The Market In 5 Minutes: Jobless Claims, Walmart-Flipkart, GE And More

IN THE NEWS

Cryptocurrency has grabbed headlines in the semiconductor world in the past year, as demand for GPUs from miners created a shortage in the market and prompted retailers to drive prices through the roof: Link

Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN is a prime example of how "Big Tech" needs to incorporate fintech in its business, according to Cantor Fitzgerald: Link

When House Speaker Paul Ryan leaves Congress, the Republican party will lose its most influential advocate for changes to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid: Link $

Only once before have U.S. earnings expectations risen so far, or so fast, as they have this year. Yet, investors couldn’t care less as shares are down. The result is that Wall Street’s favorite valuation measure has fallen at a speed usually only seen in a crisis: Link $

As its strategic review stretches into a ninth month, General Electric Co. GE is exploring a public offering for one of its divisions and discussing hybrid deals with public companies to combine assets, according to people familiar with the matter: Link $

Facebook Inc FB Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg fielded 10 hours of questions over two days from nearly 100 U.S. lawmakers and emerged largely unscathed and considerably richer: Link

Walmart Inc WMT is likely to reach a deal to buy a majority stake in Indian e-commerce player Flipkart by the end of June in what could be the U.S. retail giant’s biggest acquisition of an online business, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said: Link

A trade war would leave the U.S. Federal Reserve having to decide between battling weaker economic growth or rising prices. Which one it focuses on already looks pretty clear: Link

The $85.4 billion merger between AT&T T and Time Warner TWX could end up costing consumers hundreds of millions of dollars in jacked-up fees for cable TV and streaming video, an expert witness said: Link

ECONOMIC DATA

• Initial Jobless Claims for Apr 6 230.0K vs 231.0K Est; Prior 242.0K. Continuing Claims for Mar 30 1.87M vs 1.85M Est; Prior Revised from 1.81M to 1.82M
• USA Export Prices (MoM) for Mar 0.30% vs 0.20% Est; Prior 0.20%. Import Price Index (YoY) for Mar 0.00% vs 3.80% Est; Prior 3.50%
• The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on natural gas stocks in underground storage is schedule for release at 10:30 a.m. ET.
• Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari is set to speak in Minneapolis at 5:00 p.m. ET.

ANALYST RATINGS

• Jefferies upgraded Prologis PLD from Hold to Buy
• Barclays upgraded Mellanox Technologies MLNX from Equal-Weight to Overweight
• Barclays downgraded Puma Biotechnology PBYI from Overweight to Equal-Weight
• KeyBanc downgraded JB Hunt JBHT from Overweight to Sector Weight

This 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. To get the full version of this note every morning, click here.