The Chinese biggest e-commerce company, Alibaba announced that it will buy the remaining 82 percent of China's YouTube-like service provider, Youku Tudou. According to a source, the company is offering Youku Tudou $26.60 per share totalling up to $3.6 billion.
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Twitter CEO earns brownie points with stock giveback
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey gives away a third of his stock in the online messaging service to employees. The move, seen by many as an effort to win staff support, comes just a week after Dorsey laid off more than 300 employees or 8% of Twitter's workforce to streamline the company.
Pandora's stock tumble wipes out $1.4-bn market cap
The internet radio services provider Pandora's stock plummeted owing to increased competition in the global market. Pandora shares dropped 35 percent on Wall Street in just one session eroding $1.4billion market capitalization of the company. The emerging competition in internet radio services from global majors such as Apple is impacting the Pandora's performance. Adding to this YouTube has also introduced a subscription plan for music and video.
Carl Icahn will spend $150 million to lobby the congress
The billionaire and activist investor, Carl Icahn announced that he is trying to lobby the congress to pass a new tax reform law that will not allow any US corporation from running business overseas just to avoid taxes. According to Icahn, he is planning to put forward $150 million into the new law known as super-PAC.
United Tech third quarter profit falls
United Technologies Corp, one of the top US aerospace and building systems conglomerate announced a slight drop in its third quarter earnings. According to the report, the United Technologies' income fell to $1.36 billion compared to $1.85 billion in 2014. The company also announced a major restructuring plan that will be carried out before 2016 as a strategy to cut cost and improve company's revenue.
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Distancing from the impact of financial crisis, Bank of America (BoA) has posted positive numbers for the third quarter making its fourth consecutive quarter with profits. The Charlotte-based bank posted a net profit of $4.07bn for the third quarter. Despite its pedestrian performance in the third quarter ending September 2015, the bank has been able to post profits for the last four quarters. This is considered to be encouraging for the shareholders of $2.2trillion bank. The North America's second largest bank by assets suffered a drop of 2.5 percent in revenues owing lower interest rates. This resulted in 6.9 percent drop in net interest income.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc is facing tough time in selling $2.8 billion of debt in the wake of ongoing drug pricing controversy in the pharmaceutical industry.
Asian stocks continued to slide for the second session following the renewed concerns over the moderating inflation and slump in factory output in the China's economy.
Citigroup announced that the company will cut down on block trading businesses as one of the bank's strategy to protect the firm from any losses, especially with current market uncertainty. The bank also plans to avoid its client from big losses as the trading could give a high return but at the same time, the client could risk losing more than they invested when the market turns south.
China Resources SZITIC Trust Co Ltd, a unit of China Resources Corp, is planning to divest minority stake in Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The state-backed China Resources Trust has a minority stake in the US retailer's operations in China. Wal-Mart Stores Inc has 21 Wal-Mart outlets in China. China Resources has listed its stake for sale at Yuan3.3billion ($525million). It's estimated that China Resources has 35 percent stake in the Wal-Mart outlets in China. Wal-Mart believes the transfer of minority stake doesn't impact the operations in China.
The major banks from the US have exposure to the debt of ailing commodity giant Glencore Plc. Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley have reportedly lent $350million apiece to Glencore. North American banks contributed 20percent of the total loan exposure of Glencore. The ongoing slump in commodities market adversely impacted the Swiss-based Glencore's performance. This indicates potential alarming situation for the American banks if embattled Glencore slips into a liquidity crisis. Glencore is engaged in commodity trading and mining activities.
Taking cues from the overnight gains on Wall Street, Asian markets moved upwards marginally on Thursday. The reopening of trading in Chinese markets after a long-week holiday streak also infused fresh interest into the market.
Tracking to the steep drop of over 25 percent in competitor Nu Skin shares, Nutrition company Herbalife Ltd's stock also plunged over seven percent.
With discouraging response towards the new Galaxy smartphone, Samsubg's share price continued to move down in the market. Samsung's stock was trading 13 percent lower this year so far. Already Samsung's market capitalization dropped by $25 billion following lukewarm sales of S6 and Note 5 devices.
