Friday Morning Reads

Stocks

Berkshire Hathaway bought 75M additional Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares in Q1, with Warren Buffett outlining that the company "earns almost twice as much as the second most profitable company in the U.S." The announcement, which comes ahead of Berkshire's (BRK.A, BRK.B) annual shareholder meeting on Saturday, brings its total stake in the tech giant to 240.3M shares worth $42.5B. AAPL +1.2% premarket.

Seeing regulatory risk in a deal with Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), India's Flipkart (FPKT) has approved a 75% equity stake sale in the company to a group led by Walmart (NYSE:WMT), Bloomberg reports. Closing of the approximately $15B deal is expected within 10 days. SoftBank (OTCPK:SFTBY) will sell its 20%+ stake as part of the transaction, while Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) is likely to participate in the investment.

European bank earnings: HSBC -4% premarket after profit missed estimates, although the bank unveiled a new $2B buyback. Highlighting "lackluster" trading activity in Europe, BNP Paribas (OTCPK:BNPZY) reported a 17% drop in net income during Q1, while Societe Generale (OTCPK:SCGLY) beat expectations, shaking up its leadership team following the resignation of deputy CEO Didier Valet over a Libor rate rigging scandal.

JPMorgan is doubling down on AI. The bank has hired Manuela Veloso, Carnegie Mellon University's head of machine learning, as JPMorgan's (NYSE:JPM) first head of artificial intelligence research. Finance is focusing on the technology, which could eventually be used for services ranging from fraud detection and loan approval to streamlining processes and cost management.

Amid an escalation in U.S.-China trade tensions, China's antitrust authority has approved Qualcomm's (NASDAQ:QCOM) joint venture with a unit of state-owned Datang Telecom Technology aimed at designing smartphone chipsets, WSJ reports. Qualcomm is still waiting for the regulator to approve its planned $44B purchase of NXP Semiconductors (NASDAQ:NXPI) - a deal widely seen as critical to the U.S. chipmaker's future.

Twitter fell 1.6% in after-hours trading after the company found a bug tied to password storage, but said an investigation showed no indication of a breach. Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) uses a common technology that masks passwords so no one within the organization can view them, but a glitch was discovered in the system. The company is now urging all users to change their logins.

An indictment against former Volkswagen (OTCPK:VLKAY) CEO Martin Winterkorn has been unsealed in federal court in Detroit. The executive left the automaker shortly after the diesel emissions cheating scandal was first uncovered in 2015. "If you try to deceive the United States, then you will pay a heavy price," declared U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Xerox's current board and management team, which includes CEO Jeff Jacobson, will stay in place after a settlement agreement it had reached with dissenting shareholders to oust them expired. Meanwhile, the New York Supreme Court held a hearing on Thursday on an objection to the Xerox (NYSE:XRX)-Fujifilm (OTCPK:FUJIY) merger, but held off on a decision and did not schedule a follow-up hearing.

AT&T told a federal judge late Thursday it should reject any request by the DOJ forcing it to divest DirecTV or Turner for approval of its Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) deal, stating it "would destroy the very consumer value this merger is designed to unlock." The DOJ has demanded divestitures, arguing that AT&T (NYSE:T) would have the ability to raise prices on Time Warner content for pay TV rivals.

Making a statement... Allianz (OTCPK:AZSEY), Europe's biggest insurance company, has pledged to stop selling policies to coal companies in an effort to cut back on the use of fossil fuels. Tobacco firm Altria (NYSE:MO) and scope maker Nikon (OTCPK:NINOY) are also staying away from the NRA's annual meeting in Dallas this weekend, which is expected to draw 80,000 visitors.