth to pick up to 2.5 percent in the second quarter. Macroeconomic Advisers raised their forecast for the second

The America First Offshore Energy Executive Order instructs the Interior Department to revise the current-five year schedule for leasing blocks of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf, the waters off the U.S. shore that the federal government governs. The White House on Thursday suggested it would prefer to expand its options, stressing in a fact sheet that most of the Outer Continental Shelf is not currently available for development. “Past administrations have been overly restrictive of offshore e

The euro was down 0.1 percent at $1.0865, but up 1.3 percent for the week and 2 percent for the month. However, he also said that euro zone’s recovery was increasingly solid and downside risks had diminished. Against its Japanese counterpart, the dollar was steady on the day at 111.30 yen, up 2 percent for the week but still down 0.1 percent for the month. “The Japanese Golden Week holidays are ahead, and investors have already adjusted their positions,” said Kaneo Ogino, director at foreign exc

Spot gold was up 0.1 percent at $1,264.81 per ounce,as of 0312 GMT, while U.S. gold futures were steady at $1,266.30. Gold is on track for a weekly drop of 1.5 percent, the largest weekly percentage fall since the week of March 10, but is heading towards a gain of about 1.3 percent for the month. Asian stocks inched higher on Friday and looked set to close a strong week on a positive note. “People are pulling out of gold and moving to risky assets like shares and currencies to make profits,” sai

Traders said that Friday’s rises came on the back of OPEC saying it was keen to find a deal that would ensure a drawdown of excess fuel supplies. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other producers including Russia originally pledged to cut output by almost 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) only during the first half of the year. But OPEC has come under pressure to extend the cuts to cover all of 2017 in order to counter bulging supplies elsewhere. “OPEC…effectivel

The euro had jumped to a five-and-a-half month high at the beginning of the week after the first round of the French presidential election. Meanwhile, shares of Japanese gaming giant Nintendo rose 2.18 percent after the company said yesterday that it was forecasting a 121 percent surge in operating profit for the new fiscal year. The dollar strengthened against a basket of rivals at 99.17, higher than the 98-handle seen earlier in the week. On the energy front, U.S. crude surged 1 percent higher

But after-the-bell earnings disappointments from Microsoft and Intel weighed on their stocks and tugged on Dow futures. Wunderlich Securities chief market strategist Art Hogan said earnings should certainly help drive the S&P back to 2,400 soon. “It feels like the earnings season on balance is remarkably good; not just good, but remarkably good. The hard data you want to focus on is the earnings, not the GDP report,” Hogan said. The oil market was also a concern.

Trump said North Korea was his biggest global challenge. He lavished praise on Chinese President Xi Jinping for Chinese assistance in trying to rein in Pyongyang. I know he would like to be able to do something, perhaps it’s possible that he can’t,” Trump said. The Trump administration on Wednesday declared North Korea “an urgent national security threat and top foreign policy priority.” Any direct U.S. military action would run the risk of massive North Korean retaliation and huge casualties in

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke on Thursday about the NAFTA trade deal and agreed there was an opportunity to update the accord to the mutual benefit of all signatories, the Mexican government said. In a statement, Pena Nieto’s office said he and Trudeau had spoken on Thursday afternoon and were ready to begin the process of dialogue between Mexico, Canada and the United States, themembers of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). ”

President Donald Trump said that he will either renegotiate or terminate a “horrible” trade deal with South Korea, Reuters reported late Thursday. The president also said he wants South Korea to pay for the $1 billion THAAD missile defense system, Reuters said. Shares in Hyundai Motor fell as much as 2.4 percent following Trump’s comments. “So investors are thinking that perhaps the worst on trade tensions with Asia is not going to happen,” he said. An official from South Korea’s Finance Ministr

Goldman Sachs is bullish on aluminum prices as it expects the Chinese government to implement supply-side reforms in the months ahead, the U.S. investment bank said in a note released Wednesday. The three-month aluminum price on the London Metal Exchange was moving around $1,930 per ton in Asian trading hours Friday. Already, aluminum prices have outperformed most other commodities year-to-date, rising about 15 percent against steel and 3 percent against copper, Goldman noted. These developments

There is a danger that the situation on the Korean peninsula could escalate or slip out of control, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told a senior Russian diplomat. Wang made the comments during a meeting on the sidelines of a meeting at the United Nations, China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday.

Under the leadership of both former CEO Frank Slootman and his successor, former eBay CEO John Donahoe, ServiceNow grew from a $93 million company to a $1.4 billion giant. Online payment company PayPal delivered a stellar report, with 6 million new customers, bringing its total to over 203 million accounts. “That give this company a remarkable flywheel effect and it allowed PayPal’s fabulous CEO Dan Schulman to announce a $5 billion buyback,” Cramer said. The ironic twist here is that these two

Tidal waves of earnings continue to hit the market, and today, two massive players continued to impress Jim Cramer with their results: Amazon and Google parent Alphabet. The “Mad Money” host is confident the two can continue to outshine less favorable market trends like the decline of oil prices. “If oil goes down tomorrow, you will likely see these two buck the trend. In other words, Amazon goes up even if retailers were down, which they were, and Google goes up. Well, let’s just say it looks l

As Amazon and Google-parent Alphabet shares continue their climb to all-time highs on Thursday, the “Fast Money” traders discussed whether these stocks too expensive. Amazon shares traded above $950 in after-hours trading after the company reported an earnings beat after the bell. Alphabet shares traded around $929 in extended trading, after the company beat analyst expectations as well. Trader David Seaburg said Alphabet is worth the high price as well. “Opinions expressed by David Seaburg are

AOL boss Tim Armstrong announced a leadership team on Thursday that will run advertising platforms under Verizon. Build global brands people love2. The go-forward leadership team was selected on the following principles:1. Our leadership team puts talent first and is expected to build an amazing cast while they build an amazing performance. We are leaning into a leadership team that is technically enabled.