Women at the Helm

Why NFL great Joe Theismann is trading risky stocks

Yahoo Finance talks investing with NFL great Joe Theismann.

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  Competition in retail has become a zero-sum game: Morning Brief

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  Macy's, Gap, Nordstrom earnings — What to know in markets Thursday

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Buffett is Buying Energy and Retail: Should You?

Do you have the guts to dive into the two most hated industries on the Street?

Will Campbell (CPB) Beat Estimates Again in Its Next Earnings Report?

Campbell (CPB) has an impressive earnings surprise history and currently possesses the right combination of the two key ingredients for a likely beat in its next quarterly report.

HP (HPQ) to Post Q4 Earnings: What's in Store for the Stock?

HP's (HPQ) fourth-quarter fiscal 2019 results are likely to reflect high demand in the commercial PC market. However, weakness in the Printing business might have posed a threat to the stock.

Selling a Truck to Detroit’s Loyal Owners May Be Tesla’s Toughest Challenge Yet

(Bloomberg) -- A year before Elon Musk was ready to unveil Tesla’s first pickup model, the chief executive officer was setting a low bar for the amount of demand it will draw. Dig into the dynamics of the fiercely competitive and tough-to-crack U.S. truck market, and it’s easy to see why.Japanese automakers have spent two decades and billions of dollars trying to get in on the big pickup gravy train. But 20 years after Toyota first started making the Tundra, Detroit brands continue to crush the competition, controlling almost 92% of the half-ton truck segment, according to IHS Markit. Customers who own Ram pickups are more loyal than owners of any other model line in the U.S., the researcher says, and brand loyalty to Ford Motor Co. or General Motors Co.’s Chevrolet isn’t far behind.Late Thursday, Musk will start his ascent up arguably the toughest hill Tesla has tried to climb yet with the debut of Cybertruck. He cautioned in November of last year that he wasn’t sure if a lot of people will buy the pickup and in June said the design won’t be for everyone. The comments contrast starkly with the bold predictions the billionaire has made about how many Model 3 sedans and Model Y crossovers his company will manage to sell in the coming years.“An electric pickup truck needs to meet the needs and capabilities of current pickup trucks and deliver a little bit more,” Stephanie Brinley, an IHS Markit analyst, said by phone. “A traditional pickup-truck buyer may consider electric, but they are not going to give up on capability.”Detroit automakers aren’t waiting for Musk to take the wraps off his truck before starting to talk a little trash. Thirteen months after the Tesla boss tweeted that his pickup will boast 300,000 pounds of towing capacity, Ford released a video of an electric F-150 prototype dragging 1 million pounds of double-decker rail cars. Ahead of this week’s Los Angeles Auto Show, the vice president of marketing for General Motors’ GMC brand doubted Tesla’s pickup will be in the same league.“I suspect price-wise there might be some similarities, but I think in terms of size and capabilities, there might be a difference,” GMC’s Phil Brook said in an interview. “People who buy our trucks, they are very proud of the fact that they’ll take their trucks anywhere, they’ll get them dirty, then they’ll wash them out and go to a five-star restaurant for dinner. So they’re not people who just drive them around and want to look good.”On a RollMusk told a Tesla enthusiast podcast earlier this year that he wants his truck to start at less than $50,000. Not all of his comments about the pickup have moderated expectations: During an October earnings call, he declared it will be the company’s “best product ever.”Tesla shares have been on a roll since that quarterly report, surging 42% on optimism the company can produce profits on a more sustainable basis. But it’s unclear how soon the new truck will contribute to those efforts. The Model Y crossover is scheduled to launch next summer, and limited production of the Semi truck is planned for next year. Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, expects Tesla to begin building the pickup in late 2020 or early 2021.Tesla shares rose 1.7% to $358.06 as of 9:43 a.m. Thursday in New York.Tesla probably won’t have the electric-truck market to itself for long, if at all. Amazon-backed Rivian Automotive plans to launch its R1T pickup late next year. Ford has vowed to start selling hybrid-electric and battery-electric versions of the F-150 starting in 2020, and GM has committed to producing plug-in pickups at a plant it had been planning to shutter in the Detroit area.Battery prices will have to drop significantly for electric trucks to reach parity with combustion engine-powered pickups, according to Dan Levy, an analyst at Credit Suisse.“Given electrification cost constraints and customer preferences, we expect the large-truck segment will be among the last segments to see an inflection in volumes toward electrification,” Levy wrote in a report this week. He assumes Tesla will be selling about 50,000 pickups by 2025, compared with roughly 300,000 Model 3 and 400,000 Model Y.One obstacle that shouldn’t be overlooked is the tough time Tesla has had operating in truck country. Texas, which bars manufacturers from selling vehicles direct to consumers, is the top state for U.S. registrations of half-ton pickups, according to IHS. The state’s share of the nationwide total this year through September -- 14% -- is more than double the runner-up, Michigan, which also has a ban.‘Blade Runner’Tesla’s Thursday night event bookends the press days for the Los Angeles Auto Show, where Ford generated buzz with the debut of the Mustang Mach-E electric SUV. But seeking attention of his own wasn’t the only motivation for Musk to stage his truck reveal now and near the show. When announcing the date and locale, he joked on Twitter they were “strangely familiar” and shared a link to the opening credits and scene of the 1982 film “Blade Runner,” which was set in November 2019. He had referenced the movie before as inspiration for the pickup’s futuristic design.“Musk has indicated it ‘looks like an armored personnel carrier from the future,’ from the set of Blade Runner, and is ‘unrecognizable from the trucks from the past 20-40 years,’ which we think could carry the risk of not attracting traditional pickup buyers, leaving it a lower-volume niche product,” Emmanuel Rosner, a Deutsche Bank analyst, wrote in a report this week. Investors will want to know more about production timing, increased capital-spending requirements and where Tesla will build the truck, he said.Musk is scheduled to begin making remarks around 8 p.m. local time at Tesla’s design center in Hawthorne, California.(Updates with Thursday opening shares in ninth paragraph)\--With assistance from Keith Naughton.To contact the reporter on this story: Dana Hull in San Francisco at dhull12@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Craig Trudell at ctrudell1@bloomberg.net, ;Chester Dawson at cdawson54@bloomberg.net, Melinda GrenierFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Lockheed (LMT) Up 5.3% Since Last Earnings Report: Can It Continue?

Lockheed (LMT) reported earnings 30 days ago. What's next for the stock? We take a look at earnings estimates for some clues.

NOC or LMT: Which Is the Better Value Stock Right Now?

NOC vs. LMT: Which Stock Is the Better Value Option?

The Extreme Risks of Trading Your Own Retirement Assets - November 21, 2019

From understanding your risk tolerance to maintaining emotional control, achieving your retirement goals takes a much different investing approach than regular stock trading.

VMware (VMW) to Report Q3 Earnings: What's in the Cards?

VMware's (VMW) third-quarter fiscal 2020 results are expected to reflect continued enterprise deal wins, portfolio strength and partnerships with the likes of AWS and IBM.

Stocks - Tiffany & Co, Fiat, Apple Rise Premarket; Macy’s Falls

Investing.com - Stocks in focus in premarket trading on Thursday:

Lockheed Martin Wins Navy Deal to Configure CH-53K Aircraft

Lockheed Martin (LMT) will offer configuration changes to support initial operational test and evaluation in relation to the CH-53K helicopter.

General Motors Slaps Fiat With Lawsuit for Bribing UAW Staff

General Motors (GM) files racketeering lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler for corrupting the bargaining process, which has been causing significant damages to the former.

Auto Stock Roundup: Volkswagen and Daimler's Financial Plans & More

While Volkswagen (VWAGY) plans to rev up spending on EVs in the coming years, its rival Daimler (DDAIF) intends to limit capital outlay to revive profit margins.

Bull of the Day: Applied Materials, Inc. (AMAT)

Bull of the Day: Applied Materials, Inc. (AMAT)

GM Sues Fiat Chrysler, Alleging Corruption Undermined Its UAW Deals

(Bloomberg) -- General Motors Co. surprised Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV with a racketeering lawsuit that for the first time implicates late Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne in a years-long corruption scheme that already has landed car executives and labor leaders in jail.The suit filed in federal court alleges Fiat Chrysler inflicted billions of dollars in damages by bribing United Auto Workers’ brass for competitive advantages that the union denied to GM. The illicit payments benefited Fiat Chrysler starting in 2009, when the two companies were emerging from government-backed bankruptcies, through 2015, when Marchionne conspired with the UAW to attempt a takeover, according to the suit.Fiat Chrysler denied the allegations and said it assumed GM was trying to undermine active negotiations to clinch two deals the Italian-American company is eager to get done: a merger with France’s PSA Group and new contract with the UAW. Whether it’s correct about GM’s intent or not, Fiat Chrysler’s response is a tacit acknowledgment that the lawsuit could pose a threat to both sets of talks.Fiat Chrysler fell as much as 5% in Milan on Thursday, the stock’s biggest intraday drop in almost four months. While GM isn’t suing the UAW, it’s risking relations with the union by airing more allegations of wrongdoing on top of what federal prosecutors have already made public. GM dipped 3% in New York on Wednesday.The suit is remarkable both in terms of precedence and irony. Big automakers are accustomed to dealing with major litigation brought by regulators and consumers, but not by one another -- especially not with so much as a courtesy call beforehand.And if arguments both sides are making against each other are true -- that Marchionne was using the UAW to bully GM’s Mary Barra, and that she’s now trying to undercut Fiat Chrysler’s combination with PSA -- the chess moves will go down as among the most dramatic by Detroit executives in decades.GM alleges Marchionne, who died last year, and three Fiat Chrysler executives who have pleaded guilty and been sentenced to prison, corrupted the collective bargaining process between the UAW and Detroit’s automakers, including when contracts were negotiated in 2011 and 2015. That resulted in unfairly high labor costs for GM, Craig Glidden, the automaker’s general counsel, told reporters during a briefing Wednesday.“The multiyear bribery scheme FCA led undermined the integrity of the collective bargaining process and caused GM substantial damages,” Glidden said, referring to Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. The attempted merger with PSA has no bearing on GM’s complaint, he said.Fiat Chrysler said it’s “astonished” by the suit. “We intend to vigorously defend against this meritless lawsuit and pursue all legal remedies in response to it,” the company said in a statement.Slow Down a Deal?Analysts already have questioned the terms of Fiat Chrysler’s planned deal with Peugeot owner PSA, with Deutsche Bank’s Gaetan Toulemonde writing earlier this week that the French carmaker’s shareholders were “taking all the risks.” Earlier this month, RBC Capital Markets said PSA is overpaying, and Citigroup said the proposal is heavily skewed in Fiat Chrysler’s favor.“That merger is not as easy as a lot of people think, in any case,” Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, said by phone. GM’s lawsuit might slow down the deal, he said, since “PSA will have to conduct some pretty deep investigation before they go forward.”GM refers to former UAW President Dennis Williams as Marchionne’s “wingman” for his attempt to take over GM, and that the two knew each other since the 2000s, when they negotiated contracts at a Fiat-affiliated truck and tractor company. The code name for Fiat Chrysler’s efforts to combine with GM was “Operation Cylinder.”The competitive advantages GM says Fiat Chrysler secured from the UAW include a higher portion of workers paid lower wages, a streamlined grievance process and looser limits on use of temporary employees, according to GM. As of 2015, 42% of Fiat Chrysler’s union membership were earning second-tier pay, compared with about 20% for GM.In a statement, the UAW denied that past contracts were tainted, saying there were “multiple layers of checks and balances” to ensure their integrity. Hours after responding to GM’s suit, the union announced its executive board brought charges to remove Gary Jones, who succeeded Williams as president last year. He resigned Wednesday, according to his lawyer.Surprise TargetWilliams made the surprise choice in 2015 to target Fiat Chrysler as the first company the UAW would negotiate a new contract with, despite it being the smallest and least-profitable of the Detroit automakers. The union traditionally seeks to deal first with the strongest automaker to set a pattern for the others to follow.GM alleges that Fiat Chrysler and the UAW ended up reaching a deal designed in part to force a merger Barra had publicly resisted by raising expenses for her company.In a speech announcing Fiat Chrysler’s 2015 agreement, Marchionne said that the costs of the UAW contract “pale in comparison given the magnitude of the potential synergies and benefits” he was pursuing through consolidation, according to the suit. GM claims he was referring to his proposed merger with GM.Fiat Chrysler CEO Mike Manley sent an email to employees late Wednesday calling GM’s suit a “collage of salacious public allegations.”“I will end by thanking you again for the work you have done and are continuing to do to create an amazing company,” he said. “Let’s keep the performance up as it has clearly got some of our competitors worried.”The case is General Motors LLC v FCA US LLC, 19-cv-13429, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan.(Updates Fiat shares in fourth paragraph)\--With assistance from Chris Dolmetsch, Daniele Lepido, Chester Dawson, Melinda Grenier and David Welch.To contact the reporter on this story: Gabrielle Coppola in New York at gcoppola@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Craig Trudell at ctrudell1@bloomberg.net, Kevin MillerFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast – Chinese Official: ‘Cautiously Optimistic’ Remark Helps Pare Losses

The AUD/USD and NZD/USD started to bounce back after Chinese Vice Premier Liu He told Bloomberg that he was “cautiously optimistic” in reaching a “phase one” deal, but added that he was “confused” about U.S. demands.