Wall St holds gains after cooler inflation, mixed earnings

By Lawrence Delevingne (Reuters) -Wall Street stocks mostly held on to their previous gains on Friday, while the dollar stayed near 15-month lows, after U.S. inflation data this week unleashed a wave of investor optimism that the U.S. Federal Reserve was nearing the end of its rate-hiking cycle. Data showed on Wednesday U.S. consumer prices…

Read More

Microsoft asks court to reject FTC request to pause Activision deal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Microsoft urged an appeals court in sometimes scathing language on Friday to reject the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) request to pause its $69 billion deal to buy Activision. The agency asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals late on Thursday to require the companies to delay consummating the transaction while the…

Read More

UnitedHealth’s lower-than-feared costs lift profit, shares

By Bhanvi Satija and Raghav Mahobe (Reuters) -UnitedHealth Group’s quarterly profit beat Wall Street estimates on Friday as a smaller-than-expected jump in medical costs allayed fears that a resumption in long-delayed surgical procedures would hit profit growth. The company’s results allowed investors to breathe a sigh of relief following a $60-billion wipeout in industry market…

Read More

Dollar gains after steep losses, but downtrend stays intact

By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Joice Alves NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) – The U.S. dollar bounced on Friday after falling sharply the last few days, as investors consolidated losses ahead of the weekend, but its trajectory remained tilted to the downside with the Federal Reserve thought near the end of its rate hike cycle amid softening inflation….

Read More

Coinbase limiting staking service for retail customers in four states

(Reuters) – Coinbase retail customers in California, New Jersey, South Carolina and Wisconsin will be unable to pledge new cryptocurrency to the exchange’s staking program pending proceedings the states initiated last month challenging the service, Coinbase said Friday in a blog post. Any cryptocurrencies that users in those states had staked before the orders were…

Read More

Disney seeks to toss district lawsuit in DeSantis feud

By Tom Hals WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) -Walt Disney Co asked a Florida judge on Friday to dismiss a lawsuit by a state oversight board as part of the entertainment giant’s effort to pursue its case against Governor Ron DeSantis, the latest development in a year-long feud. Disney urged Judge Margaret Schreiber in Orlando to dismiss…

Read More

Oil prices fall on profit-taking, still record weekly gain

(Corrects Brent price unit in second paragraph to ‘per barrel’) By Shariq Khan BENGALURU (Reuters) – Oil prices fell more than a dollar a barrel on Friday as the dollar strengthened and oil traders booked profits from a strong rally, with crude benchmarks recording their third-straight weekly gain. Brent crude futures settled at $79.87 per…

Read More