Alphabet Inc.’s GOOGL, -0.10% GOOG, -0.11% Google has agreed to settle a consumer-privacy lawsuit that alleged the company secretly tracked millions of people who thought they were browsing the internet privately, according to a Reuters report Thursday. The lawsuit sought at least $5 billion. Settlement terms were not disclosed, but the lawyers said they expected to present a formal settlement for court approval by Feb. 24, 2024. Google and lawyers for the plaintiffs were not immediately available for comm ...

Shares of Boeing Co. dropped around 1% on Thursday after the aerospace and defense company urged airlines and other operators to check for possible loose bolts on its 737 Max jets. The fresh issue with the family of single-aisle jets may affect the planes’ rudder-control system, the Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday. The FAA is “closely monitoring” the inspections in conjunction with Boeing BA, -1.15%, it said. Boeing has warned operators to inspect “specific tie rods that control rudder movemen ...

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives on Thursday raised Microsoft Corp.’s price target on a bullish view for its Copilot chat bot and other artificial intelligence products.Ives compared Microsoft’s MSFT, -0.16% prospects in artificial intelligence (AI) to Apple Inc.’s AAPL, +0.05% iPhone, a blockbuster product since its 2007 launch. “We view this as Microsoft’s ‘iPhone moment’ with AI set to change the cloud growth trajectory in Redmond over the next few years,” Ives said. The stock has yet to price in the next wave o ...

Shares of Tesla Inc. TSLA, +1.88% climbed 1.2% in premarket trading Thursday, putting them on track for a three-month high. The electric vehicle giant’s stock has rocketed 112.2% year to date, which would make 2023 its third-best year since going public in June 2010, behind the 743.4% surge in 2020 and the 344.1% rally in 2013. But with the rally, the Wall Street analyst community isn’t broadly bullish about the stock’s prospects. Of the 49 analysts surveyed by FactSet who cover Tesla, 21 (43%) are bullish ...

The U.S. stock market’s year-end rally looks intact. Lately I have been focused on equity hedge-fund performance and the necessity of hedge-fund managers to preserve and enhance returns ahead of their Dec. 31 incentive fee calculation dates. Funds that haven’t yet closed their books are on a “beta chase” in order to preserve performance bonuses. Meanwhile, small-cap stocks are staging upside breakouts from multi-month bases during a seasonally positive period for the group. Further progress will confirm the ...

Subscribers of Amazon’s Prime Video have one more month before they start seeing commercials — or have to pay more to avoid them.In an email to subscribers this week, Amazon AMZN, -0.05% said “limited advertisements” will air with movies and TV shows on Prime Video starting Jan. 29. “This will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time,” Amazon said in its email, adding that it plans to show “meaningfully fewer ads” than linear TV or i ...

Corporate-bond investors have been taking profits for five out of the seven so-called Magnificent Seven components of the S&P 500 SPX, according to pricing data. In a sign of stronger demand for their bonds, price spreads for the Magnificent Seven have tightened this week against 10-year Treasurys TY00, +0.53% (see chart). ...

Tesla Inc. is looking at another “volatile, idiosyncratic year” as it faces challenges in its core automotive business, with no high-volume new product in 2024 and increased competition for electric vehicles.That’s from Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, a known Tesla bull. Jonas kept the equivalent of a buy rating on Tesla’s stock TSLA, +2.16%, which remains a top pick for him. He has a price target of $380, a 45% upside over Wednesday prices. Jonas also revealed that he gets “pushback” from some investors ...

Apple Inc. AAPL, -0.47% scored a legal victory Wednesday when a U.S. appeals court delayed a government commission’s import ban on popular Apple Watch models after a patent dispute with medical-technology firm Masimo Corp.  MASI, -3.87%. On Tuesday, the tech giant filed an emergency request for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to halt the ban at least until U.S. Customs and Border Protection decides whether redesigned versions of its watches infringe Masimo’s patents. Shares of Apple are f ...

Recently beaten-down China online gaming stocks rebounded on Wednesday in Hong Kong on news of a more conciliatory tone on the sector by the country’s top gaming regulator. Shares of NetEase Inc. NTES, -4.20% and Tencent Holdings Ltd. 700, +4.01% climbed 11% and 4%, respectively in Hong Kong. In U.S. trading, NetEase failed to get a lift, falling 4% and rival gamer Huya Inc. HUYA, -1.34% slipping 0.7%, even after both rose in premarket trading. Tencent is the parent of Tencent Music Entertainment Group  TME ...