Below is a tool used by the Benzinga News Desk each trading day -- it's a look at everything happening in the market, in five minutes. Apply for daily AM access by clicking here or email minutes@benzinga.com.
Macro Focus
U.S. stock futures struggled for direction on Tuesday, with investors playing a waiting game in the runup to the key jobs report on Friday, as they weigh the prospects for an interest rate rise.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1 point to 18,488.00, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index futures fell 0.75 points to 2,178.75. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 index declined 8.25 points to 4,785.00.
Oil prices edged higher amid lower trading volumes, as the August price rally lost momentum, with crude hovering around $47 to $50 a barrel.
"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." That's what financial markets are predicting ahead of the November election, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch Head of Global Rates and Currencies Research David Woo. If those predictions turn out to be wrong, however, the fallout could be extraordinary.
BZ News Desk Focus
DSW DSW Reports Q2 EPS $0.35 vs. Est. $0.30, Rev. $659M vs. Est. $658M
Abercrombie and Fitch ANF Q2 EPS ($0.25) vs ($0.20) est, Revenue $783.2M vs $782.7M est; Shares were down 14 percent.
G-III Apparel GIII Sees Q3 EPS $1.50 to $1.60 vs $2.02 est, Revenue $940M vs $1.01B est.
Phibro Animal Health PAHC Reports Q4 EPS $0.40 vs. Est. $0.38, Rev. $189M vs. Est. $183M
Sell-Side Themes
Gemphire Therapeutics GEMP was given a couple of Buy and Outperform ratings
Sell-Side's Most Noteworthy Calls
JPMorgan downgraded Signet Jewelers SIG to Neutral.
Pacific Crest downgraded Imperva IMPV to Sector Weight.
Baird upgraded McDonald's MCD to outperform.
Raymond James upgraded Untied Continental UAL to Outperform.
Piper Jaffray started Sophiris Bio SPHS at Overweight.
Deal Talk
Oreo cookie maker Mondelez MDLZ ended its pursuit of Hershey HSY after the chocolatier rebuffed its latest acquisition offer, putting an end to a monthslong takeover campaign that would have created the world’s largest candy company. Hershey last week rebuffed a new bid by Mondelez, the second one since June, and indicated it would be difficult to strike a deal before next year because of the shifting dynamics at its controlling shareholder, the Hershey Trust Co. Hershey shares were down more than 10 percent.
Verisk Analytics VRSK announced the acquisition of the data and subscriptions business of Quest Offshore Resources ("Quest Offshore"), which supplies market intelligence to the offshore oil and gas sector.
KKR & Co. KKR plans to buy call-center software maker Calabrio, a bet that high-tech customer-interaction tools will give some businesses an edge. The New York private-equity firm has agreed to pay $200 million in the all-equity deal, which could be announced as soon as Tuesday, a person familiar with the matter told Wall Street Journal.
In The News
EU antitrust regulators ordered Apple AAPL to pay up to $14.5 billion in taxes plus interest to the Irish government after ruling that a special scheme to route profits through Ireland was illegal state aid. The massive sum, 40 times bigger than the previous known demand by the European Commission to a company in such a case, could be reduced, the EU executive said in a statement, if other countries sought more tax themselves from the U.S. tech giant.
Republican Donald Trump has said he isn’t interested in running a traditional presidential campaign. Campaign-finance records show he’s not: Half of the campaign’s 10 highest-paid consultants over the course of the election had never previously worked for a presidential campaign.
Blogosphere
$10 a month? "With Spotify shooting for a public listing next year," write Leila Abboud and Shira Ovide, "it's time for the leading independent music-streaming service to step up its game. No more blaming the big, bad record labels for everything. No more excuses for why the business remains stubbornly unprofitable despite doubling revenue last year and adding subscribers rapidly."
Trending
AAPL GLD SPU QQQ BBRY WATT MDLZ HSY AVGO DSW BNS ANF PANW GILD
The #AppleTax is on a lot of people's minds...
"The so-called 'neo-liberal & corrupt' EU orders Apple to repay €13bn in tax #AppleTax #EuropeanCommission" - @TheresaMEP
"#AppleTax decision by @EU_Commission well grounded and justified. No company must be too big to avoid taxes, quite the opposite" - @MartinSchulz
"Based on a population of 4,595,000, that's about €2,800 each. I'd take cheque or cash. #AppleTax" - @jonathanhealy
Chart Of The Day
The stock IPO'd in July 2012 at $42, and hit an all-time high of $200.55 in July 2015.
41 analysts have coverage on this company, with 85% of those being Buy ratings.
Sympathy plays include Intel INTC, Cisco Systems CSCO and Juniper Networks JNPR.
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