10 things you need to know before the opening bell
Feb 15, 2019, 18:30 IST
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Here is what you need to know.
- Amazon cancels its planned HQ2 in New York City. The tech giant had announced it would bring 25,000 jobs to a campus in Queens' Long Island City neighborhood. Local opposition quickly arose about the company's decision to accept up to $3 billion in tax breaks.
- Congress has passed a border security compromise to avert another government shutdown. President Donald Trump will also declare a national emergency to boost funding for physical barriers along the US-Mexico border.
- British Prime Minister Theresa May suffers a new Brexit defeat. Members of Parliament voted Thursday to reject a motion seeking endorsement of her plan to renegotiate the controversial backstop for Northern Ireland.
- Warren Buffett's Berkshire trims his giant stake in Apple. A regulatory filing late Thursday showed that the stake fell 1% to 249.6 million shares in the three months to December 31 2018, down from 252.5 million in the previous three months.
- US retail sales collapsed by the most since 2009 in December. Sales sank 1.2% to $505.8 billion, the Commerce Department said, raising suspicion among some economists that the data will eventually be revised higher.
- Deere missed expectations for first-quarter profits and cited trade policies as factor. Shares of the world's largest maker of tractors fell 4% pre-market.
- Nvidia topped earnings and sales expectations, sending shares up 5.7% pre-market. Last month, the company lowered its guidance for the fourth quarter, citing weak macroeconomic conditions in China.
- Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is quietly building a new food-delivery service. CloudKitchens, one of the units of Kalanick's company City Storage Systems, has hired dozens of people including former Uber employees.
- US stock futures indicate a higher open. Dow futures are up 64 points, or 0.25%, and S&P 500 futures are up 18 points, or 0.25%.
- Economic data is on deck. Industrial production and capacity utilization numbers for January will cross at 9:15 a.m. ET, and the University of Michigan's preliminary consumer-sentiment survey for February is due at 10 a.m.