Market News

Shares of SolarCity, which have lost 65% over the last 12 months, fell again on Monday.

more...

In a sweeping royal decree issued over the weekend, Saudi Arabia';s King Salman declared that the country's veteran oil minister Ali Al-Naimi would step down into retirement and will be replaced by Khaled Al-Falih, a former executive at state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco.

more...

Is it time to buy Baidu again?

• "In response to the crackdown by the Chinese authorities over Baidu's search related advertising procedures, Robin Li, Baidu CEO, said that the company will be setting up a 1 billion yuan fund for future damage claims, should they arise."
• "The Chinese authorities also instructed Baidu to change its advertising practices by the end of the month by adding risk warnings (I am assuming where applicable) to health related paid advertising. In addition, the authorities want Baidu to restrict the advertising load rate to 30% or less on paid advertising search results."
• "Nomura Securities which has had a Neutral rating but a higher target price of $187 per share of Baidu for a while now is out putting a negative spin on the outcome of the tragedy, more than likely to justify their rating."
• "Baidu shares are down almost 17% since their stellar earnings from a couple of weeks ago and down about 14% since the story broke first on rival, Sina.com’s website. The irony of the entire situation is that Sina.com itself has been in major violation of China’s anti-porn crackdown in the past and seems to be enjoying the shift in the authorities attention to Baidu."

more...

Gold prices ended the U.S. day session modestly lower Tuesday, on some follow-through selling from the shorter-term futures traders, after the solid losses seen Monday.

more...

The popularity of Star Wars and Zootopia are only doing so much for the House of Mouse.

more...

Looking at options trading activity among components of the Russell 3000 index, there is noteworthy activity today in T-Mobile US Inc (NASD: TMUS), where a total volume of 82,589 contracts has been traded thus far today, a contract volume which is representative of approximately 8.3 million underlying shares (given that every 1 contract represents 100 underlying shares). That number works out to 159.7% of TMUS's average daily trading volume over the past month, of 5.2 million shares. Particularly high volume was seen for the $50 strike call option expiring January 20, 2017, with 40,141 contracts trading so far today, representing approximately 4.0 million underlying shares of TMUS. Below is a chart showing TMUS's trailing twelve month trading history, with the $50 strike highlighted in orange:

more...

The retailer isn't feeling very optimistic these days.

more...

more...

Looking at the universe of stocks we cover at Dividend Channel, in trading on Wednesday, shares of Staples Inc (NASD: SPLS) were yielding above the 5% mark based on its quarterly dividend (annualized to $0.48), with the stock changing hands as low as $8.30 on the day. Dividends are particularly important for investors to consider, because historically speaking dividends have provided a considerable share of the stock market's total return. To illustrate, suppose for example you purchased shares of the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) back on 12/31/1999 — you would have paid $146.88 per share. Fast forward to 12/31/2012 and each share was worth $142.41 on that date, a decrease of $4.67/share over all those years. But now consider that you collected a whopping $25.98 per share in dividends over the same period, for a positive total return of 23.36%. Even with dividends reinvested, that only amounts to an average annual total return of about 1.6%; so by comparison collecting a yield above 5% would appear considerably attractive if that yield is sustainable. Staples Inc (NASD: SPLS) is an S&P 500 company, giving it special status as one of the large-cap companies making up the S&P 500 Index.

more...

Looking at options trading activity among components of the S&P 500 index, there is noteworthy activity today in Amazon.com Inc. (NASD: AMZN), where a total volume of 118,262 contracts has been traded thus far today, a contract volume which is representative of approximately 11.8 million underlying shares (given that every 1 contract represents 100 underlying shares). That number works out to 256.6% of AMZN's average daily trading volume over the past month, of 4.6 million shares. Particularly high volume was seen for the $715 strike call option expiring May 13, 2016, with 4,547 contracts trading so far today, representing approximately 454,700 underlying shares of AMZN. Below is a chart showing AMZN's trailing twelve month trading history, with the $715 strike highlighted in orange:

more...