Announces,Assumes on Mar 24th, 2016. The stock’s target price stayed the same, and is $56
DOW CHEMICAL last announced dividends on 02/11/2016 which are be paid on 04/29/2016. Dividend amount is $0.46, and yield is 3.77%. Dividend amount in the last 12 months was 1.72, and the annual dividend over 3, 5 and 10 years were $1.51, $1.33 and $1.27 respectively. Ex-date is 03/29/2016 and recorded date is 03/31/2016. Dividend payout frequency is Quarterly.
DOW CHEMICAL (NYSE:DOW) direction will announce earnings 04/28/2016. Zacks commenced a poll and after conclusion said the earnings of the firm are targeted to be $0.82 per share for the current quarter. This range given by Zacks and FactSet gains estimates may differ.
DOW CHEMICAL posted EPS of $.82 for the quarter ended on Wednesday 30th Sep 2015. These numbers were above the Street’s estimates and $.93 away from Street pros’ consensus, which led in a variation of 32.86%.
Deviations of real gains from forecast numbers have a significant impact on a firm’s share price. As of now, analysts anticipate DOW CHEMICAL stock to attain $51.9 in forthcoming year. This amount is achieved by asking as many as 10 analysts in research. The estimated price range for this financial is put in between $46.0 and $56.0. These financial estimations were last changed on 2016-02-19.
The analysts of different companies have different methods of company analysis. Any investors unacquainted with a particular research entity may neglect to grasp thesestock recommendations.So, Zacks has developed a unique analyst brokerage rating scale of 1-5. The purchasing proposition lowers as cost evaluation shifts from one to five.
The Dow Chemical Company combines the power of science and technology to passionately innovate what is essential to human progress. The Company connects chemistry and innovation with the principles of sustainability to help address many of the problems, such as the need for clean water, renewable energy generation and conservation, and increasing agricultural productivity. The Company conducts its worldwide operations through global businesses, which are reported in six operating segments: Electronic and Functional Materials, Coatings and Infrastructure Solutions, Agricultural Sciences, Performance Materials, Performance Plastics, and Feedstocks and Energy. In December 2013, W. R. Grace & Co announced that it has completed the acquisition of the assets of the Polypropylene Licensing and Catalysts business of The Dow Chemical Company.
Microsoft (MSFT) is in preliminary talks with private equity firms about helping finance a bid to buy embattled Internet company Yahoo (YHOO), according to media reports.
Private equity executives approached Microsoft to gauge the communications and computing giant's financial interest as Yahoo auctions its core businesses, Reuters reported Saturday.
Microsoft's potential involvement as a potential financial backer of a deal is aimed at preserving its longstanding search and advertising agreements with Yahoo, Reuters said.
Peggy Johnson, head of Microsoft's partnerships and acquisitions strategy, is part of the Yahoo discussions with private equity firms, according to an earlier report by tech news and analysis site Re/code. Yahoo is seeking $10 billion for its core businesses, the report said.
Microsoft did not immediately respond to an email Sunday seeking comment. The Redmond, Wash.-based company mounted a previous Yahoo purchase effort led by former chief executive Steve Ballmer, but scrapped that plan in 2008.
Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo's auction plan potentially includes the company's advertising, search technology, Yahoo Sports and Tumblr blogging platform. Although Yahoo was an early leader in Internet search, it has struggled to compete as rivals Google and Facebook captured major shares in its online and mobile markets.
Yahoo announced the auction plan in December, after abandoning an effort to spin off its estimated $30 billion-plus stake in Chinese online marketplace company Alibaba (BABA). The cancellation was reportedly sparked by concerns that an eventual sale could trigger a hefty U.S. tax bill.
Some investors, including Starboard Value, a New York-based hedge fund that holds a 1.7% Yahoo stake, have complained that the Internet company has moved too slowly to revamp its business model and generate new revenue.
Starboard on Thursday announced an effort to oust Yahoo's board of directors — including CEO Marissa Mayer — in a potential proxy battle at the Internet company's annual shareholders meeting later this year. Starboard CEO Jeffrey Smith said telecom giant Verizon Communications (VZ) recently said it had yet to receive information from Yahoo in response to Verizon's potential bidding interest.
Other potential buyers in a Yahoo auction are said to include Alibaba, telecom giant AT&T (T), cable and broadband provider Comcast (CCV), U.S. entertainment powerhouse Walt Disney (DIS) and Japanese telecom company SoftBank Group.
The level of global investment into renewable energy hit an all-time high in 2015 — with the collective tab nearly breaking the $286 billion mark — according to a new report published by the UN Environment Programme, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, and the Frankfurt School.
The rapidly rising investment figures are partly the result of the continuing drop in solar and wind energy development costs — meaning that, as development prices continue to fall, investment figures should continue to rise as well.
In order to avoid many of the expected negatives of anthropogenic climate change, such investments will need to grow considerably more than they have to date, though. So, despite the good news of the new record, things aren’t quite where they need to be.
The new record (which doesn’t factor investments into large-scale hydroelectric projects into the equations) represents a notable increase from the previous record of $278.5 billion, set back in 2011. It also represents a large lead over the fossil fuel power plant investments for the year, which came in at $130 billion.
Many of the countries that are referred to as being “developing countries” led the charge towards renewable energy investment — with India, China, and Brazil together putting $156 billion into renewable energy investment in 2015 (a 19% rise over the previous year). $103 billion of this was solely from China (a 17% rise over the previous year).
Solar and wind energy generation plant installations hit an all-time high in 2015 as well — with a total of 118 gigawatts (GW) installed during the year.
“Although 2015 was a landmark year with the signing of the Paris agreement, the good news about renewables uptake is still not nearly enough to stabilize emissions below the 2°C trajectory,” noted Eric Usher, chief of the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative.
Climate Central explains:
Solar, wind and other low-carbon electricity sources have prevented 1.5 gigatons of greenhouse gases from being emitted per year over the past decade compared to a global electric power system running mostly on fossil fuels, he said. To reach the 2°C goal, annual emissions need to be cut an additional 10 gigatons by 2020.
That’s a huge challenge, Usher said, because many coal-fired power plants currently in use are built to last 40 years or more, and many have 20 or more years of life left in them, making it unlikely utilities will shut them down anytime soon.
“Despite ambitious signals from COP21 in Paris and the growing capacity of new installed renewable energy, there is still a long way to go,” commented Frankfurt School President Udo Steffens. “Coal-fired power stations and other conventional power plants have long lifetimes. Without further policy interventions, climate-altering emissions of carbon dioxide will increase for at least another decade.”
And in all likelihood, longer than that. Pending theoretical aggressive action from world “leaders,” that is.
Image by UN Environment Programme
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Tags: Brazil, China, Frankfurt School, India, UN Environment Programme, UNEP
Revlon has named Colgate-Palmolive executive Fabian Garcia to serve as president and chief executive, an appointment that comes a month after the prior CEO stepped down for personal reasons.
On Monday, Revlon revsaid Garcia would officially become CEO on April 15 and would also serve on the company’s board of directors. He spent 13 years in leadership roles at Colgate-Palmolive cl, including a tenure running the consumer-products company’s businesses in various markets abroad. He also previously worked at Timberland, which is now owned by VF Corp. vfc, and Procter & Gamble pg.
Investors weren’t pleased with the news. Shares slipped about 7% in recent trading.
Revlon also disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that Garcia’s initial employment pact is for five years and he will be paid an annual base salary of no less than $1.5 million with a target annual bonus of 150% of his base salary. He will also receive a $2 million signing bonus and his compensation package also includes restricted stock grants down the road.
Garcia takes the mantle at Revlon from Lorenzo Delpani, who stepped down late last month. That news came about a month after Revlon Chairman Ron Perelman said he would seek alternatives for the company. Sales have been soft at Revlon as it faces a competitive environment in the cosmetics aisle, while the stock price has performed poorly of late. Shares have dropped 16% over the past year. Source link
Dell struck a deal to sell its IT services unit to Japan's NTT Data, which marks its first divestiture deal to raise cash for its EMC transaction.
Dell, EMC Deal: 10 Things IT Needs To Know
On Monday, March 28, Dell announced it is selling its IT services unit to NTT Data of Japan for more than $3 billion.
The sale of Dell Services marks the first and largest transaction the computer maker has taken on since it disclosed in December that Dell was considering divestitures to help offset its buyout of storage giant EMC, said Dell spokesman David Frink.
However, Frink cautioned that it's not fair to speculate that there will be more divestitures to come or that this will be the last, as the company moves forward with its EMC buyout deal that is valued at roughly $60 billion.
Quest Software and SonicWall were also reportedly being shopped around for $2 billion each, according to a Reuters report in December.
Dell's finding a new home for Dell Services will help ease some of the financial burden of the deal with EMC. According to Frink, that mega-deal with EMC is making progress, and is expected to close in the August to October time frame and on the original terms that the companies discussed. So far, the FTC and European Union have signed off on the transaction and there are a few more regulatory bodies that are needed to approve the deal.
The sale of Dell Services makes sense, said Sid Nag, Gartner's research director of cloud technology and service provider group.
"Dell has been looking to shed assets that don't line up with their strategy for their impending Dell-EMC merger, which will be focused on the enterprise systems and hardware market (server, storage, networking, private cloud), which includes cloud related systems," Nag said. "Dell Services is one such entity."
Additionally, Dell will get the cash flow from the sale that puts it closer to its proposed mega-buyout, as well as not having to lay off their services folks.
Dell Services currently includes three buckets: Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Applications and Infrastructure, and Cloud Computing Services, which is not to be confused with its private cloud integrated systems. Dell's Application and Infrastructure and BPO services do not really have a place within the combined Dell-EMC company strategy, Nag said. The company's Cloud Computing Services, which were not doing well, would be an overlap to EMC's own cloud service, Virtustream.
NTT Data Deal
For Dell Services customers, they will get the benefit of a global player like NTT Data, which is focused on IT services, Nag said. He pointed out that NTT also acquired another services company when it snapped up Keane in 2010.
"This additional acquisition should provide Dell Services customers the confidence that they are being served by a company that is serious and focused on IT services as a whole," said Nag. "For NTT Data, this is a great opportunity to expand their global reach, including North America. Public Cloud services have been growing at a phenomenal 15% CAGR through 2019, as per Gartner's Cloud forecast. So, NTT Data sees this as an opportunity to capture a piece of that growth."
Although Dell will be receiving money from the sale of Dell Services, it is not walking away with a profit -- but rather a loss.
Back in 2009, Dell acquired Perot Systems for about $5 billion and is now selling it to NTT Data at a far lower price. Nonetheless, Dell founder, CEO, and chairman Michael Dell is pleased with the investment his company made in Perot Systems.
"I'm extremely proud of Dell Services' solid growth, broad capabilities and deep domain expertise in healthcare and life sciences, banking, financial services and insurance. Our investments in digital services, application modernization, tools, automation and 'as-a-service' models, have enabled Dell Services customers to simplify their IT environment, empower their workforce, engage their customers and grow," Dell said in a statement. "Together, NTT DATA and Dell Services will be a winning combination for Dell Services customers, team members, and partners."
Although the NTT Data transaction will be subject to regulatory approvals, Dell says it anticipates it will close sometime this year.
Dawn Kawamoto is a freelance writer and editor. She is an award-winning journalist who has written and edited technology, management, leadership, career, finance, and innovation stories for such publications as CNET's News.com, TheStreet.com, AOL's DailyFinance, and The ... View Full Bio
U.S. economic growth slowed in the fourth quarter, but not as sharply as previously estimated, with fairly strong consumer spending offsetting the drag from efforts by businesses to reduce an inventory overhang.
Gross domestic product increased at a 1.4 percent annual rate instead of the previously reported 1.0 percent pace, the Commerce Department said on Friday in its third GDP estimate.
People are seen walking through Roosevelt Field shopping mall in Garden City, New York February 22, 2015. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
Relatively strong consumer spending underscores the economy's underlying strength and should further allay fears of a recession, which triggered a massive stock market sell-off early this year. That, together with a tightening labor market and rising inflation likely keeps the Federal Reserve on a path to gradually raise interest rates this year.
"The consumer is back in the driver's seat. There is no sign of recession in these data so this will put a smile on Fed officials' faces and argues for their policy of gradual interest rate normalization to continue," said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG Union Bank in New York.
GDP growth was initially estimated to have risen at only a 0.7 percent rate. The economy grew at a 2.0 percent pace in the third quarter and expanded 2.4 percent for all of 2015.
Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two thirds of U.S. economic activity, rose at a 2.4 percent pace and not the 2.0 percent rate reported last month. More consumption of services than previously estimated accounted for the revision.
Spending is being supported by rising wages as the jobs markets tightens, as well as firming house prices. Gasoline prices around $2 per gallon are also helping to underpin household discretionary spending.
The dollar was trading marginally higher against a basket of currencies. The U.S. stock and Treasury debt markets were closed for Good Friday.
Fourth-quarter inventory investment was revised lower. Still, inventories remain high relative to domestic demand.
Businesses accumulated $78.3 billion worth of inventory rather than the $81.7 billion reported last month. As a result, inventories subtracted 0.22 percentage point from GDP growth instead of the previously reported 0.14 percentage point.
First-quarter GDP growth estimates are around a 1.5 percent rate. But with the inventory pile still large and shipments of capital goods ordered by businesses weak in January and February, the risks to growth are tilted to the downside.
There was some bad news in the GDP report, with corporate profits falling for a second straight quarter as a strong dollar and cheap oil undercut the earnings of multinational and energy companies.
Profits after tax with inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments declined at an annual rate of 8.4 percent, the biggest drop since the first quarter of 2014, after falling at a 1.7 percent pace in the third quarter.
For all of 2015 profits dropped 5.1 percent, the largest decline since 2008, after slipping 0.6 percent in 2014.
Profits from current production fell $159.6 billion after decreasing $33.0 billion in the third quarter. Part of the drop was due to a $20.8 billion transfer payment related to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, which was the largest-ever U.S. offshore oil spill.
But even accounting for the oil spill settlement, which translated to an $83.2 billion rate of decline in profits, earnings were still weak. Profits from the rest of the world fell $6.5 billion after decreasing $23.1 billion in the third quarter.
Manufacturing profits tumbled $139.2 billion during the last quarter after falling by only $4.1 billion in the July-September period. Profits in the petroleum and coal products sector plunged $124.3 billion after rising $7.0 billion in the third quarter.
"This poor performance reflects energy firms struggling with lower oil prices and manufacturing firms hit by the strong dollar," said Jesse Edgerton, an economist at JPMorgan in New York. "But it also likely reflects the beginnings of a profit margin squeeze driven by tighter labor markets, rising wages, and weak productivity growth."
The dollar gained 10.5 percent last year versus the currencies of the United States' main trading partners, putting a squeeze on the profits of multinationals such as Procter & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive .
A more than 60 percent plunge in crude oil prices from highs above $100 a barrel in June 2014 has also weighed on the profits of oilfield service firms like Schlumberger and Halliburton.
Martin Schulz, Mark Zuckerberg and Mathias Doepfner attend the presentation of the first Axel Springer Award on February 25, 2016 in Berlin, Germany.(Photo: Pool, Getty Images)
Online music service Pandora (P) is looking to tap the power of the founder CEO - for good reason.
Pandora , a company that allows consumers to stream music over the Internet, Monday named founder Tim Westergren as its CEO. The company seems to be looking to take advantage of a corporate trend: Companies managed by their founders have had the edge. The 19 companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 with current CEOs also reported as founders or co-founders, including social media giant Facebook (FB), online video service Netflix (NFLX) and sports apparel maker Under Armour (UA), on average have gained 95% over the past three years, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. That performance absolutely blows away the 30% gain by the S&P 500.
Pandora is the latest company turning to the leadership of a past founder to help it get its mojo back. Westergren, a composer and record producer, founded the company in 2000. Westergren takes the helm back from Brian McAndrews who was CEO starting in September 2013. Prior to joining Pandora, McAndrews was a top executive at a variety of companies such as Disney's (DIS) ABC, General Mills (GIS) and online advertising company aQuantive. But he wasn't a founder. Shares of Pandora have lost a third of their value over the past year. The company continues to lose money on an unadjusted basis and missed earnings estimates in the December quarter by a stunning 43%.
It's unclear if Westergren can get the company moving again, but founders do have a great track record. Facebook lately has been the best example. Facebook, which is still lead by its visionary CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has continually been at least one step ahead of its competition in one of the most hotly competitive areas of technology: social media. Zuckerberg first navigated the company from the shift from desktop computing to mobile. Also Monday, Facebook's Oculus kicked off the virtual reality trend by releasing its Oculus Rift headset to consumers. Facebook also had the foresight to buy online messaging service Instagram, which has proven a masterstroke as that service is catching on with the generation younger than Millennials.
The situation at Starbucks (SBUX) was also a strong one that shows the power of a found. The coffee chain's growth and stock price were given a jolt when founder Howard Schultz returned as CEO in early 2008. Shares of the stock are up 222% over the past five years, trouncing the S&P 50.
Returning founder CEOs tend to reinvigorate companies, like Starbucks, but founder CEOs are also very effective at young companies. says Shaker Zahra, professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Minnesota. "There's a connection between a company (with a founder as CEO) and the motivation to build a name and a reputation, and also make money," he says. That's certainly been the case with the 19 S&P 500 companies with founders at the helm. Not only have these companies' shares outperformed as a group the past three years - but 14 of the 19 have individually beaten the market, too.
Longer term, the outperformance of companies with CEOs who are also founders is also strong. There are 16 current members of the S&P 500 where the CEO has also been the founder going back at least five years. Over the past five years, these stocks have gained an average of 170% - which crushes the 56% gain of the S&P 500 during that time. Even some of the stocks that have lagged in the past three and five years, such as Wynn Resorts (WYNN) have been solid performers even longer term. Wynn Resorts' shares are down 26% over the past three years on weakness in Asia. But investors that stuck with Stephen Wynn's company since its first day of trading in October 2002 are up 618% - topping the 127% gain by the S&P 500.
The positive influence of CEO founders holds even longer-term and by a solid margin. Between 1993 and 2002, the 11% of largest public U.S. firms headed by CEOs who founded the company rewarded with investors with excess annual returns of 8.3% compared with benchmarks, according to a study by Rudiger Fahlenbrach, while a professor at the University of Washington, Seattle. Fahlenbrach found companies with CEO founders made more investments aimed at the long-term sustainability of the business, including higher spending on research and development and higher capital expenditures. These companies were also more disciplined with mergers and acquisitions.
Time will tell if Westergren can help Pandora gets its groove back. But it's probably best to give the founder the benefit of the doubt.
S&P 500 COMPANIES CURRENT WITH FOUNDERS AS CEO
CEO/Founder, company, symbol, 3-year % ch.
Zuckerberg, Mark, Facebook, FB, 345.2%
Hastings, Reed, Netflix, NFLX, 274.3%
Plank, Kevin A., Under Armour, UA, 225.0%
Huang, Jen-Hsun, NVIDIA, NVDA, 172.3%
Bezos, Jeffrey P., Amazon.com, AMZN, 118.6%
Schultz, Howard D., Starbucks, SBUX, 108.6%
Schleifer, Leonard S., Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, REGN, 108.3%
Wexner, Leslie H., L Brands, LB, 94.6%
Bidzos, D. James, VeriSign, VRSN, 87.1%
Smith, Frederick W., FedEx, FDX, 64.3%
Benioff, Marc R., salesforce.com, CRM, 61.3%
Leighton, F. Thomson, Akamai Technologies, AKAM, 55.4%
This new downward sloping trendline has been hit now and the futures pulled back from it.
The MACD's finally went negative Friday and are now back up above the zero level.
Trying to "think like SkyNet" is tough but it looks like it went up after Friday's close and this mornings' open to clear out some bears by hitting there stops. I've saw this pattern many times in the past where the market first clears out stops (bulls or bears) in the afterhours session and then opens and goes the direction of the stops cleared... in this case, down.
This week is also commonly a bearish week, we should increase the odds for the falling trendline to hold the bulls back. I'd remain short (if shorted from last Fridays' close) unless that falling trendline is broken through and the overnight high of 2040, which at that point odds would suggest this is just another small pullback within a very long and stretched out rally.
If we start down then I'd look for the prior low on Friday (just a hair over 2010) for support. Considering that Monday's have been very light volume days recently... and the added fact that it's the first day back for traders after a 3 day Easter holiday weekend, we could see some churn back up and down today.
It's not uncommon to see triangle patterns made in the market during light volume periods. I've added in another rising trendline to make that triangle, so let's see if it respects both trendlines of it and bounces back and forth today between them.
Looks like the overhead resistance was too much for the bulls as the market finally gave rolled over yesterday. I'd like to see a retrace back up to hit the 2040 area where there's a new falling trendline of resistance but I doubt if we get it today. If so, I'd be a bear and short it over the 3-day weekend with a credit spread to let the time decay work in my favor.
So for today I'm looking for some kind of retrace back up to make a lower high. I just get the feeling they won't do much of a retracement back up as now they have the bulls trapped. But I'll wait patiently to see as next week should be down and we are still very early in this pullback, so there should be plenty of time to get a bounce to short at.
We are so overbought that I wouldn't expect much on the bounce side. Besides the new falling trendline there's the horizontal resistance around 2030, which I think will be strong on the way back up. The FP I have on the SPY probably won't be hit until the next turn date in mid-April from the looks of things today.
Next week is a bearish week and I really doubt if it can go up to that FP (about 70-80 points up on the SPX), so that suggests we bottom out early April and rally back up into mid-April... which works for me too. I'm just tired of watching paint dry and don't care what direction we go as long as I can trade it.
United States stock indexes closed mostly lower on Tuesday as shares of airlines, cruise companies and travel booking sites fell after the deadly bombings in Belgium.
News of the attacks, which killed more than 30 people, pulled the broader market lower for much of the morning. An early afternoon rally erased some of the losses, but the rebound didn’t hold.
Oil drilling companies also slumped after a downbeat forecast on drilling. Health care and technology stocks gained ground.
The slide ended a four-day market winning streak. Trading was relatively light, reflecting the approaching Easter holiday weekend. It also signaled that traders were not rattled by the potential market implications of the attack.
“What happens is investors and traders go in and start to bottom-fish on sectors that have sold off,” said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial. “It flies in the face of the headlines and the human cost of these terrorist attacks, but the stock markets tend to turn around.”
The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index dipped 1.80 points, or 0.1 percent, to 2,049.80. The Nasdaq composite added 12.79 points, or 0.3 percent, to 4,821.66.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost 41.30 points, or 0.2 percent, to 17,582.57.
The major European stock markets declined early on, but ultimately closed higher. The DAX in Germany rose 0.4 percent, while the CAC-40 in France edged up 0.1 percent. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was up 0.1 percent. In Belgium, the BEL 20 index rose 0.2 percent.
In the United States, travel-related companies slumped. Royal Caribbean Cruises shed $2.24, or 2.9 percent, to $75.99, while Carnival lost $1.03, or 2.1 percent, to $48.75. The American Airlines Group fell 71 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $42.76. Delta Air Lines fell 73 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $49.39.
The travel website operators Priceline Group and Expedia also fell. Priceline slid $31.10, or 2.3 percent, to $1,319.41, and Expedia lost $1.96, or 1.8 percent, to $108.92.
“The only sector that appears to be truly suffering, naturally, is anything having to do with travel,” said J. J. Kinahan, chief strategist for TD Ameritrade.
Transocean also slumped on Tuesday. The oil drilling company shed 53 cents, or 5 percent, to $10 after its leaders said they did not expect drilling to increase anytime soon. The outlook weighed on other drillers. Ensco lost 32 cents, or 2.8 percent, to $11.01, and Helmerich & Payne slid $1.12, or 1.8 percent, to $59.86.
Other stocks fared better. Staples climbed 6.3 percent to close at $10.30. The company recovered some of its losses from a day earlier, when a court battle over the office supply chain’s proposed merger with Office Depot began.
Markets in Asia were mixed. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 climbed 1.9 percent, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong shed early gains, sliding 0.1 percent. The South Korean Kospi gained 0.4 percent, while the S&P ASX in Australia 200 edged up 0.1 percent.
n energy trading, benchmark United States crude oil slipped 7 cents to settle at $41.45 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, the benchmark for international oil, rose 25 cents, to $41.79 a barrel in London.
In other energy trading, wholesale gasoline added 4 cents, or 2.6 percent, to $1.50 a gallon, and heating oil rose a penny to $1.25 a gallon. Natural gas added 4 cents, or 1.9 percent, to $1.86 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Government bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 1.94 percent from 1.92 percent late Monday. The euro fell to $1.1216 from $1.1251, and the dollar rose to 112.33 yen from 111.86.
Not much to say here guys that hasn't been said several times in the last week or so. Until we see some serious breakdown it looks like it's just going to continue to grind up until it hits the FP on the SPY from several weeks back. Today could be a breakout day from the looks of where the futures are now. Several days of consolation usually leads to a breakout, so we wait some more... and more, and more.
On the downside we have the same support zone around the 2020 area as pointed out yesterday. Next week is usually bearish as big institutions tend so sell near the end of the month to close out the quarter, so we need to hit that FP soon I think, or else we risk pulling back small next week and making another run up into mid-April. Personally I'd like to see them hit now so the next move down can be a big one. But SkyNet rules and will do whatever hurts the most traders. For me, I'm a patient bear just napping until the upside target is hit.
Geopolitical concerns came back to the stock market on Tuesday, and investors reacted negatively to news of bombings in the Belgian capital of Brussels that reawakened fears of terrorist activity across the European continent. Major market benchmarks regained much of the ground they lost during the early part of the day, but they nevertheless closed with losses of as much as a quarter percent. Even with the bad news hitting the market, some stocks still managed to buck the downtrend and produce solid gains on Tuesday. Among the top performers were Lumber Liquidators (NYSE:LL), Office Depot (NASDAQ:ODP), and Elbit Systems (NASDAQ:ESLT).
Lumber Liquidators jumped 16% in the wake of news that the flooring specialist had come to an agreement with the California Air Resources Board concerning inquiries about its laminate flooring products. The company said that the deal "fully resolves" the regulatory inquiry and that the California agency has concluded its review without making a formal finding of wrongdoing or violations. Lumber Liquidators will pay $2.5 million as part of the deal, and it also agreed to voluntary compliance procedures in order to ensure that the regulator's standards regarding formaldehyde are met. What investors especially liked was the fact that the California body expressly recognized Lumber Liquidators' efforts as well as the lack of evidence of actual harm. If the deal can repair Lumber Liquidators' damaged reputation, then it could go a long way toward making the company more viable in the long run.
Office Depot rose 10% as Federal Trade Commission hearings regarding the competitive impact of the office supply store chain's proposed merger with rival Staples continued. The FTC is concerned that allowing the two companies to merge would effectively create a near-monopoly in segments of the office supply market, especially that part of the market that aims at large corporate customers. For its part, Office Depot has argued that e-commerce retail specialists are already taking aim at the market and could pose a much larger threat in the near future, necessitating the merger as a means of survival. Given that the hearings could last two weeks or longer, investors will be on edge and looking for any clues of what the eventual resolution will be. Office Depot's positive stock performance suggests that investors at least find the pro-merger argument more compelling.
Finally, Elbit Systems climbed 8%. The Israeli defense technology specialist released its fourth-quarter financial report Tuesday morning, and revenue rose 4% from the year-ago quarter, helping to produce adjusted earnings of $1.74 per share. CEO Butzi Machlis was especially pleased with the company's record backlog of $6.6 billion, and he believes that the European market has shown encouraging signs of emerging from its recessionary conditions. In addition, Elbit Systems has focused its attention on the Asia-Pacific region, and the defense tech provider believes that the region could become an important growth driver in the future as well.
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Corporate headquarters of insurer Health Net Inc. in Woodland Hills, California.
Shares of health insurer Centene gained more than 4 percent after the firm announced it had received approval for its $6.3 billion acquisition of Health Net from health insurance officials at the California Department of Managed Health Care (DHMC), one of two regulatory agencies in the state needed to sign off on the deal.
"We think the approval from the DMHC reflects significant momentum in the regulatory approval process," said Susquehanna analyst Chris Rigg in a research note to clients. He said key concessions the firms offered for approval, included maintaining Health Net's operations and headquarters in the state, and investing more than $300 million in programs and infrastructure to improve health care for low-income Californians.
"We believe the conditions imposed by the DMHC are in line with the companies' expectations," Rigg said.
Final approval of Centene and Health Net's merger now rests with the California Department of Insurance (DOI). The department of justice signed off on the deal last August, terminating its antitrust review early.
"Centene and Health Net expect to close the transaction shortly after receipt of approval from the California Department of Insurance, subject to satisfaction or waiver of the closing conditions," the two firms said in a press release announcing the deal. Source link
The UberEats app launches this month in 10 U.S. cities as the popular ride sharing service takes on the competitive food delivery scene.
NEW YORK — Next time you get into an Uber, the car's last passenger may have been a carton of Thai curry.
As UberEats launches as a standalone app this month in 10 U.S. cities — including in New York and Washington D.C., on Tuesday — it's expanding its fleet of drivers, adding bike couriers and partnering with hundreds of restaurants to dig deeper into the competitive business of food delivery.
Uber is going up against established delivery companies like Seamless, Grubhub and Yelp's Eat24, plus smaller local companies like New York City's Maple in the fight for customers who are shunning their kitchens in favor of prepared meals delivered to their door. It's a $15.3 billion market, and one that's only getting bigger. Delivery represents 3% of 61 billion restaurant visits per year, according to NPD Group figures.
The expanded UberEats has Uber partnering with more than 100 restaurants in each city — which by the end of the month will include New York, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Austin, Seattle, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Traditional Uber features are still baked in: you can track your driver — or biker — as your meal makes its way to you on a live map and existing customers will find their payment information automatically transferred over from the Uber app.
The new app, which Uber began testing in Toronto in December, allows customers, for the most part, to order from the restaurants' full menus. It's an expansion of the more limited UberEats service, which has been around since 2014 within the original Uber app and offers two to five meals that restaurants prepare early in the day so they're available for delivery immediately. That's still an option in the app under "instant delivery."
Digging in 50 minutes after ordering @UberEATShttps://t.co/Ww6NSZEayd
— Hadley Malcolm (@hadleypdxdc) March 22, 2016
Drivers will have to log into UberEats separately to pick up and deliver food orders, and log off and back in to the regular Uber app to start giving rides again, says spokeswoman Sarah Maxwell. And in some cities, like New York, your lunch will come courtesy of a bike messenger instead of a sleek black car.
Uber built a web-based dashboard for restaurants to track incoming orders and to dispatch couriers based on how long the restaurant says it will take to prepare a certain meal, which can be updated in real time.
Uber promises to have you fed in under an hour — delivery times around lunch time in New York on Tuesday ranged from 10 minutes to 51 minutes. Although it appears the company is still working out how to accurately determine wait times when demand spikes. Before I ordered lunch Tuesday around 12:30, I was told to expect a 15-26 minute delivery window. After I placed my order, the estimated delivery time was for 50 minutes later.
First-day issues. Reason for longer deliv time than originally estimated on @UberEATS order https://t.co/76L6lT65DB
— Hadley Malcolm (@hadleypdxdc) March 22, 2016
It's a glitch Uber will need to act quickly to address, because speed is ultimately the key to winning over customers in the increasingly crowded delivery market, says Kevin Kopelman, senior analyst with research firm Cowen and Co.
"It’s all about speed, quality and price," he says. "The faster you can get the deliveries done, the cheaper you can make it for customers because it means you can more effectively use delivery peoples’ time and they can do more delivery drops per hour." And it will help avoid the anger of hungry customers.
Uber is waiving the delivery fee in new markets for now but eventually will charge, though it hasn't announced how much. Toronto and Los Angeles, the first two markets to get the app, charge a $5 delivery fee.
Some of Uber's competitors have been chewed up and spit out, unable to keep up with the cost of doing business. Bay Area delivery app, SpoonRocket, shut down last week, citing "intense competition" and "an ever tightening funding environment."
Another San Francisco company, Sidecar, folded at the end of 2015 when it sold its assets to General Motors. The ride-sharing and delivery service had partnered with Eat24, a delivery service owned by Yelp, to double up on food deliveries and rides at the same time. That meant food orders could be riding along in the trunk during someone's drive, a model Sidecar had said was more efficient and affordable. But ultimately, it didn't work out.
"It’s harder for a smaller company to get the new customer, to get the restaurant partner on board or to get the scale necessary to make this work," Kopelman says.
But Uber enters the game with some sizable assets: More than 19 million customers and 400,000 active drivers to target for food orders.
"They have a history of very strong, smart, aggressive competition," Kopelman says, "so you have to take them seriously."
Fur will no longer be featured in iconic fashion designer Giorgio Armani's collections.
Fur will no longer be featured in iconic fashion designer Giorgio Armani's collections.
Armani is one of the biggest names in fashion, and the iconic designer has now decided to go completely fur-free.
Giorgio Armani announced today that starting with the fall 2016 collection, he will no longer use fur in any of the future Armani collections or throughout any of the other Armani Group labels.
"I am pleased to announce that the Armani Group has made a firm commitment to abolish the use of animal fur in its collections," Armani said. "Technological progress made over the years allows us to have valid alternatives at our disposal that render the use of cruel practices unnecessary as regards animals.... Pursuing the positive process undertaken long ago, my company is now taking a major step ahead, reflecting our attention to the critical issues of protecting and caring for the environment and animals."
The brand has been criticized for using fur for years, especially after PETA called out the designer in 2008 for creating children's coats with rabbit fur. PETA even went as far as setting up coffins outside the Giorgio Armani store in Taipei that read "Armani: Fur Is Dead." The brand is now being praised by animal rights organizations for finally making this decision.
"This critical decision to stop using fur, declared by one of the world's most iconic and talented designers, is an important victory for animals and fashion," said Adam M. Roberts, CEO of Born Free USA and the Born Free Foundation. "We could not be more grateful to the leadership the Armani brand has shown, and we hope this action will strongly influence the rest of the high-end fashion industry."
The designer worked closely with the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and the Fur Free Alliance, which is a coalition of 40 animal protection organizations in 28 countries working hard to end fur trade.
"Armani provides leadership in an industry that has fallen behind others when it comes to animal welfare," said P.J. Smith, corporate engagement manager of the Humane Society of the United States. "The HSUS calls on all designers who close their eyes to the cruelty behind fur in the name of creative freedom and luxury to follow Armani and embrace innovative alternatives."
"Armani's fur-free announcement makes it clear that designers and consumers can have creative freedom and luxury all without supporting animal cruelty," said John Vinding, chairman of Fur Free Alliance. "Mr. Armani has been a trendsetter in the fashion world for decades and this latest announcement is proof that compassion and innovation are the future of fashion." Source link
More speed, more devices, and more choices—that’s a huge win.
If you subscribe to pay TV, the odds are 99–1 you have what the TV industry calls a “set-top box.” Even greater are the odds that, if you have one, you despise the thing. Each month, you “rent” a device that pipes cable TV to your television—but if you rely on other media sources like a Blu-ray player or a Chromecast, you may find yourself using multiple remote controls to switch between the devices hooked into your TV. Cable and satellite companies rake in about $20 billion per year in set-top box rentals, on top of the subscription fees users pay for their services. And for the most part, subscribers, who pay $232 per year on average for the rentals, don’t get new equipment, or new software, or new features for that $20 billion.
Earlier this year, the Federal Communications Commission decided to craft new regulations for the set-top box marketplace. I’m as skeptical of new FCC regulations as anyone—more than a decade I ago, I challenged an FCC proposal that would have limited consumers’ ability to connect their computers and other digital devices to their TVs. But the FCC has a 20-year-old mandate from Congress to create competition among the platforms and devices we use to access pay TV, so if consumers aren’t pleased, the commission is right to revisit how the set-top market works—and how the larger market for pay TV works, too. That it’s doing so is reason for everyone who’s ever cursed at their cable setup to cheer, a conclusion I came to recently when I ran into stumbling blocks in my own efforts to upgrade my cable. What I realized is that the FCC isn’t just trying to make it easier for more companies to sell you a broader variety of hardware to place atop your TV. It’s aiming for something that will transform home entertainment systems far more profoundly.
First, a confession: Although I am a happy Comcast subscriber, I gave up my own Comcast set-top box years ago. (After too many cross-country moves, I gave up my high-definition TV set, too.) Still, like most other cord-cutting Americans, I have a home network. It’s mostly wireless and it’s connected to the Internet through Comcast—and I also still watch a lot of TV and video through the Internet. I have two smartphones, two tablets, and three laptops, and until recently I would frequently see slowdowns in my cable Internet service. It was worst when I watched “over-the-top” programming from services like Amazon Prime or Netflix on my digital devices, often while doing work at home, answering email, or browsing the Web.
Part of the problem, I guessed, was that I was using the same clunky old cable modem that I leased from Comcast. So I started shopping on the Web. Was there a bundle from Comcast, my provider, that would give me greater Internet speed and TV choices at a reasonable price? Or did I want to switch to a competitor like Verizon Fios or DirecTV? Each multichannel video programming distributor—or MVPD—had something special to offer on the pay-TV side, plus the bundling of telephone and high-speed Internet service.
I first tried to see if I could improve my existing service. Back in my set-top-box days, I used to like Comcast’s TV packages, mostly for HBO and Showtime, but they always included lots of TV options I never watched. These days, I mostly binge-watch over-the-top shows like Amazon Prime’s Mozart in the Jungle and Netflix’s JessicaJones. And I can even get some series à la carte online.
I quickly learned I could just upgrade my Comcast Xfinity package over the Web, multiplying my download capacity by a factor of five or six to a whopping 150 megabits per second. But Comcast didn’t make it easy to downgrade or dispense with other services, or to buy a cable modem rather than rent one, or to get HBO without a set-top box.
Looking specifically for Internet-only offerings from Xfinity, I had to bail on Comcast’s website, which didn’t make it easy to specify unbundled Internet-only service. (I looked at websites for AT&T and Direct TV, as well—similar difficulties there.) And it was super difficult to suss out what kind of cable hardware I might want to buy that would free me from monthly rental fees for my cable box or any set-top box, be compatible with cable’s content offerings and Internet services, and feel like a flexible, functional device that’s worth owning in itself for the user experience it provides or enables. I ended up deciding to call Comcast directly, which turned out to be the only way a subscriber can easily find the kind of options I wanted for simultaneously upgrading some aspects of my service while eliminating others.
The Comcast rep was entirely pleasant and helpful. He tried to offer me attractive bundles that included one of Xfinity cable packages. But almost every one of those offerings would have required me to get a set-top box. The Comcast rep quickly priced out my requests. It turned out that I could get that super-capacious, high-speed Internet from Xfinity, cut off the unused landline, continue to forgo any cable content offering, and actually save about $20 a month on my bill.
But get this: I didn’t even need to upgrade my cable modem, which, it turns out, wasn’t as clunky and outdated as I had assumed (and as Comcast’s website had hinted). The cable modem, which is the only Comcast hardware in my apartment, had the ability to give me upgraded services through software, directed by Comcast’s network. My service was upgraded while I was still on the phone to Comcast’s sales department from my office, and the first thing I checked when I got home was whether I really got 150 megabits per second. As it happens, I got 175 on the first try.
That’s when it hit me: Upgrading and changing Internet and TV services through software, instead of relying on hardware upgrades, is exactly what the FCC is up to in this latest rulemaking, enabling you to hang your own devices, not something you rent, off your TV service.
More speed, more devices, and more choices—that’s a huge win. In effect, the commission’s proposed rulemaking would allow software-based alternatives, working through our Internet/pay-TV connections, to replace our set-top boxes. Under the FCC rule, I may soon be able to get all my premium pay-TV choices, including the ones that used to require set-top boxes, directly accessible on my computer, tablet, phone, or TV in my home network, much as I can now with Amazon Prime or Netflix. And I’d be liberated from needing a set-top box connected to any of these devices.
Even the commissioners who dissented from this new rulemaking yearn to be liberated in this way. Commissioner Ajit Pai was frank about this in his dissent. “As someone with three set-top boxes in my home, I share the frustrations felt by millions of Americans across this country. These boxes are clunky and expensive, and I feel the pain each and every month when I pay my video bill,” he said. “And as an FCC Commissioner, I know that the current set-top box marketplace is the product of an intrusive regulatory regime.”
I second that emotion. Just as I felt liberated decades ago when I no longer had to rent telephones and learned I could use my phone service to connect in all sorts of ways to the larger world, I know I’ll be liberated again when I’m able to get all my pay TV on any device in my home just by being a subscriber. I expect the FCC’s proposed regulations, which could push set-top box content controls out of set-top-box hardware and into the cloud, will help more consumers make similarly liberating decisions.
The FCC’s proposed rulemaking, if implemented correctly, actually could finally open that that market. I’m as skeptical of new regulatory schemes as I ever was, but the FCC’s latest initiative speaks directly to my TV-and-Internet-consuming self. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has named this initiative “Unlock the Box,” and Commissioner Pai has argued that the commission’s goal “should be to eliminate the box.” I’m ready to buy either T-shirt. Source link
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Amazon and Comcast are joining forces in what should be a mutually beneficial partnership.
Amazon Cable Store, a new section of Amazon.com that has just debuted, is reselling Comcast's television and Internet services, according to TechCrunch. Users can sort different packages that include Internet-only deals and hybrid Internet and TV bundles, and then schedule an installation at the same rate Comcast currently charges.
The e-commerce giant could use this partnership to market itself as the go-to location for cable subscriptions, particularly skinny bundles. The Comcast deal also lays the groundwork for Amazon to partner with other cable companies, which would open up a new revenue stream for Amazon.
Furthermore, the Amazon-Comcast partnership offers a chance for a content-licensing agreement in which Comcast's content appears on Amazon Prime, though this is strictly speculation at this point because details on the partnership are scarce.
The deal could also help Comcast because it increases the company's exposure to a digital audience as cable subscriptions continue to decline. Amazon.com logs about two billion visits each month, according to SimilarWeb.
Comcast also has been criticized for its customer service, but those who sign up through Amazon will have access to the e-commerce company's customer service through phone, email, chat, and social media channels.
The partnership between Amazon and Comcast is another way that cable companies are adjusting their strategies as cable subscriptions continue to decline. The rise of skinny bundles and subscription services such as Netflix and Hulu have led some to question if traditional pay-TV even has a place anymore.
Margaret Boland, research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on subscription video on-demand services that examines how the growth of SVOD is coming at the expense of the pay-TV industry. The report analyzes the state of the pay-TV industry and maps out which demographics are more likely to stop buying traditional TV packages.
The report also discuss the user base, original content offerings, and subscription models of the major subscription streaming services available today, including Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Video. Finally, it looks at how traditional pay-TV companies and premium channels like HBO and Showtime are addressing the shift to digital viewing, as well as the implications of their response for advertisers.
BI Intelligence
Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:
Those abandoning pay-TV packages fall into three main groups: cord-nevers, cord-cutters, and cord-shavers. Whereas video streaming services have found favor with younger viewers in particular, an increasing portion of older subscribers also are leaving behind their pay-TV packages. Still, younger viewers watch four times as much video content online than older viewers.
Netflix is the largest SVOD service and will continue to dominate the industry with an impressive original content lineup and aggressive expansion plans.
Amazon is trying to compete with Netflix by investing significant resources in original content.
Hulu is the third-largest SVOD service, but the only one to offer ad-supported membership tiers. Hulu has been the slowest to roll out original and exclusive content, but it has inked numerous deals in the past year to boost its content library.
Pay-TV companies are responding to the rise of SVOD services by offering subscribers "skinny bundles" and their own streaming services.
In full, the report:
Illustrates the fall of the traditional TV package and the rise of broadband only cable subscriptions.
Lays out the different types of viewers that are leaving behind pay-TV: cord-cutters, cord-shavers, and cord-nevers.
Examines the leading SVOD services including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and premium channel offerings from HBO and Showtime.
Explains the various ways that pay-TV companies are responding to the rise of SVOD services, notably skinny bundles and standalone streaming services.
Considers what the migration to SVOD services means to marketers.
To get your copy of this invaluable guide, choose one of these options:
Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP
Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT
The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of subscription video on-demand services.
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Markit(MRKT - Get Report) stock is up by 0.90% to $33.81 in mid-morning trading on Tuesday, after the company announced it will merge with IHS (IHS).
Shares of the British financial information services company soared on Monday after the company announced that it will merge with IHS, which is an analytics company based in Englewood, CO.
The deal is expected to close during the second half of 2016.
Barclays raised its price target on Markit stock to $35 from $30 on Tuesday. The deal makes sense financially but was a "total surprise" strategically, Barclays said.
"Scale has always been a long-term feature of the Markit story, and while IHS does add scale, it is not in the areas we were expecting," the firm added. "Maybe it's a vision that will take time for us to see."
IHS stock is up by 0.72% to $123.02 in mid-morning trading on Tuesday.
Separately, recently, TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this articles's author.
TheStreet Ratings rates this stock as a "hold" with a ratings score of C. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, solid stock price performance and impressive record of earnings per share growth. However, as a counter to these strengths, we find that we feel that the company's cash flow from its operations has been weak overall.
You can view the full analysis from the report here: MRKT
RIVERSIDE, Calif.—Less than 24 hours before a highly anticipated Tuesday court session where prosecutors and Apple lawyers would have squared off here in federal court, government attorneys suddenly got a judge to vacate that hearing and stay an unprecedented court order that would have forced Apple to aid investigators' efforts to unlock and decrypt an iPhone linked to a 2015 terrorist attack. In a court filing Monday, federal authorities cited a newly discovered "unlocking method" that it hopes won't require Apple's help.
The sudden and unexpected postponement essentially means an immediate victory for Apple—the company doesn’t have to comply with the government’s demands to create a customized version of iOS. But the new government filing also raises more questions than it answers, such as the reach of the government's decryption capabilities.
Melanie Newman, a spokeswoman for the Department of Justice, said in a statement sent to Ars that the government only learned of this new unlock technique this weekend.
"We must first test this method to ensure that it doesn’t destroy the data on the phone, but we remain cautiously optimistic," she wrote. "That is why we asked the court to give us some time to explore this option."
In a Monday evening call with reporters, Apple lawyers told Ars that they had absolutely no information on the government's claims.
Apple attorneys also said on the call that the company was engaged in a "constant battle" with those that would attempt to circumvent the company's security flaws. They added that the company hopes to better understand what the supposed vulnerability is, and if the case continues, the firm will insist in court on knowing everything possible about it.
Tuesday's hearing would have been filled with top-notch lawyers, not to mention attorneys representing friends of the court (amicus curae), including terrorism victims, cryptographers, and many others. Apple was set to enter the Riverside courtroom with a legal team lead by a former solicitor general of the United States, who represented plaintiffs in a landmark Supreme Court case that legalized gay marriage in March 2013. The government would have countered with a number of top prosecutors, including one who previously was involved in a sextortion case a few years ago.
An arms race continues
Andrew Crocker, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, pointed out that while the public still doesn’t know what decryption capabilities the FBI and other federal agencies have, it is known that the government retains zero-days for their own purposes.
He said he think's "it’s possible" that the DOJ would try to bring a similar case again. "But part of the reason they didn’t want to have this reason was that they couldn’t say in good faith that they had tried all the other alternatives," he told Ars.
Jennifer Granick, the director of civil liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, said that these new government decryption capabilities are not good for privacy and ever-expanding government surveillance.
"The DOJ doesn't want bad precedent, and I think Apple had the better side in this argument," she told Ars. "Being able to hack helps DOJ for a while. Apple could upgrade beyond the capability. It might also be expensive, meaning harder to do than making Apple do it."
Meanwhile, Fred Cate, a law professor at Indiana University, told Ars that while the decision to vacate is "good news," it represents a clear escalation in the security struggle.
"As a practical matter, if the FBI’s new technique works, it likely means that Apple will add more protection to its devices, which is a good thing for consumers, and the FBI will be back in court in the future asking a judge to compel Apple to help the government defeat Apple’s improved security," he told Ars. "So the issue probably has been deferred, not resolved."
The legal fracas began last month when the government obtained an unprecedented court order, citing an obscure 18th-century statute known as the All Writs Act. The case, popularly known as “FBI v. Apple,” asked the judge to decide if the government could force Apple to create a new customized version of iOS.
Prosecutors told the judge they needed this new version of iOS as a way to get into the seized iPhone 5C, which was used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the terrorists involved in the December 2015 attack in San Bernardino. The iOS 9 phone is encrypted with a four-digit passcode, and investigators are afraid that if they enter the wrong passcode 10 times, it will auto-delete all the data on the phone. The new customized iOS demanded from Apple would remove that lockout feature, and it would enable the government to brute force passcodes until it could get in.
The government is now required to provide a status report to the federal magistrate judge by April 5.
Japan sees flight delays due to airline system problems
Passengers crowd at Haneda Airport in Tokyo following airline system problems Tuesday, March 22, 2016. Major Japanese airports were crammed with thousands of passengers unable to take domestic flights Tuesday due to problems with airline computer systems. (Koji Harada/Kyodo News via AP) JAPAN OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT
Japan sees flight delays due to airline system problems
Passengers crowd at Haneda Airport in Tokyo following airline system problems Tuesday, March 22, 2016. Major Japanese airports were crammed with thousands of passengers unable to take domestic flights Tuesday due to problems with airline computer systems. (Koji Harada/Kyodo News via AP) JAPAN OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT
TOKYO (AP) — Major Japanese airports were crammed with thousands of passengers unable to take domestic flights Tuesday due to problems with airline computer systems.
The delays began in the morning, with major Japanese carrier All Nippon Airways posting a notice on its website apologizing for delays and cancellations due to a "system malfunction."
More speed, more devices, and more choices—that’s a huge win..png "Amazon and Comcast are teaming up, and it means good news for TV watchers")
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