Latest Stock Market News Today: Stocks fall, Silicon Valley Bank hearing, Apple, Walgreen shares in focus. | March 28, 2023

The acting head of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said on Tuesday the aviation industry must work to eliminate near-miss incidents that have triggered recent safety concerns.

“Going forward, zero has to be the only acceptable number for serious incidents and close calls,” said Billy Nolen, the FAA’s acting administrator.

Six serious runway incursions since January prompted the agency to convene a safety summit earlier this month.”Air travel is coming back in a big way since the pandemic.
But the long layoff, coupled with the increased technical nature of our systems, might have caused some professionals to lose some of that muscle memory,” Nolen said at an industry meeting in Baltimore.

Walmart Inc has been sued by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which on Tuesday accused the largest U.S. retailer of illegally firing a North Carolina deli worker with Crohn’s disease.

The EEOC said Walmart violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by dismissing Adrian Tucker in April 2017 because her nine “unauthorized” absences in the prior six months, including a hospitalization and a visit to the emergency room, violated its “attendance and punctuality policy.”

According to a complaint filed in the Charlotte, North Carolina federal court, Walmart did not excuse several absences though Tucker provided doctor’s notes, and rejected her requests for periodic leave or a transfer to a job nearer the bathroom.

Crohn’s disease is an chronic bowel disease that causes inflammation in the digestive tract, and can lead to diarrhea, abdominal pain, fatigue and weight loss.

Tucker was a long-term employee who needed “flexibility” from Walmart because of her debilitating health condition, EEOC lawyer Melinda Dugas said in a statement. “The Americans with Disabilities Act was created to protect employees like [her].”

Walmart, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, said it was reviewing the complaint.

Cal-Maine Foods is higher in extended trading. The egg producer topped Wall Street revenue and profit estimates.

Fiscal third quarter net sales more than doubled to $997.49 million, topping the analyst estimate of $888.21 million.

Net income was $322.77 million for the three months ending Feb 25, up from $39,54 million in the prior year quarter.

Diluted earning per share were $6.62. The analyst forecast was $4.78.

The average selling price for a dozen eggs during the quarter was $3.30, up from $1.61.

Separately the company named Todd Walters as Chief Operating Officer and Matt Whiteman as Vice President, Operations, both effective March 27.

Micron Technology Inc on Tuesday forecast third-quarter revenue in line with Wall Street expectations, banking on steady demand for memory chip products from the fast-growing artificial intelligence industry.

Micron said on Tuesday customer inventories are improving and that it expects gradual improvements to the industry’s supply-demand balance.

The company expects third-quarter revenue of $3.70 billion plus or minus $200 million, matching analysts’ average estimate, according to Refinitiv data.

Revenue for the second quarter fell by about 53% to $3.69 billion, compared with estimate of $3.71 billion. Net loss was $2.3 billion, compared with a profit of $2.26 billion a year earlier.

Lyft Inc’s shares were down 3% in mid-day trading on Tuesday after incoming Chief Executive Officer David Risher said the ride-hailing firm was not for sale.

The appointment of the new chief executive, who has run a non-profit for more than a decade, sparked some speculation that Lyft was preparing itself for sale. But Risher said “no” when asked in a Bloomberg interview if Lyft was for sale.

Wall Street initially cheered the management change at Lyft. The company has struggled to shake off a pandemic slump in its business and ceded market share to bigger rival Uber.

Lyft’s shares initially rose about 8% in early trading as investors assessed the news of co-founders Logan Green and John Zimmer stepping down as CEO and president, respectively, handing the reins to Risher who has been a board member since 2021.

IPhone maker Apple Inc on Tuesday launched its buy now, pay later service ‘Apple Pay Later’ in the U.S. that will allow consumers to pay for purchases over time.

The service will allow users to split purchases into four payments, spread over six weeks with no interest or fees.

Users can apply for loans between $50 and $1,000, which can be used for online and in-app purchases made on iPhone and iPad with merchants that accept Apple Pay.

The company will begin inviting select users to access a prerelease version of ‘Apple Pay Later’, and plans to offer it to all eligible users in the coming months.

Diageo on Tuesday
appointed Chief Operating Officer (COO) Debra Crew as CEO to replace retiring long-time boss Ivan Menezes, becoming one of only a handful of women to lead a company in Britain’s blue-chip FTSE 100 index.

The world’s biggest spirits company, which makes Johnnie Walker whisky, Tanqueray gin and Don Julio tequila, said Crew, 52, would take up her new role on July 1, bringing the total of female CEO of FTSE 100 members to 10.

An industry veteran who became COO last year, Crew had been president of Diageo North America, its largest market, and Global Supply from 2020. Her elevation comes as Diageo is trying to cement its dominance in the United States and establish several premium brands, in a post-COVID world in which people are going out again and making fewer cocktails at home.

The former U.S. military intelligence officer was previously CEO of tobacco company Reynolds American, where she had also served as COO. Prior to that Crew held roles at Pepsico, Kraft Foods, Nestle and Mars.

A decline in COVID-19 vaccinations and an opioid settlement cut into Walgreens second-quarter earnings, but the drugstore chain still delivered better-than-expected results.

Walgreens said Tuesday that it administered 2.4 million vaccinations in its recently completed fiscal second quarter. That’s down from 11.8 million delivered in last year’s quarter, while the omicron variant of the coronavirus was surging.

Walgreens also booked a $306-million pre-tax charge for opioid claims and some costs tied to cost cutting and an acquisition.

Quarterly net income tumbled 20% to $703 million.

Adjusted earnings were $1.16 per share, which is 6 cents better than expected, according to a survey of analysts by FactSet.

Sales climbed 3% to $34.86 billion, which was also better than expected.

U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday unveiled a new indictment against 
Sam Bankman-Fried, accusing the founder of now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange of conspiring to pay a $40 million bribe to Chinese government officials.

The new bribery conspiracy charge adds the pressure on the 31-year-old former billionaire, who now faces a 13-count indictment over the November collapse of FTX.

Prosecutors had previously accused Bankman-Fried of stealing billions of dollars in customer funds to plug losses at his Alameda Research hedge fund, and orchestrating an illegal campaign donation scheme to buy influence in Washington, D.C.

A spokesman for Bankman-Fried declined to comment.

Consumer confidence inched up in March after two straight monthly declines, even as persistent inflation, bank collapses and anxiety over a possible recession weighed on Americans.

The Conference Board reported Tuesday that its consumer confidence index rose to 104.2 in March from 103.4 in February.

The business research group’s present situation index — which measures consumers’ assessment of current business and labor market conditions — inched down to 151.1 from 153 last month.

The board’s expectations index — a measure of consumers’ six-month outlook for income, business and labor conditions — rose in March to 73 from 70.4 in February. A reading under 80 often signals a recession in the coming year, the Conference Board said.

U.S. single-family home prices moderated further on an annual basis in January, which together with declining mortgage rates could pull buyers back into the housing market.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home price index, covering all nine U.S. census divisions, increased 3.8% year-on-year in January, data showed on Tuesday, marking the ninth straight month of decelerating annual home price gains. That followed a 5.6% advance in December.

The housing market has been squeezed by the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes to tame high inflation, with residential investment contracting for seven straight quarters, the longest such streak since the collapse of the housing bubble triggered by the 2007-2009 Great Recession.

But mortgage rates have resumed their downward trend, with the Fed last week indicating it was on the verge of pausing further increases in borrowing costs after the collapse of two regional banks caused financial market stress.

Nestle will examine its banking relationships following the
planned takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS, the food group’s Chief Executive Mark Schneider said on Tuesday.

The world’s largest food group was a client of Credit Suisse, Schneider told broadcaster TeleZueri in an interview to be shown on Tuesday evening, and had been following the collapse of Switzerland’s second-biggest bank.

Speaking about Nestle, Schneider said the company had made a good start to 2023, although further price rises by the company were likely, Schneider said, to offset inflation of raw material costs.

The maker of Nescafe instant coffee and KitKat chocolate bars raised prices by 8.2% last year, but that did not fully offset the impact of increased ingredient costs on margins.

Price increases had so far only had a “very limited” impact on consumer spending, Schneider said.

McCormick & Co Inc beat first-quarter sales and profit expectations on Tuesday as the Cholula sauce maker benefited from multiple prices increases.

The Maryland-based food company
had been raising prices of its products, including spices, blends, and seasonings to help offset costs pressure from pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions and higher labor charges.

Demand for the spice maker’s products remained resilient during the quarter as consumers preferred cooking at home since it was significantly cheaper than dining out.

The company’s sales rose about 3% to $1.57 billion in the quarter, beating analysts’ average estimate of $1.54 billion, according to Refinitiv data.

On an adjusted basis, McCormick earned 59 cents per share, beating analysts’ estimates of 51 cents per share.

The company said it expects higher growth in its consumer segment from the current quarter as it laps the impact from the exit of the segment in Russia and COVID-19 shutdowns in China.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc boosted its ownership stake in Occidental Petroleum Corp to about 23.6% after buying nearly 3.7 million additional shares.

Berkshire disclosed the purchases, which cost about $216 million and occurred on March 23 and 27, in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Monday night.

Buffett’s company began buying large quantities of Occidental stock just over one year ago, around when Russia invaded Ukraine, and has spent more than $1 billion on the stock this month.

It now owns about 211.7 million Occidental shares worth $12.6 billion based on the oil company’s closing price of $59.65 on Monday.

Berkshire is Occidental’s largest shareholder, and some analysts and investors have speculated that it might eventually buy the Houston-based company.

Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc is planning to lower bonus pays for some employees, and assess staff performance more frequently, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing an internal memo.

Employees of the social media giant, who get a rating of “met most expectations” in their 2023 year-end reviews, will receive a smaller percentage of bonus and restricted stock award due in March 2024, the WSJ report said.

The bonus multiplier for that grade has been cut to 65% from 85% earlier, WSJ said, adding that the company will also restart assessing staff performance twice a year.

The first of several Silicon Valley Bank hearings will begin Tuesday on Capitol Hill with regulators already disclosing how shocked they were about the failures that led to the bank’s demise.

Lyft co-founders Logan Green and John Zimmer are relinquishing their leadership roles to make way for a former Amazon executive as the ride-hailing service struggles to recover from the pandemic while long-time rival Uber has been regaining its momentum.

Under the new order announced Monday, Green will step down as Lyft’s CEO effective April 17 and Zimmer will give up his role as the San Francisco company’s president at the end of June.

David Risher, who helped build Amazon into an e-commerce powerhouse, will replace Green as CEO. Green will remain involved with Lyft as its non-executive chairman while Zimmer will be vice chairman after he leaves management.

Tesla is under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for a seatbelt issue.

Alibaba, the Amazon of China, announced it will spilt one day after billionaire founder Jack Ma was spotted in public for the first time in months.

PVH Corp., the owner of Calivn Klein and Tommy Hilfiger on Monday reported fiscal fourth-quarter net income of $138.7 million.

The New York-based company said it had profit of $2.18 per share, surpassing Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of nine analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.64 per share.

PVH posted revenue of $2.49 billion in the period, also exceeding Street forecasts. Seven analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $2.34 billion.

For the year, the company reported profit of $200.4 million, or $3.03 per share. Revenue was reported as $9.02 billion.

Billionaire Richard Branson’s cash-strapped satellite launch company Virgin Orbit Holdings said on Thursday it is in talks with “interested parties” about an investment in the company.

Reuters reported on Wednesday that Texas venture capital investor Matthew Brown was nearing a deal to invest $200 million in the space startup via a private share placement, citing a term sheet Reuters had seen.

“The company can confirm that it is in discussions with interested parties about a potential investment in the company,” Virgin Orbit added. “Beyond this, we will not comment on market rumors.

“Without elaborating, Virgin Orbit also acknowledged comments made by Brown on a Thursday interview with CNBC TV. Brown confirmed on CNBC he wants to buy Virgin in a deal he hopes to close by the end of Friday.