Check out which companies are making headlines before the bell:
Wells Fargo — The bank will eliminate product sales goals for retail bankers and strengthen oversight, controls, and training. Wells Fargo will be the subject of a Senate Banking Committee hearing into its sales practices, after the bank settled a case with regulators by paying a $185 million penalty. The panel wants to question CEO John Stumpf about the practices that led to the case.
UnitedHealth Group — The health insurer’s Optum unit and Quest Diagnostics formed a partnership aimed at reducing billing complexity, as well as providing more transparency into health care costs. Separately, UnitedHealth was rated as a “top pick” at Jefferies because of attractive valuation and a best-in-class management team.
Anthem — In that same report from Jefferies, Anthem was downgraded to “hold” from “buy.” Jefferies cites concern over expenses and a lack of positive catalysts for the health insurer.
General Motors — The automaker’s new Chevy Bolt will be able to travel 238 miles on a single charge, a longer range than the 210 for the TeslaModel S. The Bolt will go on sale later this year.
Tiffany — The luxury goods retailer named Mark Erceg as its new chief financial officer. Erceg had been chief financial officer at Canadian Pacific Railway since May 2015.
Viacom — The stock was upgraded to “buy” from “hold” at Brean Capital, which said most negatives are already priced into the media company’s shares, and that there are a number of potentially positive catalysts.
Netflix — Netflix was downgraded to “underperform” from “neutral” at Macquarie, which is optimistic long term but thinks Netflix may have some short-term difficulty on rising content costs and increasing streaming services competition.
Chevron — The energy producer was rated “outperform” in new coverage at BMO, which said Chevron has reached an inflection point and is entering a new era of higher margin growth.
Kate Spade — The fashion accessories maker was upgraded to “outperform” from “market perform” at Wells Fargo, which thinks recent stock weakness has created an attractive entry point and that it sees a pickup in coming quarters.
Freeport-McMoran — The mining and energy company struck a deal to sell Gulf of Mexico assets to Anadarko Petroleum for $2 billion. Freeport will use the proceeds to help pay down debt.
Weight Watchers — Chief Executive Officer James Chambers is stepping down at the end of September, with a three-member “office of the CEO” replacing him until a permanent replacement is found. TV personality Oprah Winfrey, who owns 10 percent of the company, will help the weight loss company pick a new chief executive.
Boeing — Boeing increased its long-term sales outlook for the China market to $1.025 trillion over the next 20 years, with estimated aircraft purchases of 6,810. That’s up 7.6 percent from Boeing’s prior prediction for jet sales to China.
Nvidia — Nvidia unveiled its latest artificial intelligence computer that will be used to power Baidu’s self-driving car technology. The two companies had announced an autonomous vehicle partnership earlier this month.
Facebook — Facebook’s Instagram unit launched a new keyword tool designed to monitor potentially offensive comments. Users can input words that they consider offensive and want hidden from posts.
NRG Energy — NRG won a bankruptcy auction for SunEdison’s wind and solar projects in Texas and other states. A court filing indicates that NRG won the auction with a bid of $144 million.
Intersil — Intersil agreed to be bought by Japanese chipmaker Renesas Electronics for about $3.2 billion. Published reports in Japan last month had indicated that Renesas was interested in the California based semiconductor maker.
source”cnbc”
