Wednesdays Market Prepper

Economy

While Tillerson is on the ground in Moscow, other White House officials are pressing rhetoric, arguing that Russia tried to cover up what it says was a sarin gas attack in Syria last week. It's "implausible" that Russia wouldn't know about the attack, officials say, given the close working relationship on a military level between the two countries.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Trump spoke by telephone about the continuing ramp-up in tension with North Korea, even as U.S. naval forces headed to the region as a show of force. Xi stressed that China is committed to denuclearization and peace on the Korean peninsula. Asian stocks were mostly lower and the Nikkei was off 1% due to strength in the yen.

In data ahead, investors are looking to the release of import/export prices this morning and Treasury budget data later in the day. Import prices are expected to have declined 0.2%, with export prices up 0.1%, after both measures increased a month ago. Meanwhile, a slightly narrower budget deficit of $167B is expected for March, vs. a prior $192B.

Stocks in London moved higher led by energy and auto issues, and despite a 3.4% drop in supermarket leader Tesco (OTCPK:TSCDY), which reported earnings that beat expectations (see below). BP and Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) rose in London trading, and BMW (OTCPK:BMWYY) and Volkswagen (OTCPK:VLKAY) reported brand sales gains of 5% and 2.5% respectively. The FTSE is up 0.3%.

Stocks

Bidders for the highly valued chip unit at Toshiba (OTCPK:TOSYY) are down to four, Reuters says: Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO), Western Digital (NYSE:WDC), Foxconn (OTC:FXCOF) and SK Hynix. Broadcom and Foxconn were previously reported to have submitted bids of ¥2T -- about $18.2B. Meanwhile, Western Digital is warning Toshiba that a split of the business may violate a joint venture contract the two share; it wants exclusive talks.

Hundreds of additional jobs are headed for the chopping block at Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT), which will reportedly reduce headcount in its international and technology businesses along with its warehouse chain Sam's Club. That follows more than a thousand cuts to corporate positions (mainly in human resources) earlier this year, among other cuts over the past year.

Meanwhile, on the forward-looking front, Wal-Mart is working to combat e-commerce inroads by Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) with an initiative to offer discounts for online orders picked up in store by customers. That's on top of free shipping it already offered for in-store pickups; the company says it should make a material impact on online transactions as well as in-store traffic.

Despite fiscal year results that beat expectations and solidified an ongoing operational recovery, shares in Tesco (OTCPK:TSCDY) were significantly lower in London. The company still faces challenges, with fines and compensation for misstating its 2014 profits, along with a possible rise in pension contributions and imported food inflation.

A new, later apology from Oscar Munoz, CEO of United Continental (NYSE:UAL), sought to mitigate damage caused by a viral video of a bumped passenger being physically dragged off a flight -- and an earlier, softer apology from Munoz that referred to the company's "re-accommodation" of the passenger, drawing derision. Shares closed yesterday down 1.1%; they're down 0.6% premarket today.

Shipments of personal computers are stabilizing, though whether they're up or down on a year-to-year basis depends on whether the data come from IDC or Gartner. IDC (which counts Chromebooks) says shipments were up 0.6%, while Gartner says they were down 2.4%. Both saw a renaissance from HP (NYSE:HPQ), and IDC says HP retook the lead. Gartner notes business buying is key, with Lenovo, HP, Dell (NYSE:DVMT) and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) each in positions of strength.

The chief executive at Organovo (NYSEMKT:ONVO) is stepping down to pursue his own entrepreneurial activities, the company says. Keith Murphy will remain on the board as chairman; he'll be replaced by Taylor Crouch, previously CEO of eStudySite.