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FINANCIAL MARKETS
Markets stabilize following missile strike on U.S. bases
NEW YORK (AP) — Markets have stabilized after overnight declines following Iran’s missile attack of U.S. bases in Iraq.
Stocks moved broadly higher in morning trading on Wall Street and oil prices pulled back as Iran and the U.S. appeared to tone down their rhetoric. The missile attack comes a week after a U.S. drone strike killed a key Iranian general.
Banks made broad gains as the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.84% from 1.82% late Tuesday. Higher bond yields allow banks to charge more lucrative interest on mortgages and other loans.
Technology and communications companies also rose. Real estate companies and utilities lagged the market as investors shifted money away from the safe-play sectors.
Energy stocks fell as oil prices dipped.
ADP-EMPLOYMENT
Survey: US companies added 202,000 jobs in December
BALTIMORE (AP) — U.S. companies added 202,000 jobs in December, led by robust hiring in construction, trade, transportation and utilities, according to a private survey.
Payroll processor ADP said Wednesday that the bulk of the hiring was among smaller and mid-sized businesses with fewer than 500 employees. Hiring in November was also revised upward to 124,000, a sign that the job market was stronger than past surveys initially suggested.
Construction firms added 37,000 jobs in December. The trade, transportation and utilities sector added a combined 78,000. Health care and social assistance accounted for 46,000 new jobs.
Still, not every industry is hiring. Manufacturers shed 7,000 workers. Leisure and hospitality lost 21,000 jobs last month.
It typically takes roughly 100,000 or so new jobs a month to absorb population growth and keep the unemployment rate from rising.
Friday's government employment report is expected to show an increase of 155,000 jobs with the unemployment rate holding at 3.5%. ADP's figures don't include government hiring and frequently diverge from the government's official report.
MACY'S-HOLIDAY SALES
Macy's holiday sales show signs of improvement
NEW YORK (AP) — Macy's is closing nearly 30 stores in coming weeks, though the company reported some improvement in comparable-stores sales during the crucial holiday shopping season.
Macy's sales at stores opened at least a year fell 0.6% during the November and December period, which was not as bad as most industry analysts had anticipated. Strong online sales boosted results.
Like other department stores, Macy's is struggling to adapt to a shift online by customers, and also intense competition from off-price discounters like T.J. Maxx.
In an email to The Associated Press, Macy's said the store closures include 28 Macy’s locations and one Bloomingdale’s store. It was unclear how that would effect employees at those stores.
The company said it will provide an update on its growth strategy and three-year plan at its annual meeting with investors on Feb. 5.
WALGREENS-RESULTS
Walgreens begins 2020 much as it ended 2019, on a sour note
UNDATED (AP) — Walgreens is kicking off its year much as it ended its last, with a big earnings plunge.
First-quarter net income tumbled about 25% as the drugstore chain filled fewer prescriptions than expected and continued to work through a cost-cutting program geared to produce billions in future savings.
Walgreens executives said Wednesday that the company was hurt, in part, by a difficult market in the United Kingdom, but it also generated more cash than expected, and that cost-cutting may exceed the company's goal of $1.8 billion in annual savings by 2022.
Future savings were overshadowed by the current environment of sliding profits, however. Shares of Walgreens slid.
TAKATA RECALL
Takata recall of 10M inflators could be last of air bag saga
DETROIT (AP) — Takata is recalling 10 million more front air bag inflators sold to 14 different automakers because they can explode with too much force and hurl shrapnel.
The recall is the last one the bankrupt company agreed to in a 2015 settlement with the U.S. safety regulators. It could bring to a close the largest series of automotive recalls in U.S. history.
The 10 million inflators are part of the approximately 70 million in the U.S. that Takata was to recall as part of the agreement with National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Vehicles made by Audi, BMW, Honda, Daimler Vans, Fiat Chrysler, Ferrari, Ford, General Motors, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota and Volkswagen are affected.
Automakers will determine what models are affected and launch their own recalls. Some already have made the announcements.
The recalled inflators were used to replace dangerous ones made by Takata until a permanent remedy could be developed.
AIRLINES-MIDDLE EAST
Commercial airlines reroute flights amid US-Iran tensions
NEW DELHI (AP) — Commercial airlines are rerouting flights throughout the Middle East to avoid potential danger during heightened tensions between the United States and Iran.
Industry analysts say jumbled schedules could affect as many as 15,000 passengers per day, lengthen flight times by an average of 30 to 90 minutes, and severely bruise the bottom line for airlines.
There is anxiety that the conflict between the longtime foes could intensify following Iranian ballistic missile strikes Wednesday on two Iraqi bases that house U.S. troops. The attacks were retaliation for the U.S. killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike near Baghdad last week.
At least 500 commercial flights travel through Iranian and Iraqi airspace daily.
A Ukrainian passenger jet crashed shortly after taking off from Iran's capital Wednesday, killing 167 passengers and nine crew members just hours after Iran’s ballistic missile attack. Iranian officials said they suspected a mechanical issue brought down the 3½-year-old Boeing 737-800 aircraft.
VIRGIN GALACTIC
Virgin Galactic's next spaceship reaches build milestone
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Virgin Galactic's next passenger spaceship has reached a major construction milestone, the company said Wednesday.
All major structural elements have been assembled and the rocket plane is standing on its own landing gear at Mojave Air & Space Port in California, Virgin Galactic said in a statement.
Photos of the “Weight on Wheels" achievement show the craft in a hangar next to the Virgin Space Ship Unity spacecraft, which has been to space twice during test flights in preparation for commercial operations based at Spaceport America in southern New Mexico.
CEO George Whitesides said, “We now have two spaceships which are structurally complete, with our third making good progress."
The winged rocket ships are designed to carry paying tourists to the lower fringes of space to experience weightlessness, view the Earth far below and glide to a landing on a runway. The craft also will carry experiments that require several minutes of microgravity.
Founded by British billionaire Richard Branson, the company is now formally named Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. and went public on the New York Stock Exchange in October.
CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES-BLACKOUT-LEGISLATURE
California could mandate backup power at cell phone towers
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — When the nation's largest electric utility preemptively shut off power last fall to prevent wildfires in California, customers lost more than just their lights — some lost their phones, too.
Data from the Federal Communications Commission shows 874 cellphone towers were offline during an Oct. 27 power shutoff that affected millions of people. That included more than half of the cell towers in Marin County alone.
The outages mean people who depend solely on cellphones couldn't call 911 or receive emergency notifications, compounding the dangers associated with an unprecedented power outage in an era dominated by wireless communication.
On Wednesday, some Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation that would require telecommunication companies to have at least 72 hours of back-up power for all cellphone towers in high-risk fire areas. Telecom companies would have to pay for it.
The federal government tried to mandate backup power for cellphone towers in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But the industry successfully fought it.
ELLISON-POWER GRID PURCHASE
Billionaire's company in talks to buy electric grid on Lanai
HONOLULU (AP) — A company owned by billionaire Larry Ellison is in negotiations to purchase the power plant and electric grid on Lanai, officials said.
Hawaiian Electric Co. said it has entered exploratory discussions with Pulama Lanai for its assets on Lanai, Hawaii’s sixth- largest island. The co-founder and chairman of Oracle Corporation already owns 98% of the island.
Pulama Lanai says it is investigating the purchase as a way to achieve a quicker transition from oil-based power to 100% renewable energy.
BRITAIN-FAKE REVIEWS
Facebook, eBay crack down on fake reviews after UK warning
LONDON (AP) — Britain's competition watchdog said Wednesday that Facebook and eBay pledged to crack down on the trade in fake reviews, removing hundreds of accounts, pages and groups involved in the illicit business after the regulator warned them.
The Competition and Markets Authority said the two U.S. tech companies agreed to step up efforts to detect, investigate and respond to fake and misleading reviews after it ordered them last year to address the problem.
Facebook removed 188 pages and groups and disabled 24 accounts that were involved in the fake review trade, some on its Instagram platform. Some of the groups offered in online posts to write fake reviews for payment or in exchange for products. Others recruited people to write them on shopping and review sites.
The total included 25 pages and groups the CMA found and whose removals were previously announced in June, when it initially warned of "troubling evidence that there is a thriving marketplace" for fake reviews. Facebook removed others it found on its own.
The regulator also said eBay permanently banned 53 users who were selling fake review services on the auction site and temporarily suspended another 176 users.
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