Charles Schwab is reportedly offering $26 billion to buy TD Ameritrade.
“This would create a Goliath in Wealth Management,” Wells Fargo senior analyst Mike Mayo said, as quoted by CNBC.
On the news, AMTD is up 25%, or $10.50. SCHW is up 13%.
“Consolidation thus far has been good and I think that will probably continue to be the case here,” said Devin Ryan financial analyst at JMP Securities. “The key thing is what does the consumer get out of this. Ultimately the consumer’s been treated very well with lower commission pricing, their getting paid more on a lot of different parts of the platform.”
A deal could be announced as early as today. Stay tuned for further details.
Xerox Gives Ultimatum to HP
Xerox’s board of directors are threatening to go directly to HP shareholders if it fails to reconsider the acquisition bid.
In fact, Xerox vice chairman and CEO John Visentin says his board “is determined to expeditiously pursue our proposed acquisition of HP to completion—we see no cause for further delay. Accordingly, unless you and we agree on mutual confirmatory due diligence to support a friendly combination by 5:00 p.m. EST on Monday, November 25, 2019, Xerox will take its compelling case to create superior value for our respective shareholders directly to your shareholders,” as quoted by CNBC.
Macy’s Slides After Sales Miss and Lowered Guidance
Macy’s posted net income of $2 million, or one-cent a share. That’s down big from the $62 million, or 20 cents posted a year earlier. Adjusted EPS was seven cents, which was well ahead of breakeven estimates, though. Sales fell to $5.173 billion from $5.404 billion, which was below the $5.321 billion estimate. Same-store sales were down 3.5%, far worse than estimates for a 0.5% decline.
“While we anticipated a negative comp as we were lapping a very strong third quarter last year, the sales deceleration was steeper than we expected,” Chief Executive Jeff Gennette said as quoted by MarketWatch.
“Sales were impacted by the late arrival of bad weather, weak tourism and weaker-than-expected performance at lower-tier malls. “We also experienced a temporary impact on our e-commerce business due in part to work on the site in preparation for the fourth quarter,” he added.
Worse, Macy’s expects full-year sales to be -2.5% to -2.0%, as compared with prior guidance calling for flat sales. Same-store sales are expected to be -1.5% to 1.0%,
