The Market In 5 Minutes: May The Fourth

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Macro Focus

Asian stocks were mostly lower due to a strengthening of the U.S. dollar and declining oil prices. A stronger U.S. dollar adds pressure to commodity prices, which in turn led to a strong selloff in the commodity heavy Australian market.

"Global pesticides, seeds and fertilizer companies may be forced to re-engineer their business models as farmers adopt specialist technology that helps maximize harvests while reducing the use of crop chemicals," Reuters writes. "New businesses are springing up that promise to tell farmers how and when to till, sow, spray, fertilize or pick crops based on algorithms using data from their own fields."

Donald Trump vanquished Ted Cruz, trouncing the Texas senator in Indiana's primary and leaving Cruz to drop out, concluding that he had no path to the Republican nomination. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus declared Trump the "presumptive GOP nominee."

BZ News Desk

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This morning's notable earnings:

Priceline (NASDAQ: PCLN) Reports Q1 Adj. EPS $10.54 vs $9.66 Est., Sales $2.15B vs $2.12B Est.
LendingTree (NASDAQ: TREE) Reports Q1 Adj. EPS $0.76 vs $0.67 Est., Sales $94.7M vs $85.6M Est.; Raises FY16 Sales Outlook
Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) Reports Q1 Adj. EPS $1.49 vs $1.30 Est., Sales $7.3B vs $7.3B Est.

The big earnings Wednesday afternoon? Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) tops the list.

Find out what's going on in today's market and bring any questions you have to Benzinga's PreMarket Prep.

Sell-Side Themes

Iberia and JPMorgan both came out with positive commentary on Halliburton (NYSE: HAL), following an end to its failed merger attempt with Baker Hughes (NYSE: BHI).

Kohl’s (NYSE: KSS), Macy’s (NYSE: M) and Nordstrom (NYSE: JWN) were initiated at RBC Capital.

Sell-Side's Most Noteworthy Calls

FedEx (NYSE: FDX) raised to Overweight at Barclays.

Dollar General (NYSE: DG) upgraded to Buy at Bank of America.

Zillow (NASDAQ: Z) raised to Market Perform at Cowen.

Glu Mobile (NASDAQ: GLUU) cut to Neutral at Roth Capital.

KB Home (NYSE: KBH) downgraded to Sell at UBS.

Starwood (NYSE: HOT) cut to Hold at Canaccord Genuity.

GrubHub (NYSE: GRUB) downgraded from Overweight to Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley.

Baxter (NYSE: BAX) initiated at Buy at Evercore ISI.

Hawaiian Holdings (NASDAQ: HA) rated Hold at Argus.

Deal Talk

The FCC has approved European telecoms group Altice's acquisition of U.S. cable company Cablevision Systems (NYSE: CVC) in a $17.7 billion deal that includes assumption of debt.

Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE) revealed it doesn't have any plan to make an offer for London Stock Exchange Group. The decision was taken following due diligence on the information made available and it found that there was insufficient engagement to confirm the potential market and shareholder gains of a tactical combination.

Alphabet's (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google will collaborate with Fiat Chrysler (NYSE: FCAU) to put its self-driving car technology into 100 Pacifica minivans, the CEOs of both companies told USA TODAY. The vehicles will be used to turbocharge Google's seven-year-old autonomous car program. For Fiat Chrysler, the agreement provides a technological crash course in what it takes to transform a standard vehicle into an autonomous one.

In The News

ISIS has the capability to stage a Paris-style attack in the U.S. using local cells to strike in multiple locations and inflict dozens of casualties, according to the Obama administration's top U.S. intelligence official. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told CNN, "That's something we worry about a lot in the United States, that they could conjure up a raid like they did in Paris or Brussels."

After two days of a sickout that shut most of Detroit’s public schools, the teachers union said it would urge members to go back to work Wednesday after the district’s leader guaranteed they would be paid this summer. The interim president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers received a letter from Emergency Manager Steven Rhodes assuring that checks would not be stopped June 30 for most teachers, as previously warned, according to a union statement.

The new generation is changing beauty: "The latest results from Estée Lauder (NYSE: EL) and Coty (NYSE: COTY) exposed a shift in the beauty business: Millennials aren’t willing to invest in expensive skin creams that have been big profit drivers. Instead, younger consumers want products that provide more immediate results."

Blogosphere

What's you best finance moment? Could be an on-point valuation. Could be catching a fundamental error in some financial statements. Could be your best investment or trade idea, and how it panned out. Or could just be funny work stories. Check out the thread.

Trending

PCLN Z ETSY TREE XIV OCLR UUP CBS UVXY BUD ZG MTCH CRAY SHOP TWX HAIN [StockTwits]

#MayThe4thBeWithYou According to Starwars.com, the unofficial holiday was first marked in 1979 after Margaret Thatcher won the election to become Britain's first female prime minister.

"To celebrate their victory her party took a half page of advertising space in the London Evening News. This message, referring to the day of victory, was ‘May the Fourth Be With You, Maggie. Congratulations,’ further proof of the extent to which 'Star Wars' has influenced us all," wrote author Alan Arnold, according to the website.