BUSINESS NEWS APRIL 14TH, 2016
Stocks finished basically flat Thursday as Wall Street was taking a breather after its best two-day rally since early March elevated the Dow Jones industrial average to a five-month high. The Dow Jones industrial average inched up 0.1% to a new 2016 high, 17,926.43. Finishing fractionally higher was the S&P 500, while the Nasdaq composite ended lower by a trace. Coming into the session the Dow had put together back-to-back triple-digit gains, one powered by hopes for an oil production freeze and the other sparked by a better-than-expected earnings report Wednesday from giant bank JPMorgan Chase (JPM). On Wednesday, the Dow rallied 187 points to 17,908.28, marking its highest level since Nov. 6, 2015. The Dow is now up 2.8% in 2016.
MICROSOFT SUES U.S. JUSTICE DEPT
Microsoft is suing the U.S. Justice Department, asking a federal judge to declare unconstitutional a provision of U.S. law that lets the government keep Microsoft and other tech companies from informing their customers when investigators seek access to emails and other cloud data. The suit, filed moments ago in U.S. District Court in Seattle, targets Section 2705(b) of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which allows the government to seek and obtain secrecy orders preventing companies from letting their customers know when their data is the target of a federal warrant, subpoena or court order.
CHIPOTLE FOOD CRISIS
Chipotle's months-long food safety crisis did more than drain the company's sales and send customers walking. It also cost the fast-casual chain its bottom line. Chipotle will have lost three years of earnings between fiscal year 2014 and fiscal year 2017 after suffering through multiple food-related illness outbreaks since last year, according to a research note out Thursday from J.P. Morgan. Analysts said they expect the company's earnings per share in fiscal year 2017 to roughly equal what they were in fiscal year 2014, despite the sales bump from adding roughly 700 stores over that time period.